Soldiers of Fortune

by Richard Harding Davis

  VIII

  Clay reached the President's Palace during the supper-hour, and foundMr. Langham and his daughter at the President's table. Madame Alvarezpointed to a place for him beside Alice Langham, who held up her handin welcome. "You were very foolish to rush off like that," she said.

  "It wasn't there," said Clay, crowding into the place beside her.

  "No, it was here in the carriage all the time. Captain Stuart found itfor me."

  "Oh, he did, did he?" said Clay; "that's why I couldn't find it. I amhungry," he laughed, "my ride gave me an appetite." He looked over andgrinned at Stuart, but that gentleman was staring fixedly at thecandles on the table before him, his eyes filled with concern. Clayobserved that Madame Alvarez was covertly watching the young officer,and frowning her disapproval at his preoccupation. So he stretched hisleg under the table and kicked viciously at Stuart's boots. OldGeneral Rojas, the Vice-President, who sat next to Stuart, movedsuddenly and then blinked violently at the ceiling with an expressionof patient suffering, but the exclamation which had escaped him broughtStuart back to the present, and he talked with the woman next him in aperfunctory manner.

  Miss Langham and her father were waiting for their carriage in thegreat hall of the Palace as Stuart came up to Clay, and putting hishand affectionately on his shoulder, began pointing to somethingfarther back in the hall. To the night-birds of the streets and thenoisy fiacre drivers outside, and to the crowd of guests who stood onthe high marble steps waiting for their turn to depart, he might havebeen relating an amusing anecdote of the ball just over.

  "I'm in great trouble, old man," was what he said. "I must see youalone to-night. I'd ask you to my rooms, but they watch me all thetime, and I don't want them to suspect you are in this until they must.Go on in the carriage, but get out as you pass the Plaza Bolivar andwait for me by the statue there."

  Clay smiled, apparently in great amusement. "That's very good," hesaid.

  He crossed over to where King stood surveying the powdered beauties ofOlancho and their gowns of a past fashion, with an intensity ofadmiration which would have been suspicious to those who knew histastes. "When we get into the carriage," said Clay, in a low voice,"we will both call to Stuart that we will see him to-morrow morning atbreakfast."

  "All right," assented King. "What's up?"

  Stuart helped Miss Langham into her carriage, and as it moved away Kingshouted to him in English to remember that he was breakfasting with himon the morrow, and Clay called out in Spanish, "Until to-morrow atbreakfast, don't forget." And Stuart answered, steadily, "Good nightuntil to-morrow at one."

  As their carriage jolted through the dark and narrow street, empty nowof all noise or movement, one of Stuart's troopers dashed by it at agallop, with a lighted lantern swinging at his side. He raised it ashe passed each street crossing, and held it high above his head so thatits light fell upon the walls of the houses at the four corners. Theclatter of his horse's hoofs had not ceased before another troopergalloped toward them riding more slowly, and throwing the light of hislantern over the trunks of the trees that lined the pavements. As thecarriage passed him, he brought his horse to its side with a jerk ofthe bridle, and swung his lantern in the faces of its occupants.

  "Who lives?" he challenged.

  "Olancho," Clay replied.

  "Who answers?"

  "Free men," Clay answered again, and pointed at the star on his coat.

  The soldier muttered an apology, and striking his heels into hishorse's side, dashed noisily away, his lantern tossing from side toside, high in the air, as he drew rein to scan each tree and passedfrom one lamp-post to the next.

  "What does that mean?" said Mr. Langham; "did he take us forhighwaymen?"

  "It is the custom," said Clay. "We are out rather late, you see."

  "If I remember rightly, Clay," said King, "they gave a ball at Brusselson the eve of Waterloo."

  "I believe they did," said Clay, smiling. He spoke to the driver tostop the carriage, and stepped down into the street.

  "I have to leave you here," he said; "drive on quickly, please; I canexplain better in the morning."

  The Plaza Bolivar stood in what had once been the centre of thefashionable life of Olancho, but the town had moved farther up thehill, and it was now far in the suburbs, its walks neglected and itsturf overrun with weeds. The houses about it had fallen into disuse,and the few that were still occupied at the time Clay entered it showedno sign of life. Clay picked his way over the grass-grown paths to thestatue of Bolivar, the hero of the sister republic of Venezuela, whichstill stood on its pedestal in a tangle of underbrush and hangingvines. The iron railing that had once surrounded it was broken down,and the branches of the trees near were black with sleeping buzzards.Two great palms reared themselves in the moonlight at either side, andbeat their leaves together in the night wind, whispering and murmuringtogether like two living conspirators.

  "This ought to be safe enough," Clay murmured to himself. "It's justthe place for plotting. I hope there are no snakes." He seatedhimself on the steps of the pedestal, and lighting a cigar, remainedsmoking and peering into the shadows about him, until a shadow blackerthan the darkness rose at his feet, and a voice said, sternly, "Put outthat light. I saw it half a mile away."

  Clay rose and crushed his cigar under his foot. "Now then, old man,"he demanded briskly, "what's up? It's nearly daylight and we musthurry."

  Stuart seated himself heavily on the stone steps, like a man tired inmind and body, and unfolded a printed piece of paper. Its blank sidewas damp and sticky with paste.

  "It is too dark for you to see this," he began, in a strained voice,"so I will translate it to you. It is an attack on Madame Alvarez andmyself. They put them up during the ball, when they knew my men wouldbe at the Palace. I have had them scouring the streets for the lasttwo hours tearing them down, but they are all over the place, in thecafes and clubs. They have done what they were meant to do."

  Clay took another cigar from his pocket and rolled it between his lips."What does it say?" he asked.

  "It goes over the old ground first. It says Alvarez has given therichest birthright of his country to aliens--that means the mines andLangham--and has put an alien in command of the army--that is meant forme. I've no more to do with the army than you have--I only wish I had!And then it says that the boundary aggressions of Ecuador and Venezuelahave not been resented in consequence. It asks what can be expected ofa President who is as blind to the dishonor of his country as he is tothe dishonor of his own home?"

  Clay muttered under his breath, "Well, go on. Is it explicit? Moreexplicit than that?"

  "Yes," said Stuart, grimly. "I can't repeat it. It is quite clearwhat they mean."

  "Have you got any of them?" Clay asked. "Can you fix it on some onethat you can fight?"

  "Mendoza did it, of course," Stuart answered, "but we cannot prove it.And if we could, we are not strong enough to take him. He has the cityfull of his men now, and the troops are pouring in every hour."

  "Well, Alvarez can stop that, can't he?"

  "They are coming in for the annual review. He can't show the peoplethat he is afraid of his own army."

  "What are you going to do?"

  "What am I going to do?" Stuart repeated, dully. "That is what I wantyou to tell me. There is nothing I can do now. I've brought troubleand insult on people who have been kinder to me than my own blood havebeen. Who took me in when I was naked and clothed me, when I hadn't afriend or a sixpence to my name. You remember--I came here from thatrow in Colombia with my wound, and I was down with the fever when theyfound me, and Alvarez gave me the appointment. And this is how Ireward them. If I stay I do more harm. If I go away I leave themsurrounded by enemies, and not enemies who fight fair, but damnedthieves and scoundrels, who stab at women and who fight in the dark. Iwouldn't have had it happen, old man, for my right arm! They--they havebeen so kind to me, and I have been so happy here--and now!" The boybowed his
face in his hands and sat breathing brokenly while Clayturned his unlit cigar between his teeth and peered at him curiouslythrough the darkness. "Now I have made them both unhappy, and theyhate me, and I hate myself, and I have brought nothing but trouble toevery one. First I made my own people miserable, and now I make mybest friends miserable, and I had better be dead. I wish I were dead.I wish I had never been born."

  Clay laid his hand on the other's bowed shoulder and shook him gently."Don't talk like that," he said; "it does no good. Why do you hateyourself?"

  "What?" asked Stuart, wearily, without looking up. "What did you say?"

  "You said you had made them hate you, and you added that you hatedyourself. Well, I can see why they naturally would be angry for thetime, at least. But why do you hate yourself? Have you reason to?"

  "I don't understand," said Stuart.

  "Well, I can't make it any plainer," Clay replied. "It isn't aquestion I will ask. But you say you want my advice. Well, my adviceto my friend and to a man who is not my friend, differ. And in thiscase it depends on whether what that thing--" Clay kicked the paperwhich had fallen on the ground--"what that thing says is true."

  The younger man looked at the paper below him and then back at Clay,and sprang to his feet.

  "Why, damn you," he cried, "what do you mean?"

  He stood above Clay with both arms rigid at his side and his head bentforward. The dawn had just broken, and the two men saw each other inthe ghastly gray light of the morning. "If any man," cried Stuartthickly, "dares to say that that blackguardly lie is true I'll killhim. You or any one else. Is that what you mean, damn you? If it is,say so, and I'll break every bone of your body."

  "Well, that's much better," growled Clay, sullenly. "The way you wenton wishing you were dead and hating yourself made me almost lose faithin mankind. Now you go make that speech to the President, and thenfind the man who put up those placards, and if you can't find the rightman, take any man you meet and make him eat it, paste and all, and beathim to death if he doesn't. Why, this is no time to whimper--becausethe world is full of liars. Go out and fight them and show them youare not afraid. Confound you, you had me so scared there that I almostthrashed you myself. Forgive me, won't you?" he begged earnestly. Herose and held out his hand and the other took it, doubtfully. "It wasyour own fault, you young idiot," protested Clay. "You told your storythe wrong way. Now go home and get some sleep and I'll be back in afew hours to help you. Look!" he said. He pointed through the treesto the sun that shot up like a red hot disk of heat above the coolgreen of the mountains. "See," said Clay, "God has given us anotherday. Seven battles were fought in seven days once in my country.Let's be thankful, old man, that we're NOT dead, but alive to fight ourown and other people's battles."

  The younger man sighed and pressed Clay's hand again before he droppedit.

  "You are very good to me," he said. "I'm not just quite myself thismorning. I'm a bit nervous, I think. You'll surely come, won't you?"

  "By noon," Clay promised. "And if it does come," he added, "don'tforget my fifteen hundred men at the mines."

  "Good! I won't," Stuart replied. "I'll call on you if I need them."He raised his fingers mechanically to his helmet in salute, andcatching up his sword turned and strode away erect and soldierlythrough the debris and weeds of the deserted plaza.

  Clay remained motionless on the steps of the pedestal and followed theyounger man with his eyes. He drew a long breath and began a leisurelysearch through his pockets for his match-box, gazing about him as hedid so, as though looking for some one to whom he could speak hisfeelings. He lifted his eyes to the stern, smooth-shaven face of thebronze statue above him that seemed to be watching Stuart's departingfigure.

  "General Bolivar," Clay said, as he lit his cigar, "observe that youngman. He is a soldier and a gallant gentleman. You, sir, were a greatsoldier--the greatest this God-forsaken country will ever know--and youwere, sir, an ardent lover. I ask you to salute that young man as Ido, and to wish him well." Clay lifted his high hat to the back of theyoung officer as it was hidden in the hanging vines, and once again,with grave respect to the grim features of the great general above him,and then smiling at his own conceit, he ran lightly down the steps anddisappeared among the trees of the plaza.