by John Buchan
“I cannot tell you about this country,” Don Mario said, “for I am an old horse-breeder who lives apart. But I have bidden young Luis de Marzaniga to sleep the night. His mother was cousin to the husband of my great-aunt’s niece. Luis has travelled abroad and seen the world, but specially he has travelled in Olifa. No. He is no politician, nor is he engaged in business. He is like me — what you call a country gentleman. But he has youth and inquisitiveness, both of which I have long since lost.”
So, when the Roylances, having bathed and changed after a long ride in the sun, came down to dinner, they found a strange young man awaiting them. Don Mario’s evening garb had been a little like that of a deaf-mute at a funeral, but this young man wore the trimmest of dinner-jackets and the neatest of patent-leather shoes. His hair was as fair as Archie’s; but some colouring in his skin had made him sunburn not to Archie’s brick-red but to a rich golden brown. His eyes were brown, and the large expanse of white in them was the only foreign thing in his appearance. Otherwise he looked like a young English cavalry subaltern, whose duties permitted him to hunt three days a week.
Dinner that evening was a cheerful meal. Don Luis chaffed his distant kinsman, with whom he was obviously in high favour, and Don Mario expanded in silent laughter. All spoke English — Don Mario very correct and stilted, Don Luis nobly ungrammatical but notably idiomatic. To Janet’s questions he replied that his education had been chiefly in Olifa, but that he had visited Europe seven times, and during the last six months of the War had had a commission in the French Air Force. He had only just returned from Paris. The mention of flying woke up Archie, and for a little the room hummed with technicalities. Archie inquired concerning the Olifa Air Force, and was told that it was efficient but small — not more than five squadrons. The Olifero did not take readily to the air, and the pilots were mostly foreigners — Germans who had found their career cut short at home, and, Don Luis thought, one or two Russians. “It is like all our army,” he said, “a little force of expert mercenaries. Olifa needs no army. In the future she will fight her battles with gold.”
Don Luis was very ready to talk. He answered Archie’s many questions on sport with enthusiasm, and drew sketch-maps to illustrate the lie of the land. As to politics, he had not Don Mario’s apathy. He was ready with amusing portraits of Olifa’s statesmen and with cogent summaries of policy. He was also a humorist, and had a repertoire of tales. But he was a discreet young man, and ventured no opinion of his own. He was neither reactionary nor progressive, only an interested spectator.
On the Gran Seco he was highly informing. He described the nature of the copper deposits, and the new processes which had reduced costs and made it the Golconda of Olifa. Castor he knew only by sight, “We of Olifa do not meet him, but we worship him from afar. He is the god who dwells in the sanctuary.”
“The American Consul thought there might be trouble some day. The mine-labourers are rather a savage lot, aren’t they?”
Don Luis laughed. “I think the wish may be — how you say? — mother to the thought. Senor Wilbur does not love the Gran Seco. No doubt it is a difficult place, but Senor Castor is beyond doubt a Napoleon and flourishes on difficulties. It will be all right.”
“Why does he keep the place so tightly shut? We have been waiting a fortnight for a permit to enter.”
“So! Then there must be some foolish mistake of clerks. Senor Castor is not likely to be uncivil — least of all to a charming lady and to a member of the English Parliament. He is a lover of Europe.”
Don Luis had many questions to ask in turn, and it slowly dawned upon one of his hearers that this candid and friendly sung man was taking in more than he gave out. Archie was drawn to speak of his own past — his eastern travels, his experiences in the War, even of his friends, who could mean nothing to a South American who had only once been in England. He found himself quoting Sandy Arbuthnot by name, as if he had been in his club at home.
“I beg your pardon,” he said confusedly. “You can’t be interested in my yarning about people you never heard of.”
“But I am deeply interested. Your friend is a wise man. How do you call him — Arbuttnot?”
“He was Sandy Arbuthnot, but his father is dead and he is Lord Clanroyden now.”
“A lord! Clan — roy — den. Por dios! That is a strange name.”
“Scotch,” said Archie.
“Ah yes — Scotch. That is your Highlands? Your Gran Seco? This Lord Clay — roy — den, he is in Scotland?”
“I’m blessed if I know where he is at the moment. He’s never long off the road.”
Janet, too, to her surprise found herself talking to this stranger as if she had known him from childhood. She described vivaciously her encounter with the Moplahs.
“They are common as lentils in Olifa at certain seasons,” said Don Luis, “those noisy, emancipated American children. They have gone, you say, to the Gran Seco, where Americans are not loved. There may be work then for Senor Wilbur.”
“They are really rather nice,” said Janet. “I think I have met one of them before...Archie, I didn’t tell you, but I believe the tall girl who was with the Moplahs the first day and whom we never saw again was the Miss Dasent who came to Strathlarrig. She was some sort of relation of Mr Blenkiron.”
“Not really?” exclaimed the interested Archie. “That’s curious. Did you ever hear of Blenkiron, Don Luis? He died the other day — American, rather a great man — he was the chap I was telling you about in the Shark-Gladas affair.”
The other shook his head. “I do not think so. But American names are so difficult that it is hard to remember. They are worse than Clan — roy — den.”
Don Mario made it his habit to retire to rest at ten o’clock, and Janet, being very sleepy, followed soon after. Archie and Don Luis lit a final cigar, and in the smoking of it strolled into the moonlit verandah. On this side of the house the view was not broken by outbuildings, and beyond a string of paddocks the eye passed to an endless sweep of yellow savannah which faded in the distance into a golden haze. The air was fresh, and, though the night was still, cool wafts seemed to drift soundlessly down from the hidden mountains.
“My countrymen and yours fought each other for three hundred years,” said Don Luis, “but a Spaniard and an Englishman, when they meet, usually understand each other, I presume, with your permission, on that old sympathy, and I ask you boldly what are you doing here?”
The young man’s manner had changed from the debonair ease which had marked it at dinner. It had become at once confidential and authoritative.
“Fact is, I don’t know,” was Archie’s reply. “Principally, Janet and I are on a postponed honeymoon. I had a notion to pick up something about South American politics, which might be useful to me in Parliament.”
“And you find Olifa rather barren ground?”
“I did at first...Now, I am not so sure.”
“Will you let me advise you? We are both young men and have served in war. Stay a little in Olifa if you have not yet exhausted the charm of the capital, and then take our delightful lady on board the first ship and go straight home.”
“Home? Why in the world?” Archie stared at the speaker.
“You can go to Valparaiso and Buenos Ayres if they amuse you. But get out of Olifa.”
“But why?”
“I cannot tell you why. I am your friend, and a friend may venture to advise without reasons.”
“But what’s the trouble? Olifa is a great deal more peaceful than Europe. You don’t mean to say that there’s danger...”
“Olifa is a mask — you have not seen her face. Look in front of you. You see nothing but flat pastures. But beyond you know that there are wild mountains. So I tell you that behind the flatness of Olifa there are wild things.”
“Well, I’m blessed! D’you know, Don Luis, you are making Olifa rather attractive. You are giving me a very good reason why I should stay.”
“But madame...”
&nbs
p; “I don’t know. For heaven’s sake, don’t tell her what you’re telling me, for if she gets a notion that there’s mystery abroad she won’t stop till she is up to the neck it. But of course I can’t let her run any risks...”
“I do not think that you will be able to help yourself — if you stay. You may be caught up in a tide which will carry you to things very different from your respectable English politics...And these things will not be a honeymoon.”
Archie stared at his companion’s face. The moon was very bright and the face which it revealed was grave and set.
“You are talking in riddles,” said Archie. “I wish you would be more explicit. You tell me to get out of the country, because if I stay I may have trouble. You can hardly leave it at that, you know. What kind of trouble? Perhaps it’s the kind that Janet and I might rather fancy.”
“That is why I warn you. You are a young man with a wife. It is easy to see that you are not the type who avoids danger. But a wife makes a difference — especially such a lady as yours. You would not wish to involve her and yet you may unwittingly, if you do not leave Olifa.”
“Supposing I were a bachelor, what would you say?”
Don Luis laughed. “Ah, then, I should speak otherwise. I should make of you a confidant — perhaps an ally! You wish to visit the Gran Seco, but your passports are unaccountably delayed. I might offer to take you to the Gran Seco, but not by Santa Ana and the Company railway.”
Archie pondered. “Everything in this country seems turn on the Gran Seco,” he said, “and we don’t seem to able to get there.”
“It may be that that a blunder of officialdom is doing you a service,” said Don Luis solemnly.
“Well, I’ve no desire to go there and get tangled up in a local shindy, which I take it is what you are hinting at. I remember Mr Wilbur said that the miners seemed to be ugly crowd. I’m very much obliged to you, Don Luis.”
“You will not tell anyone that I have warned you.”
“Certainly not...I’m rather inclined to take your advice, and tell Gedd to drop the passport business. I did come here looking for trouble — and, besides, there’s my wife.”
But in this Archie was not wholly candid. He told his self that what he called a “dago revolution” had no charms for him, especially with Janet to take care of. But realised that this phrase did not exhaust the mystery in Olifa, which had been slowly accumulating in his mind till the sense of it was like an atmosphere about him. And he had taken a strong liking to Don Luis. The young man had a curious appeal in his alternate gaiety and gravity. There was that in him which seemed to beckon to wild and delightful things; he was such a companion as Archie a dozen years ago would have welcomed to ride with over the edge of the world. But Archie — rangé, married, lame of one leg — decided with a half-sigh that such visions and such comrades were no longer for him.
V
On their return to the city they were met by an incensed Don Alejandro. Not only had the permits for the Gran Seco not arrived, they had been definitely refused. It was not the work of the Government — this he had ascertained from his second cousin, the Minister for External Affairs. The refusal came from the Company itself, and Don Alejandro was positive that it was due to the interference of the American Consul. No doubt Wilbur had meant well, but apparently he had pressed the request so that the Company had assumed that he was its principal sponsor, and had naturally refused, since they thought they had done enough for his unpopular country by permitting the entrance of the party from the Corinna. There was no doubt about it. Don Alejandro had heard from a friend who was deep in the Company’s affairs that Wilbur was e cause of the refusal.
To Janet’s surprise Archie seemed rather relieved than otherwise. “Just as well, perhaps,” he said. “We should probably have got fever or something, and we didn’t come six thousand miles to look at a mining district. We have plenty of them at home.”
He had not told Janet of Don Luis’s warning, but he had brooded over it, and with his separation from the giver good sense seemed to grow more convincing. Why on earth should Janet and he waste time in visiting a dusty plateau, even though it was the source of Olifa’s prosperity and might have importance in Olifa’s future politics? He would learn little in a hurried tour, and it wasn’t his line to pick up gossip and go home and raise a racket in Parliament about Gran Seco atrocities...They would go the to Cardanio and Alcorta, and might make a short trip into the mountains. The Twelve Apostles would bear inspection from closer quarters...After that they would go home by Panama, and perhaps visit Jamaica. His mother’s family had once owned big plantations there, established by an ancestor who had left the country hurriedly after Culloden.
So they fell back upon Olifa society, and Archie played polo daily at the club, and they gave a dinner at the hotel; and were just preparing to set out for Cardanio, when they were bidden to luncheon by no less a person than the President. A superb card of invitation, surmounted by the Olifa arms in gold, gave Archie the title of “Right Honourable,” and designed Janet as the “Honourable Lady A. Roylance.”
Archie consulted Don Alejandro as to his garments, and was informed that the manners of Olifa were English and that they might both wear what they pleased. So Janet and he appeared at the President’s mansion in their ordinary clothes, to find most of the men in evening dress with ribands and stars, and all the women in Paris hats and what looked like wedding gowns. Janet promptly had a fit of giggles, and it was a flushed and embarrassed pair who made their bow to the heavy, sallow, bull-necked Excelentisimo.
The day was hot, the place where they sat was as heavily upholstered as a Victorian dining-room, and the conversation had the languor of a ceremonial banquet. Janet, as the guest of honour, sat on the President’s right hand, while Archie at the other end was sandwiched between a voluminous elderly woman who was the President’s wife and a sleepy Frenchwoman whose husband was Don Alejandro’s kinsman. His head had been confused by many introductions, but he had made out that kinsman, a Sanfuentes of the younger branch, and a tall man with a forked beard who was Aribia, the Minister of Finance. There was a vacant chair on Janet’s right side.
The meal seemed interminable. The food was pretentiously good, and the guests seemed to have been starved for days, for they refused none of the dishes. Sweet champagne was served, and the Olifa Tokay, but when Archie, greatly daring, asked for a whisky-and-soda, it was brought him and to his surprise was pre-War whisky. There seemed to be about twenty footmen, all in knee-breeches, mestizos who in their gaudy liveries had an air of comic opera. Archie tried his bad Spanish on his two ladies, and, having exhausted the beauties and greatness of Olifa, the distress of Europe, their families, and his visit to Veiro, was hard put to it for topics. Senora Sanfuentes received every mention of Don Alejandro with a shrug and a giggle, Madame la Presidente did not appear to have heard of him.
Suddenly there was a movement in the company. Someone had entered and taken the vacant chair by Janet’s side.
The light in the room was very dim, and Archie saw only a tall figure, to greet whom the President and the other men rose and bowed. The man, whoever he was, was not in evening dress. Later, he saw Janet’s fair head inclined towards him, and from the vivacity of her manner she seemed to be finding interest in the new guest.
At last, with a marvellous course of fruits and sweet-meats, the meal came to an end. The hostess rose heavily and led the ladies from the room, and the men moved up to a semi-circle round their host. Room was made for Archie next to the President, and beyond that impressive figure sat the late arrival. With a thrill he recognised the man he had seen the first day leaving the office in the Avenida, the great Senor Castor, the Gobernador of the province of the Gran Seco and the head of the Company.
Huge cigars had been provided, but the Gobernador had refused them, and, after asking his host’s permission, had lit a short briar pipe. It was some minutes before the President formally introduced them, being himself engaged in a whispered co
nversation, so Archie had the opportunity to study the great man’s features. Seen at close quarters they were not less impressive than in the fleeting view on the Avenida. The brow was broad and high, and had the heavy frontal development above the eyebrows which Archie had been told betokened mathematical genius. The complexion was pale, but clear and healthy; the nose short and finely formed, and springing from the forehead like the prow of a ship. The mouth was hidden by the beard, but it might be guessed that the lips were full. The eyes were the compelling feature. They were large and grey and set rather wide apart, and, though narrow-lidded, gave their possessor an air of steady, competent watchfulness. There was thought in them, and masterfulness, but no hint of passion, only a calm, all embracing intelligence. Among the beady opaque eyes around him, this man’s were like pools of living light contrasted with scummed morasses. The face was grave and composed, but when Archie’s name was spoken it broke into a curiously pleasant smile.
The Gobernador of the Gran Seco addressed him in flawless English. He inquired after his journey, spoke of the pleasure with which he had made Janet’s acquaintance, and, on being informed by the President that Archie was a member of the British Legislature, asked one or two shrewd questions about current British politics. In five minutes’ talk across the table he seemed to take soundings of Archie’s mind, and elicited his special interest He even detected his love of birds, and had something say of the need for a sound ornithologist to investigate certain of the mountain areas. Archie had a feeling that this astonishing man, if he had been told that his hobby was marine zoology or Coptic antiquities, would have talked about it with the same intimate intelligence.
“You will visit us, I hope, in our little mountain kingdom. Perhaps you have heard of our Gran Seco?”
“I’ve heard about nothing else. But there’s a hitch somewhere, and I’ve been told that we can’t get passports for the present.”
