party, we should have been too late. However, we were in time. Now,
Harker mio, taste here this brandy. You are very white.”
“My arm is broken, sir,” Sard said.
“Facundo,” the Dictator said to an equerry, “see that the carriages,
when they come, stay in the street at the back, not in the Plaza. See
also that a doctor be there.”
When the equerry had gone, the Dictator turned to Margarita.
“Lady,” he said, “what shall be done to these devil-worshippers? Doom or
mercy?”
“I should have been glad of mercy a few minutes ago,” Margarita said.
“And you, Harker mio, would you kill them or not kill?”
“Twenty minutes ago I would have killed them,” Sard said. “Then I fought
with that man and did not win. I would not have others do what I could
not do myself.”
“And you, the reefers?” the Dictator asked.
“They ought to be hanged, sir,” Paggy said.
“I don’t know, sir,” Crockums said, “I don’t know about their being
hanged. I don’t know what laws you may have, nor what they deserve,
according to your laws.”
At that instant, from without, there came a shattering volley of rifles,
which made all present leap. While they stared at each other, plaster
and glass pattered and tinkled down somewhere outside.
“That,” the Dictator said, “is what they deserve according to my laws.
Nor are my laws savage, seeing that I live in the South, where things
bite worse and poison is more fell than in the North, where even the
Devil is cold-blooded. So, they are gone where justice is less fallible
than here; there they will receive, no doubt, the surplus which we, in
our human weakness have failed to give.
“But come, enough of them: they are dead. I hear my carriages. We will
leave this place of devilry, for breakfast at the palace. You reefers,
too; you have deserved it: I will explain to your captain. Come, then.”
An equerry entered and saluted:
“Your Excellency’s carriages are now in the street without,” he said.
“Good,” the Dictator answered. “Santiago, y cierra España. Miss
Kingsborough, I give you one arm; but the other I give to Harker mio.”
“Your Excellency,” Margarita said, “Mr. Harker only has one arm, and
that is mine.”
“Better still,” the Dictator said. “Now I may have your persuasion to
offer him a crutch; or shall we say a rest?”
Both Sard and Margarita had been dazed by the doings of the morning.
Sard, who had been cut, battered and bruised, was weary from fighting
and in pain from his arm. He was not able to speak. He felt like one who
had had an immense day’s work, which was now done and well done.
Margarita was at his side; that was a happiness; his dream had come
true; that was a marvel.
The carriages moved out into the light of the dawn through the
white-blossomed thorn-tree avenue which led to Cachopos. The sun was
just clear of the sea: the birds were going out and the flower-sellers
coming in. Sard had Margarita at his side and the Dictator and a doctor
opposite. The little white pennons of the lances of the escort fluttered
like butterflies. Off Cachopos, a lofty English barque was coming in on
the last of the breeze. She stole along like a ghost, white to the
trucks, with a roll of brighter white at her lips which she seemed to
stoop to drink. From the church of Santa Alba there came the exquisite
pure sound of singing.
The carriages swung away from all this towards the palace, which shone
above them among the forest. Behind it, far away, were the mountains,
peak upon peak, some of them forested, some snowy; one, with a brow of
crag, streaked with cataracts.
The Dictator pointed towards the sea, now shut from sight by many snowy
branches. “That is shut from you now, Harker mio,” he said; “but when
one door shuts another opens. Here is all this land waiting for you. To
me, this land has only given work; to you, I see, it has already given
all things; let me then add work to those.”
“When my arm is mended,” Sard said. “But your Excellency will have to
ask my wife.”
THE END
THE LONDON AND NORWICH PRESS, LIMITED, ST. GILES WORKS, NORWICH
TRANSCRIBER NOTES
Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple
spellings occur, majority use has been employed.
Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors
occur.