The Lion and the Unicorn
by
Richard Harding Davis
Part 2 out of 3
The Doctor mixed himself a Scotch and soda and drank it with a
single gesture.
"Ugh!" he said to the ward-room. "I feel as though I'd been
opening another man's letters."
The transport drove through the empty seas with heavy, clumsy
upheavals, rolling like a buoy. Having been originally
intended for the freight-carrying trade, she had no sympathy
with hearts that beat for a sight of their native land, or for
lives that counted their remaining minutes by the throbbing of
her engines. Occasionally, without apparent reason, she was
thrown violently from her course: but it was invariably the case
that when her stern went to starboard, something splashed in the
water on her port side and drifted past her, until, when it had
cleared the blades of her propeller, a voice cried out, and she
was swung back on her home-bound track again.
The Lieutenant missed the familiar palms and the tiny block-
house; and seeing nothing beyond the iron rails but great wastes
of gray water, he decided he was on board a prison-ship, or that
he had been strapped to a raft and cast adrift. People came for
hours at a time and stood at the foot of his cot, and talked with
him and he to them--people he had loved and people he had long
forgotten, some of whom he had thought were dead. One of them he
could have sworn he had seen buried in a deep trench, and covered
with branches of palmetto. He had heard the bugler, with
tears choking him, sound "taps;" and with his own hand he had
placed the dead man's campaign hat on the mound of fresh earth
above the grave. Yet here he was still alive, and he came with
other men of his troop to speak to him; but when he reached out
to them they were gone--the real and the unreal, the dead and the
living--and even She disappeared whenever he tried to take her
hand, and sometimes the hospital steward drove her away.
"Did that young lady say when she was coming back again?" he
asked the steward.
"The young lady! What young lady?" asked the steward, wearily.
"The one who has been sitting there," he answered. He pointed
with his gaunt hand at the man in the next cot.
"Oh, that young lady. Yes, she's coming back. She's just gone
below to fetch you some hard-tack."
The young volunteer in the next cot whined grievously.
"That crazy man gives me the creeps," he groaned. "He's always
waking me up, and looking at me as though he was going to eat
me."
"Shut your head," said the steward. "He's a better man crazy
than you'll ever be with the little sense you've got. And he has
two Mauser holes in him. Crazy, eh? It's a damned good thing
for you that there was about four thousand of us regulars just as
crazy as him, or you'd never seen the top of the hill."
One morning there was a great commotion on deck, and all the
convalescents balanced themselves on the rail, shivering in their
pajamas, and pointed one way. The transport was moving swiftly
and smoothly through water as flat as a lake, and making a great
noise with her steam-whistle. The noise was echoed by many more
steam-whistles; and the ghosts of out-bound ships and tugs and
excursion steamers ran past her out of the mist and disappeared,
saluting joyously. All of the excursion steamers had a heavy
list to the side nearest the transport, and the ghosts on them
crowded to that rail and waved handkerchiefs and cheered. The
fog lifted suddenly, and between the iron rails the
Lieutenant saw high green hills on either side of a great harbor.
Houses and trees and thousands of masts swept past like a
panorama; and beyond was a mirage of three cities, with curling
smoke-wreaths and sky-reaching buildings, and a great swinging
bridge, and a giant statue of a woman waving a welcome home.
The Lieutenant surveyed the spectacle with cynical disbelief. He
was far too wise and far too cunning to be bewitched by it. In
his heart he pitied the men about him, who laughed wildly, and
shouted, and climbed recklessly to the rails and ratlines. He
had been deceived too often not to know that it was not real. He
knew from cruel experience that in a few moments the tall
buildings would crumble away, the thousands of columns of white
smoke that flashed like snow in the sun, the busy, shrieking tug-
boats, and the great statue would vanish into the sea, leaving it
gray and bare. He closed his eyes and shut the vision out. It
was so beautiful that it tempted him; but he would not be mocked,
and he buried his face in his hands. They were carrying the
farce too far, he thought. It was really too absurd; for now
they were at a wharf which was so real that, had he not known by
previous suffering, he would have been utterly deceived by it.
And there were great crowds of smiling, cheering people, and a
waiting guard of honor in fresh uniforms, and rows of police
pushing the people this way and that; and these men about him
were taking it all quite seriously, and making ready to
disembark, carrying their blanket-rolls and rifles with them.
A band was playing joyously, and the man in the next cot, who was
being lifted to a stretcher, said, "There's the Governor and his
staff; that's him in the high hat." It was really very well
done. The Custom-house and the Elevated Railroad and Castle
Garden were as like to life as a photograph, and the crowd was as
well handled as a mob in a play. His heart ached for it so that
he could not bear the pain, and he turned his back on it. It was
cruel to keep it up so long. His keeper lifted him in his arms,
and pulled him into a dirty uniform which had belonged,
apparently, to a much larger man--a man who had been killed
probably, for there were dark-brown marks of blood on the
tunic and breeches. When he tried to stand on his feet, Castle
Garden and the Battery disappeared in a black cloud of night,
just as he knew they would; but when he opened his eyes from the
stretcher, they had returned again. It was a most remarkably
vivid vision. They kept it up so well. Now the young Doctor and
the hospital steward were pretending to carry him down a gang-
plank and into an open space; and he saw quite close to him a
long line of policemen, and behind them thousands of faces, some
of them women's faces--women who pointed at him and then shook
their heads and cried, and pressed their hands to their cheeks,
still looking at him. He wondered why they cried. He did not
know them, nor did they know him. No one knew him; these people
were only ghosts.
There was a quick parting in the crowd. A man he had once known
shoved two of the policemen to one side, and he heard a girl's
voice speaking his name, like a sob; and She came running out
across the open space and fell on her knees beside the
stretcher, and bent down over him, and he was clasped in two
young, firm arms.
"Of course it is not real, of course it is not She," he assured
himself. "Because She would not do such a thing. Before all
these people She would not do it."
But he trembled and his heart throbbed so cruelly that he could
not bear the pain.
She was pretending to cry.
"They wired us you had started for Tampa on the hospital ship,"
She was saying, "and Aunt and I went all the way there before we
heard you had been sent North. We have been on the cars a week.
That is why I missed you. Do you understand? It was not my
fault. I tried to come. Indeed, I tried to come."
She turned her head and looked up fearfully at the young Doctor.
"Tell me, why does he look at me like that?" she asked. "He
doesn't know me. Is he very ill? Tell me the truth." She drew
in her breath quickly. "Of course you will tell me the truth."
When she asked the question he felt her arms draw tight about his
shoulders. It was as though she was holding him to herself,
and from some one who had reached out for him. In his trouble he
turned to his old friend and keeper. His voice was hoarse and
very low.
"Is this the same young lady who was on the transport--the one
you used to drive away?"
In his embarrassment, the hospital steward blushed under his tan,
and stammered.
"Of course it's the same young lady," the Doctor answered
briskly. "And I won't let them drive her away." He turned to
her, smiling gravely. "I think his condition has ceased to be
dangerous, madam," he said.
People who in a former existence had been his friends, and Her
brother, gathered about his stretcher and bore him through the
crowd and lifted him into a carriage filled with cushions, among
which he sank lower and lower. Then She sat beside him, and he
heard Her brother say to the coachman, "Home, and drive slowly
and keep on the asphalt."
The carriage moved forward, and She put her arm about him and his
head fell on her shoulder, and neither of them spoke. The
vision had lasted so long now that he was torn with the joy that
after all it might be real. But he could not bear the awakening
if it were not, so he raised his head fearfully and looked up
into the beautiful eyes above him. His brows were knit, and he
struggled with a great doubt and an awful joy.
"Dearest," he said, "is it real?"
"Is it real?" she repeated.
Even as a dream, it was so wonderfully beautiful that he was
satisfied if it could only continue so, if but for a little
while.
"Do you think," he begged again, trembling, "that it is going to
last much longer?"
She smiled, and, bending her head slowly, kissed him.
"It is going to last--always," she said.
THE MAN WITH ONE TALENT
The mass-meeting in the Madison Square Garden which was to help
set Cuba free was finished, and the people were pushing their way
out of the overheated building into the snow and sleet of the
streets. They had been greatly stirred and the spell of the last
speaker still hung so heavily upon them that as they pressed down
the long corridor they were still speaking loudly in his praise.
A young man moved eagerly amongst them, and pushed his way to
wherever a voice was raised above the rest. He strained forward,
listening openly, as though he tried to judge the effect of the
meeting by the verdict of those about him.
But the words he overheard seemed to clash with what he wished
them to be, and the eager look on his face changed to one of
doubt and of grave disappointment. When he had reached the
sidewalk he stopped and stood looking back alternately into the
lighted hall and at the hurrying crowds which were dispersing
rapidly. He made a movement as though he would recall them, as
though he felt they were still unconvinced, as though there was
much still left unsaid.
A fat stranger halted at his elbow to light his cigar, and
glancing up nodded his head approvingly.
"Fine speaker, Senator Stanton, ain't he?" he said.
The young man answered eagerly. "Yes," he assented, "he is a
great orator, but how could he help but speak well with such a
subject?"
"Oh, you ought to have heard him last November at Tammany Hall,"
the fat stranger answered. "He wasn't quite up to himself to-
night. He wasn't so interested. Those Cubans are foreigners,
you see, but you ought to heard him last St. Patrick's day on
Home Rule for Ireland. Then he was talking! That speech made
him a United States senator, I guess. I don't just see how
he expects to win out on this Cuba game. The Cubans haven't got
no votes."
The young man opened his eyes in some bewilderment.
"He speaks for the good of Cuba, for the sake of humanity," he
ventured.
"What?" inquired the fat stranger. "Oh, yes, of course. Well, I
must be getting on. Good-night, sir."
The stranger moved on his way, but the young man still lingered
uncertainly in the snow-swept corridor shivering violently with
the cold and stamping his feet for greater comfort. His face was
burned to a deep red, which seemed to have come from some long
exposure to a tropical sun, but which held no sign of health.
His cheeks were hollow and his eyes were lighted with the fire of
fever and from time to time he was shaken by violent bursts of
coughing which caused him to reach toward one of the pillars for
support.
As the last of the lights went out in the Garden, the speaker of
the evening and three of his friends came laughing and talking
down the long corridor. Senator Stanton was a conspicuous
figure at any time, and even in those places where his portraits
had not penetrated he was at once recognized as a personage.
Something in his erect carriage and an unusual grace of movement,
and the power and success in his face, made men turn to look at
him. He had been told that he resembled the early portraits of
Henry Clay, and he had never quite forgotten the coincidence.
The senator was wrapping the collar of his fur coat around his
throat and puffing contentedly at a fresh cigar, and as he
passed, the night watchman and the ushers bowed to the great man
and stood looking after him with the half-humorous, half-envious
deference that the American voter pays to the successful
politician. At the sidewalk, the policemen hurried to open the
door of his carriage and in their eagerness made a double line,
through which he passed nodding to them gravely. The young man
who had stood so long in waiting pushed his way through the line
to his side.
"Senator Stanton," he began timidly, "might I speak to you a
moment? My name is Arkwright; I am just back from Cuba, and
I want to thank you for your speech. I am an American, and I
thank God that I am since you are too, sir. No one has said
anything since the war began that compares with what you said to-
night. You put it nobly, and I know, for I've been there for
three years, only I can't make other people understand it, and I
am thankful that some one can. You'll forgive my stopping you,
sir, but I wanted to thank you. I feel it very much."
Senator Stanton's friends had already seated themselves in his
carriage and were looking out of the door and smiling with mock
patience. But the senator made no move to follow them. Though
they were his admirers they were sometimes skeptical, and he was
not sorry that they should hear this uninvited tribute. So he
made a pretence of buttoning his long coat about him, and nodded
encouragingly to Arkwright to continue. "I'm glad you liked it,
sir," he said with the pleasant, gracious smile that had won him
a friend wherever it had won him a vote. "It is very
satisfactory to know from one who is well informed on the
subject that what I have said is correct. The situation there is
truly terrible. You have just returned, you say? Where were
you--in Havana?"
"No, in the other provinces, sir," Arkwright answered. "I have
been all over the island, I am a civil engineer. The truth has
not been half told about Cuba, I assure you, sir. It is massacre
there, not war. It is partly so through ignorance, but
nevertheless it is massacre. And what makes it worse is, that it
is the massacre of the innocents. That is what I liked best of
what you said in that great speech, the part about the women and
children."
He reached out his hands detainingly, and then drew back as
though in apology for having already kept the great man so long
waiting in the cold. "I wish I could tell you some of the
terrible things I have seen," he began again, eagerly as Stanton
made no movement to depart. "They are much worse than those you
instanced to-night, and you could make so much better use of them
than any one else. I have seen starving women nursing dead
babies, and sometimes starving babies sucking their dead mother's
breasts; I have seen men cut down in the open roads and while
digging in the fields--and two hundred women imprisoned in one
room without food and eaten with small-pox, and huts burned while
the people in them slept--"
The young man had been speaking impetuously, but he stopped as
suddenly, for the senator was not listening to him. He had
lowered his eyes and was looking with a glance of mingled
fascination and disgust at Arkwright's hands. In his earnestness
the young man had stretched them out, and as they showed behind
the line of his ragged sleeves the others could see, even in the
blurred light and falling snow, that the wrists of each hand were
gashed and cut in dark-brown lines like the skin of a mulatto,
and in places were a raw red, where the fresh skin had but just
closed over. The young man paused and stood shivering, still
holding his hands out rigidly before him.
The senator raised his eyes slowly and drew away.
"What is that?" he said in a low voice, pointing with a gloved
finger at the black lines on the wrists.
A sergeant in the group of policemen who had closed around the
speakers answered him promptly from his profound fund of
professional knowledge.
"That's handcuffs, senator," he said importantly, and glanced at
Stanton as though to signify that at a word from him he would
take this suspicious character into custody. The young man
pulled the frayed cuffs of his shirt over his wrists and tucked
his hands, which the cold had frozen into an ashy blue, under his
armpits to warm them.
"No, they don't use handcuffs in the field," he said in the same
low, eager tone; "they use ropes and leather thongs; they
fastened me behind a horse and when he stumbled going down the
trail it jerked me forward and the cords would tighten and tear
the flesh. But they have had a long time to heal now. I have
been eight months in prison."
The young men at the carriage window had ceased smiling and were
listening intently. One of them stepped out and stood
beside the carriage door looking down at the shivering
figure before him with a close and curious scrutiny.
"Eight months in prison!" echoed the police sergeant with a note
of triumph; "what did I tell you?"
"Hold your tongue!" said the young man at the carriage door.
There was silence for a moment, while the men looked at the
senator, as though waiting for him to speak.
"Where were you in prison, Mr. Arkwright?" he asked.
"First in the calaboose at Santa Clara for two months, and then
in Cabanas. The Cubans who were taken when I was, were shot by
the fusillade on different days during this last month. Two of
them, the Ezetas, were father and son, and the Volunteer band
played all the time the execution was going on, so that the other
prisoners might not hear them cry 'Cuba Libre' when the order
came to fire. But we heard them."
The senator shivered slightly and pulled his fur collar up
farther around his face. "I'd like to talk with you," he said,
"if you have nothing to do to-morrow. I'd like to go into
this thing thoroughly. Congress must be made to take some
action."
The young man clasped his hands eagerly. "Ah, Mr. Stanton, if
you would," he cried, "if you would only give me an hour! I
could tell you so much that you could use. And you can believe
what I say, sir--it is not necessary to lie--God knows the truth
is bad enough. I can give you names and dates for everything I
say. Or I can do better than that, sir. I can take you there
yourself--in three months I can show you all you need to see,
without danger to you in any way. And they would not know me,
now that I have grown a beard, and I am a skeleton to what I was.
I can speak the language well, and I know just what you should
see, and then you could come back as one speaking with authority
and not have to say, 'I have read,' or 'have been told,' but you
can say, 'These are the things I have seen'--and you could free
Cuba."
The senator coughed and put the question aside for the moment
with a wave of the hand that held his cigar. "We will talk of
that to-morrow also. Come to lunch with me at one. My
apartments are in the Berkeley on Fifth Avenue. But aren't you
afraid to go back there?" he asked curiously. "I should think
you'd had enough of it. And you've got a touch of fever, haven't
you?" He leaned forward and peered into the other's eyes.
"It is only the prison fever," the young man answered; "food and
this cold will drive that out of me. And I must go back. There
is so much to do there," he added. "Ah, if I could tell them, as
you can tell them, what I feel here." He struck his chest
sharply with his hand, and on the instant fell into a fit of
coughing so violent that the young man at the carriage door
caught him around the waist, and one of the policemen supported
him from the other side.
"You need a doctor," said the senator kindly. "I'll ask mine to
have a look at you. Don't forget, then, at one o'clock to-
morrow. We will go into this thing thoroughly." He shook
Arkwright warmly by the hand and stooping stepped into the
carriage. The young man who had stood at the door followed him
and crowded back luxuriously against the cushions. The
footman swung himself up beside the driver, and said "Uptown
Delmonico's," as he wrapped the fur rug around his legs, and with
a salute from the policemen and a scraping of hoofs on the
slippery asphalt the great man was gone.
"That poor fellow needs a doctor," he said as the carriage rolled
up the avenue, "and he needs an overcoat, and he needs food. He
needs about almost everything, by the looks of him."
But the voice of the young man in the corner of the carriage
objected drowsily--
"On the contrary," he said, "it seemed to me that he had the one
thing needful."
By one o'clock of the day following, Senator Stanton, having read
the reports of his speech in the morning papers, punctuated with
"Cheers," "Tremendous enthusiasm" and more "Cheers," was still in
a willing frame of mind toward Cuba and her self-appointed envoy,
young Mr. Arkwright.
Over night he had had doubts but that the young man's enthusiasm
would bore him on the morrow, but Mr. Arkwright, when he
appeared, developed, on the contrary, a practical turn of mind
which rendered his suggestions both flattering and feasible. He
was still terribly in earnest, but he was clever enough or
serious enough to see that the motives which appealed to him
might not have sufficient force to move a successful statesman
into action. So he placed before the senator only those
arguments and reasons which he guessed were the best adapted to
secure his interest and his help. His proposal as he set it
forth was simplicity itself.
"Here is a map of the island," he said; "on it I have marked the
places you can visit in safety, and where you will meet the
people you ought to see. If you leave New York at midnight you
can reach Tampa on the second day. From Tampa we cross in
another day to Havana. There you can visit the Americans
imprisoned in Morro and Cabanas, and in the streets you can see
the starving pacificos. From Havana I shall take you by rail to
Jucaro, Matanzas, Santa Clara and Cienfuegos. You will not be
able to see the insurgents in the fields--it is not necessary
that you should--but you can visit one of the sugar
plantations and some of the insurgent chiefs will run the forts
by night and come in to talk with you. I will show you burning
fields and houses, and starving men and women by the thousands,
and men and women dying of fevers. You can see Cuban prisoners
shot by a firing squad and you can note how these rebels meet
death. You can see all this in three weeks and be back in New
York in a month, as any one can see it who wishes to learn the
truth. Why, English members of Parliament go all the way to
India and British Columbia to inform themselves about those
countries, they travel thousands of miles, but only one member of
either of our houses of Congress has taken the trouble to cross
these eighty miles of water that lie between us and Cuba. You
can either go quietly and incognito, as it were, or you can
advertise the fact of your going, which would be better. And
from the moment you start the interest in your visit will grow
and increase until there will be no topic discussed in any of our
papers except yourself, and what you are doing and what you mean
to do.
"By the time you return the people will be waiting, ready and
eager to hear whatever you may have to say. Your word will be
the last word for them. It is not as though you were some
demagogue seeking notoriety, or a hotel piazza correspondent at
Key West or Jacksonville. You are the only statesman we have,
the only orator Americans will listen to, and I tell you that
when you come before them and bring home to them as only you can
the horrors of this war, you will be the only man in this
country. You will be the Patrick Henry of Cuba; you can go down
to history as the man who added the most beautiful island in the
seas to the territory of the United States, who saved thousands
of innocent children and women, and who dared to do what no other
politician has dared to do--to go and see for himself and to come
back and speak the truth. It only means a month out of your
life, a month's trouble and discomfort, but with no risk. What
is a month out of a lifetime, when that month means immortality
to you and life to thousands? In a month you would make a half
dozen after-dinner speeches and cause your friends to laugh
and applaud. Why not wring their hearts instead, and hold this
thing up before them as it is, and shake it in their faces? Show
it to them in all its horror--bleeding, diseased and naked, an
offence to our humanity, and to our prated love of liberty, and
to our God."
The young man threw himself eagerly forward and beat the map with
his open palm. But the senator sat apparently unmoved gazing
thoughtfully into the open fire, and shook his head.
While the luncheon was in progress the young gentleman who the
night before had left the carriage and stood at Arkwright's side,
had entered the room and was listening intently. He had invited
himself to some fresh coffee, and had then relapsed into an
attentive silence, following what the others said with an amused
and interested countenance. Stanton had introduced him as Mr.
Livingstone, and appeared to take it for granted that Arkwright
would know who he was. He seemed to regard him with a certain
deference which Arkwright judged was due to some fixed position
the young man held, either of social or of political value.
"I do not know," said Stanton with consideration, "that I am
prepared to advocate the annexation of the island. It is a
serious problem."
"I am not urging that," Arkwright interrupted anxiously; "the
Cubans themselves do not agree as to that, and in any event it is
an afterthought. Our object now should be to prevent further
bloodshed. If you see a man beating a boy to death, you first
save the boy's life and decide afterward where he is to go to
school. If there were any one else, senator," Arkwright
continued earnestly, "I would not trouble you. But we all know
your strength in this country. You are independent and fearless,
and men of both parties listen to you. Surely, God has given you
this great gift of oratory, if you will forgive my speaking so,
to use only in a great cause. A grand organ in a cathedral is
placed there to lift men's thoughts to high resolves and
purposes, not to make people dance. A street organ can do that.
Now, here is a cause worthy of your great talents, worthy of
a Daniel Webster, of a Henry Clay."
The senator frowned at the fire and shook his head doubtfully.
"If they knew what I was down there for," he asked, "wouldn't
they put me in prison too?"
Arkwright laughed incredulously.
"Certainly not," he said; "you would go there as a private
citizen, as a tourist to look on and observe. Spain is not
seeking complications of that sort. She has troubles enough
without imprisoning United States senators."
"Yes; but these fevers now," persisted Stanton, "they're no
respecter of persons, I imagine. A United States senator is not
above smallpox or cholera."
Arkwright shook his head impatiently and sighed.
"It is difficult to make it clear to one who has not been there,"
he said. "These people and soldiers are dying of fever because
they are forced to live like pigs, and they are already sick with
starvation. A healthy man like yourself would be in no more
danger than you would be in walking through the wards of a New
York hospital."
Senator Stanton turned in his armchair, and held up his hand
impressively.
"If I were to tell them the things you have told me," he said
warningly, "if I were to say I have seen such things--American
property in flames, American interests ruined, and that five
times as many women and children have died of fever and
starvation in three months in Cuba as the Sultan has massacred in
Armenia in three years--it would mean war with Spain."
"Well?" said Arkwright.
Stanton shrugged his shoulders and sank back again in his chair.
"It would either mean war," Arkwright went on, "or it might mean
the sending of the Red Cross army to Cuba. It went to
Constantinople, five thousand miles away, to help the Armenian
Christians--why has it waited three years to go eighty miles to
feed and clothe the Cuban women and children? It is like sending
help to a hungry peasant in Russia while a man dies on your
doorstep."
"Well," said the senator, rising, "I will let you know to-morrow.
If it is the right thing to do, and if I can do it, of course it
must be done. We start from Tampa, you say? I know the
presidents of all of those roads and they'll probably give me a
private car for the trip down. Shall we take any newspaper men
with us, or shall I wait until I get back and be interviewed?
What do you think?"
"I would wait until my return," Arkwright answered, his eyes
glowing with the hope the senator's words had inspired, "and then
speak to a mass-meeting here and in Boston and in Chicago. Three
speeches will be enough. Before you have finished your last one
the American warships will be in the harbor of Havana."
"Ah, youth, youth!" said the senator, smiling gravely, "it is no
light responsibility to urge a country into war."
"It is no light responsibility," Arkwright answered, "to know you
have the chance to save the lives of thousands of little children
and helpless women and to let the chance pass."
"Quite so, that is quite true," said the senator. "Well, good-
morning. I shall let you know to-morrow."
Young Livingstone went down in the elevator with Arkwright, and
when they had reached the sidewalk stood regarding him for a
moment in silence.
"You mustn't count too much on Stanton, you know," he said
kindly; "he has a way of disappointing people."
"Ah, he can never disappoint me," Arkwright answered confidently,
"no matter how much I expected. Besides, I have already heard
him speak."
"I don't mean that, I don't mean he is disappointing as a
speaker. Stanton is a great orator, I think. Most of those
Southerners are, and he's the only real orator I ever heard. But
what I mean is, that he doesn't go into things impulsively; he
first considers himself, and then he considers every other side
of the question before he commits himself to it. Before he
launches out on a popular wave he tries to find out where it is
going to land him. He likes the sort of popular wave that
carries him along with it where every one can see him; he
doesn't fancy being hurled up on the beach with his mouth full of
sand."
"You are saying that he is selfish, self-seeking?" Arkwright
demanded with a challenge in his voice. "I thought you were his
friend."
"Yes, he is selfish, and yes, I am his friend," the young man
answered, smiling; "at least, he seems willing to be mine. I am
saying nothing against him that I have not said to him. If
you'll come back with me up the elevator I'll tell him he's a
self-seeker and selfish, and with no thought above his own
interests. He won't mind. He'd say I cannot comprehend his
motives. Why, you've only to look at his record. When the
Venezuelan message came out he attacked the President and
declared he was trying to make political capital and to drag us
into war, and that what we wanted was arbitration; but when the
President brought out the Arbitration Treaty he attacked that too
in the Senate and destroyed it. Why? Not because he had
convictions, but because the President had refused a foreign
appointment to a friend of his in the South. He has been a
free silver man for the last ten years, he comes from a free
silver state, and the members of the legislature that elected him
were all for silver, but this last election his Wall Street
friends got hold of him and worked on his feelings, and he
repudiated his party, his state, and his constituents and came
out for gold."
"Well, but surely," Arkwright objected, "that took courage? To
own that for ten years you had been wrong, and to come out for
the right at the last."
Livingstone stared and shrugged his shoulders. "It's all a
question of motives," he said indifferently. "I don't want to
shatter your idol; I only want to save you from counting too much
on him."
When Arkwright called on the morrow Senator Stanton was not at
home, and the day following he was busy, and could give him only
a brief interview. There were previous engagements and other
difficulties in the way of his going which he had not foreseen,
he said, and he feared he should have to postpone his visit to
Cuba indefinitely. He asked if Mr. Arkwright would be so
kind as to call again within a week; he would then be better able
to give him a definite answer.
Arkwright left the apartment with a sensation of such keen
disappointment that it turned him ill and dizzy. He felt that
the great purpose of his life was being played with and put
aside. But he had not selfish resentment on his own account; he
was only the more determined to persevere. He considered new
arguments and framed new appeals; and one moment blamed himself
bitterly for having foolishly discouraged the statesman by too
vivid pictures of the horrors he might encounter, and the next,
questioned if he had not been too practical and so failed because
he had not made the terrible need of immediate help his sole
argument. Every hour wasted in delay meant, as he knew, the
sacrifice of many lives, and there were other, more sordid and
more practical, reasons for speedy action. For his supply of
money was running low and there was now barely enough remaining
to carry him through the month of travel he had planned to take
at Stanton's side. What would happen to him when that
momentous trip was over was of no consequence. He would have
done the work as far as his small share in it lay, he would have
set in motion a great power that was to move Congress and the
people of the United States to action. If he could but do that,
what became of him counted for nothing.
But at the end of the week his fears and misgivings were
scattered gloriously and a single line from the senator set his
heart leaping and brought him to his knees in gratitude and
thanksgiving. On returning one afternoon to the mean lodging
into which he had moved to save his money, he found a telegram
from Stanton and he tore it open trembling between hope and fear.
"Have arranged to leave for Tampa with you Monday, at midnight"
it read. "Call for me at ten o'clock same evening.--STANTON."
Arkwright read the message three times. There was a heavy,
suffocating pressure at his heart as though it had ceased
beating. He sank back limply upon the edge of his bed and
clutching the piece of paper in his two hands spoke the words
aloud triumphantly as though to assure himself that they
were true. Then a flood of unspeakable relief, of happiness and
gratitude, swept over him, and he turned and slipped to the
floor, burying his face in the pillow, and wept out his thanks
upon his knees.
A man so deeply immersed in public affairs as was Stanton and
with such a multiplicity of personal interests, could not prepare
to absent himself for a month without his intention becoming
known, and on the day when he was to start for Tampa the morning
newspapers proclaimed the fact that he was about to visit Cuba.
They gave to his mission all the importance and display that
Arkwright had foretold. Some of the newspapers stated that he
was going as a special commissioner of the President to study and
report; others that he was acting in behalf of the Cuban legation
in Washington and had plenipotentiary powers. Opposition organs
suggested that he was acting in the interests of the sugar trust,
and his own particular organ declared that it was his intention
to free Cuba at the risk of his own freedom, safety, and even
life.
The Spanish minister in Washington sent a cable for
publication to Madrid, stating that a distinguished American
statesman was about to visit Cuba, to investigate, and, later, to
deny the truth of the disgraceful libels published concerning the
Spanish officials on the island by the papers of the United
States. At the same time he cabled in cipher to the captain-
general in Havana to see that the distinguished statesman was
closely spied upon from the moment of his arrival until his
departure, and to place on the "suspect" list all Americans and
Cubans who ventured to give him any information.
The afternoon papers enlarged on the importance of the visit and
on the good that would surely come of it. They told that Senator
Stanton had refused to be interviewed or to disclose the object
of his journey. But it was enough, they said, that some one in
authority was at last to seek out the truth, and added that no
one would be listened to with greater respect than would the
Southern senator. On this all the editorial writers were agreed.
The day passed drearily for Arkwright. Early in the morning he
packed his valise and paid his landlord, and for the
remainder of the day walked the streets or sat in the hotel
corridor waiting impatiently for each fresh edition of the
papers. In them he read the signs of the great upheaval of
popular feeling that was to restore peace and health and plenty
to the island for which he had given his last three years of
energy and life.
He was trembling with excitement, as well as with the cold, when
at ten o'clock precisely he stood at Senator Stanton's door. He
had forgotten to eat his dinner, and the warmth of the dimly lit
hall and the odor of rich food which was wafted from an inner
room touched his senses with tantalizing comfort.
"The senator says you are to come this way, sir," the servant
directed. He took Arkwright's valise from his hand and parted
the heavy curtains that hid the dining-room, and Arkwright
stepped in between them and then stopped in some embarrassment.
He found himself in the presence of a number of gentlemen seated
at a long dinner-table, who turned their heads as he entered and
peered at him through the smoke that floated in light layers
above the white cloth. The dinner had been served, but the
senator's guests still sat with their chairs pushed back from a
table lighted by candles under yellow shades, and covered with
beautiful flowers and with bottles of varied sizes in stands of
quaint and intricate design. Senator Stanton's tall figure
showed dimly through the smoke, and his deep voice hailed
Arkwright cheerily from the farther end of the room. "This way,
Mr. Arkwright," he said. "I have a chair waiting for you here."
He grasped Arkwright's hand warmly and pulled him into the vacant
place at his side. An elderly gentleman on Arkwright's other
side moved to make more room for him and shoved a liqueur glass
toward him with a friendly nod and pointed at an open box of
cigars. He was a fine-looking man, and Arkwright noticed that he
was regarding him with a glance of the keenest interest. All of
those at the table were men of twice Arkwright's age, except
Livingstone, whom he recognized and who nodded to him pleasantly
and at the same time gave an order to a servant, pointing at
Arkwright as he did so. Some of the gentlemen wore their
business suits, and one opposite Arkwright was still in his
overcoat, and held his hat in his hand. These latter seemed to
have arrived after the dinner had begun, for they formed a second
line back of those who had places at the table; they all seemed
to know one another and were talking with much vivacity and
interest.
Stanton did not attempt to introduce Arkwright to his guests
individually, but said: "Gentlemen, this is Mr. Arkwright, of
whom I have been telling you, the young gentleman who has done
such magnificent work for the cause of Cuba." Those who caught
Arkwright's eye nodded to him, and others raised their glasses at
him, but with a smile that he could not understand. It was as
though they all knew something concerning him of which he was
ignorant. He noted that the faces of some were strangely
familiar, and he decided that he must have seen their portraits
in the public prints. After he had introduced Arkwright, the
senator drew his chair slightly away from him and turned in what
seemed embarrassment to the man on his other side. The
elderly gentleman next to Arkwright filled his glass, a servant
placed a small cup of coffee at his elbow, and he lit a cigar and
looked about him.
"You must find this weather very trying after the tropics," his
neighbor said.
Arkwright assented cordially. The brandy was flowing through his
veins and warming him; he forgot that he was hungry, and the
kind, interested glances of those about him set him at his ease.
It was a propitious start, he thought, a pleasant leave-taking
for the senator and himself, full of good will and good wishes.
He turned toward Stanton and waited until he had ceased speaking.
"The papers have begun well, haven't they?" he asked, eagerly.
He had spoken in a low voice, almost in a whisper, but those
about the table seemed to have heard him, for there was silence
instantly and when he glanced up he saw the eyes of all turned
upon him and he noticed on their faces the same smile he had seen
there when he entered.
"Yes," Stanton answered constrainedly. "Yes, I--" he
lowered his voice, but the silence still continued. Stanton had
his eyes fixed on the table, but now he frowned and half rose
from his chair.
"I want to speak with you, Arkwright," he said. "Suppose we go
into the next room. I'll be back in a moment," he added, nodding
to the others.
But the man on his right removed his cigar from his lips and said
in an undertone, "No, sit down, stay where you are;" and the
elderly gentleman at Arkwright's side laid his hand detainingly
on his arm. "Oh, you won't take Mr. Arkwright away from us,
Stanton?" he asked, smiling.
Stanton shrugged his shoulders and sat down again, and there was
a moment's pause. It was broken by the man in the overcoat, who
laughed.
"He's paying you a compliment, Mr. Arkwright," he said. He
pointed with his cigar to the gentleman at Arkwright's side.
"I don't understand," Arkwright answered doubtfully.
"It's a compliment to your eloquence--he's afraid to leave you
alone with the senator. Livingstone's been telling us that
you are a better talker than Stanton." Arkwright turned a
troubled countenance toward the men about the table, and then
toward Livingstone, but that young man had his eyes fixed gravely
on the glasses before him and did not raise them.
Arkwright felt a sudden, unreasonable fear of the circle of
strong-featured, serene and confident men about him. They seemed
to be making him the subject of a jest, to be enjoying something
among themselves of which he was in ignorance, but which
concerned him closely. He turned a white face toward Stanton.
"You don't mean," he began piteously, "that--that you are not
going? Is that it--tell me--is that what you wanted to say?"
Stanton shifted in his chair and muttered some words between his
lips, then turned toward Arkwright and spoke quite clearly and
distinctly.
"I am very sorry, Mr. Arkwright," he said, "but I am afraid I'll
have to disappoint you. Reasons I cannot now explain have arisen
which make my going impossible--quite impossible," he added
firmly--"not only now, but later," he went on quickly, as
Arkwright was about to interrupt him.
Arkwright made no second attempt to speak. He felt the muscles
of his face working and the tears coming to his eyes, and to hide
his weakness he twisted in his chair and sat staring ahead of him
with his back turned to the table. He heard Livingstone's voice
break the silence with some hurried question, and immediately his
embarrassment was hidden in a murmur of answers and the moving of
glasses as the men shifted in their chairs and the laughter and
talk went on as briskly as before. Arkwright saw a sideboard
before him and a servant arranging some silver on one of the
shelves. He watched the man do this with a concentrated interest
as though the dull, numbed feeling in his brain caught at the
trifle in order to put off, as long as possible, the
consideration of the truth.
And then beyond the sideboard and the tapestry on the wall above
it, he saw the sun shining down upon the island of Cuba, he saw
the royal palms waving and bending, the dusty columns of
Spanish infantry crawling along the white roads and leaving
blazing huts and smoking cane-fields in their wake; he saw
skeletons of men and women seeking for food among the refuse of
the street; he heard the order given to the firing squad, the
splash of the bullets as they scattered the plaster on the prison
wall, and he saw a kneeling figure pitch forward on its face,
with a useless bandage tied across its sightless eyes.
Senator Stanton brought him back with a sharp shake of the
shoulder. He had also turned his back on the others, and was
leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. He spoke rapidly,
and in a voice only slightly raised above a whisper.
"I am more than sorry, Arkwright," he said earnestly. "You
mustn't blame me altogether. I have had a hard time of it this
afternoon. I wanted to go. I really wanted to go. The thing
appealed to me, it touched me, it seemed as if I owed it to
myself to do it. But they were too many for me," he added with a
backward toss of his head toward the men around his table.
"If the papers had not told on me I could have got well away," he
went on in an eager tone, "but as soon as they read of it, they
came here straight from their offices. You know who they are,
don't you?" he asked, and even in his earnestness there was an
added touch of importance in his tone as he spoke the name of his
party's leader, of men who stood prominently in Wall Street and
who were at the head of great trusts.
"You see how it is," he said with a shrug of his shoulders.
"They have enormous interests at stake. They said I would drag
them into war, that I would disturb values, that the business
interests of the country would suffer. I'm under obligations to
most of them, they have advised me in financial matters, and they
threatened--they threatened to make it unpleasant for me." His
voice hardened and he drew in his breath quickly, and laughed.
"You wouldn't understand if I were to tell you. It's rather
involved. And after all, they may be right, agitation may be bad
for the country. And your party leader after all is your party
leader, isn't he, and if he says 'no' what are you to do?
My sympathies are just as keen for these poor women and children
as ever, but as these men say, 'charity begins at home,' and we
mustn't do anything to bring on war prices again, or to send
stocks tumbling about our heads, must we?" He leaned back in his
chair again and sighed. "Sympathy is an expensive luxury, I
find," he added.
Arkwright rose stiffly and pushed Stanton away from him with his
hand. He moved like a man coming out of a dream.
"Don't talk to me like that," he said in a low voice. The noise
about the table ended on the instant, but Arkwright did not
notice that it had ceased. "You know I don't understand that,"
he went on; "what does it matter to me!" He put his hand up to
the side of his face and held it there, looking down at Stanton.
He had the dull, heavy look in his eyes of a man who has just
come through an operation under some heavy drug. "'Wall Street,'
'trusts,' 'party leaders,'" he repeated, "what are they to me?
The words don't reach me, they have lost their meaning, it is a
language I have forgotten, thank God!" he added. He turned
and moved his eyes around the table, scanning the faces of the
men before him.
"Yes, you are twelve to one," he said at last, still speaking
dully and in a low voice, as though he were talking to himself.
"You have won a noble victory, gentlemen. I congratulate you.
But I do not blame you, we are all selfish and self-seeking. I
thought I was working only for Cuba, but I was working for
myself, just as you are. I wanted to feel that it was I who had
helped to bring relief to that plague-spot, that it was through
my efforts the help had come. Yes, if he had done as I asked, I
suppose I would have taken the credit."
He swayed slightly, and to steady himself caught at the back of
his chair. But at the same moment his eyes glowed fiercely and
he held himself erect again. He pointed with his finger at the
circle of great men who sat looking up at him in curious silence.
"You are like a ring of gamblers around a gaming table," he cried
wildly, "who see nothing but the green cloth and the wheel and
the piles of money before them, who forget in watching the
money rise and fall, that outside the sun is shining, that human
beings are sick and suffering, that men are giving their lives
for an idea, for a sentiment, for a flag. You are the money-
changers in the temple of this great republic and the day will
come, I pray to God, when you will be scourged and driven out
with whips. Do you think you can form combines and deals that
will cheat you into heaven? Can your 'trusts' save your souls--
is 'Wall Street' the strait and narrow road to salvation?"
The men about the table leaned back and stared at Arkwright in as
great amazement as though he had violently attempted an assault
upon their pockets, or had suddenly gone mad in their presence.
Some of them frowned, and others appeared not to have heard, and
others smiled grimly and waited for him to continue as though
they were spectators at a play.
The political leader broke the silence with a low aside to
Stanton. "Does the gentleman belong to the Salvation Army?" he
asked.
Arkwright whirled about and turned upon him fiercely.
"Old gods give way to new gods," he cried. "Here is your
brother. I am speaking for him. Do you ever think of him? How
dare you sneer at me?" he cried. "You can crack your whip over
that man's head and turn him from what in his heart and
conscience he knows is right; you can crack your whip over the
men who call themselves free-born American citizens and who have
made you their boss--sneer at them if you like, but you have no
collar on my neck. If you are a leader, why don't you lead your
people to what is good and noble? Why do you stop this man in
the work God sent him here to do? You would make a party hack of
him, a political prostitute, something lower than the woman who
walks the streets. She sells her body--this man is selling his
soul."
He turned, trembling and quivering, and shook his finger above
the upturned face of the senator.
"What have you done with your talents, Stanton?" he cried. "What
have you done with your talents?"
The man in the overcoat struck the table before him with his
fist so that the glasses rang.
"By God," he laughed, "I call him a better speaker than Stanton!
Livingstone's right, he IS better than Stanton--but he lacks
Stanton's knack of making himself popular," he added. He looked
around the table inviting approbation with a smile, but no one
noticed him, nor spoke to break the silence.
Arkwright heard the words dully and felt that he was being
mocked. He covered his face with his hands and stood breathing
brokenly; his body was still trembling with an excitement he
could not master.
Stanton rose from his chair and shook him by the shoulder. "Are
you mad, Arkwright?" he cried. "You have no right to insult my
guests or me. Be calm--control yourself."
"What does it matter what I say?" Arkwright went on desperately.
"I am mad. Yes, that is it, I am mad. They have won and I have
lost, and it drove me beside myself. I counted on you. I knew
that no one else could let my people go. But I'll not
trouble you again. I wish you good-night, sir, and good-bye. If
I have been unjust, you must forget it."
He turned sharply, but Stanton placed a detaining hand on his
shoulder. "Wait," he commanded querulously; "where are you
going? Will you, still--?"
Arkwright bowed his head. "Yes," he answered. "I have but just
time now to catch our train--my train, I mean."
He looked up at Stanton and taking his hand in both of his, drew
the man toward him. All the wildness and intolerance in his
manner had passed, and as he raised his eyes they were full of a
firm resolve.
"Come," he said simply; "there is yet time. Leave these people
behind you. What can you answer when they ask what have you done
with your talents?"
"Good God, Arkwright," the senator exclaimed angrily, pulling his
hand away; "don't talk like a hymn-book, and don't make another
scene. What you ask is impossible. Tell me what I can do to
help you in any other way, and--"
"Come," repeated the young man firmly.
"The world may judge you by what you do to-night."
Stanton looked at the boy for a brief moment with a strained and
eager scrutiny, and then turned away abruptly and shook his head
in silence, and Arkwright passed around the table and on out of
the room.
A month later, as the Southern senator was passing through the
reading-room of the Union Club, Livingstone beckoned to him, and
handing him an afternoon paper pointed at a paragraph in silence.
The paragraph was dated Sagua la Grande, and read:
"The body of Henry Arkwright, an American civil engineer, was
brought into Sagua to-day by a Spanish column. It was found
lying in a road three miles beyond the line of forts. Arkwright
was surprised by a guerilla force while attempting to make his
way to the insurgent camp, and on resisting was shot. The body
has been handed over to the American consul for interment. It is
badly mutilated."
Stanton lowered the paper and stood staring out of the window at
the falling snow and the cheery lights and bustling energy
of the avenue.
"Poor fellow," he said, "he wanted so much to help them. And he
didn't accomplish anything, did he?"
Livingstone stared at the older man and laughed shortly.
"Well, I don't know," he said. "He died. Some of us only
live."
THE VAGRANT
His Excellency Sir Charles Greville, K. C M. G., Governor of the
Windless Islands, stood upon the veranda of Government House
surveying the new day with critical and searching eyes. Sir
Charles had been so long absolute monarch of the Windless Isles
that he had assumed unconsciously a mental attitude of suzerainty
over even the glittering waters of the Caribbean Sea, and the
coral reefs under the waters, and the rainbow skies that floated
above them. But on this particular morning not even the critical
eye of the Governor could distinguish a single flaw in the
tropical landscape before him.
The lawn at his feet ran down to meet the dazzling waters of the
bay, the blue waters of the bay ran to meet a great stretch of
absinthe green, the green joined a fairy sky of pink and
gold and saffron. Islands of coral floated on the sea of
absinthe, and derelict clouds of mother-of-pearl swung low above
them, starting from nowhere and going nowhere, but drifting
beautifully, like giant soap-bubbles of light and color. Where
the lawn touched the waters of the bay the cocoanut-palms reached
their crooked lengths far up into the sunshine, and as the sea-
breeze stirred their fronds they filled the hot air with whispers
and murmurs like the fluttering of many fans. Nature smiled
boldly upon the Governor, confident in her bountiful beauty, as
though she said, "Surely you cannot but be pleased with me to-
day." And, as though in answer, the critical and searching
glance of Sir Charles relaxed.
The crunching of the gravel and the rattle of the sentry's musket
at salute recalled him to his high office and to the duties of
the morning. He waved his hand, and, as though it were a wand,
the sentry moved again, making his way to the kitchen-garden, and
so around Government House and back to the lawn-tennis court,
maintaining in his solitary pilgrimage the dignity of her
Majesty's representative, as well as her Majesty's power
over the Windless Isles.
The Governor smiled slightly, with the ease of mind of one who
finds all things good. Supreme authority, surroundings of
endless beauty, the respectful, even humble, deference of his
inferiors, and never even an occasional visit from a superior,
had in four years lowered him into a bed of ease and self-
satisfaction. He was cut off from the world, and yet of it.
Each month there came, via Jamaica, the three weeks' old copy
of The Weekly Times; he subscribed to Mudie's Colonial Library;
and from the States he had imported an American lawn-mower, the
mechanism of which no one as yet understood. Within his own
borders he had created a healthy, orderly seaport out of what had
been a sink of fever and a refuge for all the ne'er-do-wells and
fugitive revolutionists of Central America.
He knew, as he sat each evening on his veranda, looking across
the bay, that in the world beyond the pink and gold sunset men
were still panting, struggling, and starving; crises were rising
and passing; strikes and panics, wars and the rumors of
wars, swept from continent to continent; a plague crept through
India; a filibuster with five hundred men at his back crossed an
imaginary line and stirred the world from Cape Town to London;
Emperors were crowned; the good Queen celebrated the longest
reign; and a captain of artillery imprisoned in a swampy island
in the South Atlantic caused two hemispheres to clamor for his
rescue, and lit a race war that stretched from Algiers to the
boulevards.
And yet, at the Windless Isles, all these happenings seemed to
Sir Charles like the morning's memory of a dream. For these
things never crossed the ring of the coral reefs; he saw them
only as pictures in an illustrated paper a month old. And he was
pleased to find that this was so. He was sufficient to himself,
with his own responsibilities and social duties and public works.
He was a man in authority, who said to others, "Come!" and "Go!"
Under him were commissioners, and under the commissioners
district inspectors and boards of education and of highways. For
the better health of the colony he had planted trees that
sucked the malaria from the air; for its better morals he had
substituted as a Sunday amusement cricket-matches for cock-
fights; and to keep it at peace he had created a local
constabulary of native negroes, and had dressed them in the cast-
off uniforms of London policemen. His handiwork was everywhere,
and his interest was all sunk in his handiwork. The days passed
gorgeous with sunshine, the nights breathed with beauty. It was
an existence of leisurely occupation, and one that promised no
change, and he was content.
As it was Thursday, the Council met that morning, and some
questions of moment to the colony were to be brought up for
consideration. The question of the dog-tax was one which
perplexed Sir Charles most particularly. The two Councillors
elected by the people and the three appointed by the crown had
disagreed as to this tax. Of the five hundred British subjects
at the seaport, all but ten were owners of dogs, and it had
occurred to Sassoon, the chemist, that a tax of half-a-crown a
year on each of these dogs would meet the expense of
extending the oyster-shell road to the new cricket-grounds. To
this Snellgrove, who held the contract for the narrow-gauge
railroad, agreed; but the three crown Councillors opposed the tax
vigorously, on the ground that as scavengers alone the dogs were
a boon to the colony and should be encouraged. The fact that
each of these gentlemen owned not only one, but several dogs of
high pedigree made their position one of great delicacy.
There was no way by which the Governor could test the popular
will in the matter, except through his secretary, Mr. Clarges,
who, at the cricket-match between the local eleven and the
officers and crew of H. M. S. Partridge, had been informed by
the other owners of several fox-terriers that, in their opinion,
the tax was a piece of "condemned tommy-rot." From this the
Governor judged that it would not prove a popular measure. As he
paced the veranda, drawing deliberately on his cigar, and
considering to which party he should give the weight of his final
support, his thoughts were disturbed by the approach of a
stranger, who advanced along the gravel walk, guarded on
either side by one of the local constabulary. The stranger was
young and of poor appearance. His bare feet were bound in a pair
of the rope sandals worn by the natives, his clothing was of torn
and soiled drill, and he fanned his face nonchalantly with a
sombrero of battered and shapeless felt.
Sir Charles halted in his walk, and holding his cigar behind his
back, addressed himself to the sergeant.
"A vagrant?" he asked.
The words seemed to bear some amusing significance to the
stranger, for his face lit instantly with a sweet and charming
smile, and while he turned to hear the sergeant's reply, he
regarded him with a kindly and affectionate interest.
"Yes, your Excellency."
The Governor turned to the prisoner.
"Do you know the law of this colony regarding vagrants?"
"I do not," the young man answered. His tone was politely
curious, and suggested that he would like to be further informed
as to the local peculiarities of a foreign country.
"After two weeks' residence," the Governor recited, impressively,
"all able-bodied persons who will not work are put to work or
deported. Have you made any effort to find work?"
Again the young man smiled charmingly. He shook his head and
laughed. "Oh dear no," he said.
The laugh struck the Governor as impertinent.
"Then you must leave by the next mail-steamer, if you have any
money to pay your passage, or, if you have no money, you must go
to work on the roads. Have you any money?"
"If I had, I wouldn't--be a vagrant," the young man answered.
His voice was low and singularly sweet. It seemed to suit the
indolence of his attitude and the lazy, inconsequent smile. "I
called on our consular agent here," he continued, leisurely, "to
write a letter home for money, but he was disgracefully drunk, so
I used his official note-paper to write to the State Department
about him, instead."
The Governor's deepest interest was aroused. The American
consular agent was one of the severest trials he was forced to
endure.
"You are not a British subject, then? Ah, I see--and--er--your
representative was unable to assist you?"
"He was drunk," the young man repeated, placidly. "He has been
drunk ever since I have been here, particularly in the mornings."
He halted, as though the subject had lost interest for him, and
gazed pleasantly at the sunny bay and up at the moving palms.
"Then," said the Governor, as though he had not been interrupted,
"as you have no means of support, you will help support the
colony until you can earn money to leave it. That will do,
sergeant."
The young man placed his hat upon his head and turned to move
away, but at the first step he swayed suddenly and caught at the
negro's shoulder, clasping his other hand across his eyes. The
sergeant held him by the waist, and looked up at the Governor
with some embarrassment.
"The young gentleman has not been well, Sir Charles," he said,
apologetically.
The stranger straightened himself up and smiled vaguely.
"I'm all right," he murmured. "Sun's too hot."
"Sit down," said the Governor.
He observed the stranger more closely. He noticed now that
beneath the tan his face was delicate and finely cut, and that
his yellow hair clung closely to a well-formed head.
"He seems faint. Has he had anything to eat?" asked the
Governor.
The sergeant grinned guiltily. "Yes, Sir Charles; we've been
feeding him at the barracks. It's fever, sir."
Sir Charles was not unacquainted with fallen gentlemen, "beach-
combers," "remittance men," and vagrants who had known better
days, and there had been something winning in this vagrant's
smile, and, moreover, he had reported that thorn in his flesh,
the consular agent, to the proper authorities.
He conceived an interest in a young man who, though with naked
feet, did not hesitate to correspond with his Minister of Foreign
Affairs.
"How long have you been ill?" he asked.
The young man looked up from where he had sunk on the steps, and
roused himself with a shrug. "It doesn't matter," he said.
"I've had a touch of Chagres ever since I was on the Isthmus. I
was at work there on the railroad."
"Did you come here from Colon?"
"No; I worked up the Pacific side. I was clerking with Rossner
Brothers at Amapala for a while, because I speak a little German,
and then I footed it over to Puerto Cortez and got a job with the
lottery people. They gave me twenty dollars a month gold for
rolling the tickets, and I put it all in the drawing, and won as
much as ten." He laughed, and sitting erect, drew from his
pocket a roll of thin green papers. "These are for the next
drawing," he said. "Have some?" he added. He held them towards
the negro sergeant, who, under the eye of the Governor, resisted,
and then spread the tickets on his knee like a hand at cards. "I
stand to win a lot with these," he said, with a cheerful sigh.
"You see, until the list's published I'm prospectively worth
twenty thousand dollars. And," he added, "I break stones in the
sun." He rose unsteadily, and saluted the Governor with a
nod. "Good-morning, sir," he said, "and thank you."
"Wait," Sir Charles commanded. A new form of punishment had
suggested itself, in which justice was tempered with mercy. "Can
you work one of your American lawn-mowers?" he asked.
The young man laughed delightedly. "I never tried," he said,
"but I've seen it done."
"If you've been ill, it would be murder to put you on the shell
road." The Governor's dignity relaxed into a smile. "I don't
desire international complications," he said. "Sergeant, take
this--him--to the kitchen, and tell Corporal Mallon to give him
that American lawn-mowing machine. Possibly he may understand
its mechanism. Mallon only cuts holes in the turf with it." And
he waved his hand in dismissal, and as the three men moved away
he buried himself again in the perplexities of the dog-tax.
Ten minutes later the deliberations of the Council were disturbed
by a loud and persistent rattle, like the whir of a Maxim gun,
which proved, on investigation, to arise from the American lawn-
mower. The vagrant was propelling it triumphantly across
the lawn, and gazing down at it with the same fond pride with
which a nursemaid leans over the perambulator to observe her
lusty and gurgling charge.
The Councillors had departed, Sir Charles was thinking of
breakfast, the Maxim-like lawn-mower still irritated the silent
hush of midday, when from the waters of the inner harbor there
came suddenly the sharp report of a saluting gun and the rush of
falling anchor-chains. There was still a week to pass before the
mail-steamer should arrive, and H. M. S. Partridge had
departed for Nassau. Besides these ships, no other vessel had
skirted the buoys of the bay in eight long smiling months. Mr.
Clarges, the secretary, with an effort to appear calm, and the
orderly, suffocated with the news, entered through separate doors
at the same instant.
The secretary filed his report first. "A yacht's just anchored
in the bay, Sir Charles," he said.
The orderly's face fell. He looked aggrieved. "An American
yacht," he corrected.
"And much larger than the Partridge," continued the secretary.
The orderly took a hasty glance back over his shoulder. "She has
her launch lowered already, sir," he said.
Outside the whir of the lawn-mower continued undisturbed. Sir
Charles reached for his marine-glass, and the three men hurried
to the veranda.
"It looks like a man-of-war," said Sir Charles. "No," he added,
adjusting the binocular; "she's a yacht. She flies the New York
Yacht Club pennant--now she's showing the owner's absent pennant.
He must have left in the launch. He's coming ashore now."
"He seems in a bit of a hurry," growled Mr. Clarges.
"Those Americans always--" murmured Sir Charles from behind the
binocular. He did not quite know that he enjoyed this sudden
onslaught upon the privacy of his harbor and port.
It was in itself annoying, and he was further annoyed to find
that it could in the least degree disturb his poise.
The launch was growing instantly larger, like an express train
approaching a station at full speed; her flags flew out as flat
as pieces of painted tin; her bits of brass-work flashed like
fire. Already the ends of the wharves were white with groups of
natives.
"You might think he was going to ram the town," suggested the
secretary.
"Oh, I say," he exclaimed, in remonstrance, "he's making in for
your private wharf."
The Governor was rearranging the focus of the glass with nervous
fingers. "I believe," he said, "no--yes--upon my word, there
are--there are ladies in that launch!"
"Ladies, sir!" The secretary threw a hasty glance at the
binocular, but it was in immediate use.
The clatter of the lawn-mower ceased suddenly, and the relief of
its silence caused the Governor to lower his eyes. He saw the
lawn-mower lying prostrate on the grass. The vagrant had
vanished.
There was a sharp tinkle of bells, and the launch slipped up to
the wharf and halted as softly as a bicycle. A man in a
yachting-suit jumped from her, and making some laughing
speech to the two women in the stern, walked briskly across the
lawn, taking a letter from his pocket as he came. Sir Charles
awaited him gravely; the occupants of the launch had seen him,
and it was too late to retreat.
"Sir Charles Greville, I believe," said the yachtsman. He bowed,
and ran lightly up the steps. "I am Mr. Robert Collier, from New
York," he said. "I have a letter to you from your ambassador at
Washington. If you'll pardon me, I'll present it in person. I
had meant to leave it, but seeing you--" He paused, and gave the
letter in his hand to Sir Charles, who waved him towards his
library.
Sir Charles scowled at the letter through his monocle, and then
shook hands with his visitor. "I am very glad to see you, Mr.
Collier," he said. "He says here you are preparing a book on our
colonies in the West Indies." He tapped the letter with his
monocle. "I am sure I shall be most happy to assist you with any
information in my power."
"Well, I am writing a book--yes," Mr. Collier observed,
doubtfully, "but it's a logbook. This trip I am on pleasure
bent, and I also wish to consult with you on a personal matter.
However, that can wait." He glanced out of the windows to where
the launch lay in the sun. "My wife came ashore with me, Sir
Charles," he said, "so that in case there was a Lady Greville,
Mrs. Collier could call on her, and we could ask if you would
waive etiquette and do us the honor to dine with us to-night on
the yacht--that is, if you are not engaged."
Sir Charles smiled. "There is no Lady Greville," he said, "and I
personally do not think I am engaged elsewhere." He paused in
thought, as though to make quite sure he was not. "No," he
added, "I have no other engagement. I will come with pleasure."
Sir Charles rose and clapped his hands for the orderly.
"Possibly the ladies will come up to the veranda?" he asked. "I
cannot allow them to remain at the end of my wharf." He turned,
and gave directions to the orderly to bring limes and bottles of
soda and ice, and led the way across the lawn.
Mrs. Collier and her friend had not explored the grounds of
Government House for over ten minutes before Sir Charles felt
that many years ago he had personally arranged their visit, that
he had known them for even a longer time, and that, now that they
had finally arrived, they must never depart.
To them there was apparently nothing on his domain which did not
thrill with delightful interest. They were as eager as two
children at a pantomime, and as unconscious. As a rule, Sir
Charles had found it rather difficult to meet the women of his
colony on a path which they were capable of treading
intelligently. In fairness to them, he had always sought out
some topic in which they could take an equal part--something
connected with the conduct of children, or the better ventilation
of the new school-house and chapel. But these new-comers did not
require him to select topics of conversation; they did not even
wait for him to finish those which he himself introduced. They
flitted from one end of the garden to the other with the
eagerness of two midshipmen on shore leave, and they found
something to enjoy in what seemed to the Governor the most
commonplace of things. The Zouave uniform of the sentry, the old
Spanish cannon converted into peaceful gate-posts, the aviary
with its screaming paroquets, the botanical station, and even the
ice-machine were all objects of delight.
On the other hand, the interior of the famous palace, which had
been sent out complete from London, and which was wont to fill
the wives of the colonials with awe or to reduce them to
whispers, for some reason failed of its effect. But they said
they "loved" the large gold V. R.'s on the back of the
Councillors' chairs, and they exclaimed aloud over the red
leather despatch-boxes and the great seal of the colony, and the
mysterious envelopes marked "On her Majesty's service."
"Isn't it too exciting, Florence?" demanded Mrs. Collier. "This
is the table where Sir Charles sits and writes letters' on her
Majesty's service,' and presses these buttons, and war-ships
spring up in perfect shoals. Oh, Robert," she sighed, "I do wish
you had been a Governor!"
The young lady called Florence stood looking down into the great
arm-chair in front of the Governor's table.
"May I?" she asked. She slid fearlessly in between the oak arms
of the chair and smiled about her. Afterwards Sir Charles
remembered her as she appeared at that moment with the red
leather of the chair behind her, with her gloved hands resting on
the carved oak, and her head on one side, smiling up at him. She
gazed with large eyes at the blue linen envelopes, the stiff
documents in red tape, the tray of black sand, and the goose-
quill pens.
"I am now the Countess Zika," she announced; "no, I am Diana of
the Crossways, and I mean to discover a state secret and sell it
to the Daily Telegraph. Sir Charles," she demanded, "if I
press this electric button is war declared anywhere, or what
happens?"
"That second button," said Sir Charles, after deliberate
scrutiny, "is the one which communicates with the pantry."
The Governor would not consider their returning to the yacht for
luncheon.
"You might decide to steam away as suddenly as you came," he
said, gallantly, "and I cannot take that chance. This is
Bachelor's Hall, so you must pardon my people if things do not go
very smoothly." He himself led them to the great guest-chamber,
where there had not been a guest for many years, and he noticed,
as though for the first time, that the halls through which they
passed were bare, and that the floor was littered with unpacked
boxes and gun-cases. He also observed for the first time that
maps of the colony, with the coffee-plantations and mahogany belt
marked in different inks, were not perhaps so decorative as
pictures and mirrors and family portraits. And he could have
wished that the native servants had not stared so admiringly at
the guests, nor directed each other in such aggressive whispers.
On those other occasions, when the wives of the Councillors came
to the semi-annual dinners, the native servants had seemed
adequate to all that was required of them. He recollected with a
flush that in the town these semi-annual dinners were described
as banquets. He wondered if to these visitors from the
outside world it was all equally provincial.
But their enjoyment was apparently unfeigned and generous. It
was evident that they had known each other for many years, yet
they received every remark that any of them made as though it had
been pronounced by a new and interesting acquaintance. Sir
Charles found it rather difficult to keep up with the talk across
the table, they changed the subject so rapidly, and they half
spoke of so many things without waiting to explain. He could not
at once grasp the fact that people who had no other position in
the world save that of observers were speaking so authoritatively
of public men and public measures. He found, to his delight,
that for the first time in several years he was not presiding at
his own table, and that his guests seemed to feel no awe of him.
"What's the use of a yacht nowadays?" Collier was saying--"
what's the use of a yacht, when you can go to sleep in a wagon-
lit at the Gare du Nord, and wake up at Vladivostok? And look at
the time it saves; eleven days to Gib, six to Port Said, and
fifteen to Colombo--there you are, only half-way around, and
you're already sixteen days behind the man in the wagon-lit."
"But nobody wants to go to Vladivostok," said Miss Cameron, "or
anywhere else in a wagon-lit. But with a yacht you can explore
out-of-the-way places, and you meet new and interesting people.
We wouldn't have met Sir Charles if we had waited for a wagon-
lit." She bowed her head to the Governor, and he smiled with
gratitude. He had lost Mr. Collier somewhere in the Indian
Ocean, and he was glad she had brought them back to the Windless
Isles once more.
"And again I repeat that the answer to that is, 'Why not? said
the March Hare,'" remarked Mr. Collier, determinedly.
The answer, as an answer, did not strike Sir Charles as a very
good one. But the ladies seemed to comprehend, for Miss Cameron
said: "Did I tell you about meeting him at Oxford just a few
months before his death--at a children's tea-party? He was so
sweet and understanding with them! Two women tried to lionize
him, and he ran away and played with the children. I was
more glad to meet him than any one I can think of. Not as a
personage, you know, but because I felt grateful to him."
"Yes, that way, distinctly," said Mrs. Collier. "I should have
felt that way towards Mrs. Ewing more than any one else."
"I know, 'Jackanapes,'" remarked Collier, shortly; "a brutal
assault upon the feelings, I say."
"Some one else said it before you, Robert," Mrs. Collier
commented, calmly. "Perhaps Sir Charles met him at Apia." They
all turned and looked at him. He wished he could say he had met
him at Apia. He did not quite see how they had made their way
from a children's tea party at Oxford to the South Pacific
islands, but he was anxious to join in somewhere with a clever
observation. But they never seemed to settle in one place
sufficiently long for him to recollect what he knew of it. He
hoped they would get around to the west coast of Africa in time.
He had been Governor of Sierra Leone for five years.
His success that night at dinner on the yacht was far better.
The others seemed a little tired after the hours of sight-seeing
to which he had treated them, and they were content to listen.
In the absence of Mr. Clarges, who knew them word by word, he
felt free to tell his three stories of life at Sierra Leone. He
took his time in the telling, and could congratulate himself that
his efforts had never been more keenly appreciated. He felt that
he was holding his own.
The night was still and warm, and while the men lingered below at
the table, the two women mounted to the deck and watched the
lights of the town as they vanished one by one and left the moon
in unchallenged possession of the harbor. For a long time Miss
Cameron stood silent, looking out across the bay at the shore and
the hills beyond. A fish splashed near them, and the sound of
oars rose from the mist that floated above the water, until they
were muffled in the distance. The palms along the shore
glistened like silver, and overhead the Southern Cross shone
white against a sky of purple. The silence deepened and
continued for so long a time that Mrs. Collier felt its
significance, and waited for the girl to end it.
Miss Cameron raised her eyes to the stars and frowned. "I am not
surprised that he is content to stay here," she said. "Are you?
It is so beautiful, so wonderfully beautiful."
For a moment Mrs. Collier made no answer. "Two years is a long
time, Florence," she said; "and he is all I have; he is not only
my only brother, he is the only living soul who is related to me.
That makes it harder."
The girl seemed to find some implied reproach in the speech, for
she turned and looked at her friend closely. "Do you feel it is
my fault, Alice?" she asked.
The older woman shook her head. "How could it be your fault?"
she answered. "If you couldn't love him enough to marry him, you
couldn't, that's all. But that is no reason why he should have
hidden himself from all of us. Even if he could not stand being
near you, caring as he did, he need not have treated me so.
We have done all we can do, and Robert has been more than fine
about it. He and his agents have written to every consul and
business house in Central America, and I don't believe there is a
city that he hasn't visited. He has sent him money and letters
to every bank and to every post-office--"
The girl raised her head quickly.
"--but he never calls for either," Mrs. Collier continued, "for I
know that if he had read my letters he would have come home."
The girl lifted her head as though she were about to speak, and
then turned and walked slowly away. After a few moments she
returned, and stood, with her hands resting on the rail, looking
down into the water. "I wrote him two letters," she said. In
the silence of the night her voice was unusually clear and
distinct. "I--you make me wonder--if they ever reached him."
Mrs. Collier, with her eyes fixed upon the girl, rose slowly from
her chair and came towards her. She reached out her hand and
touched Miss Cameron on the arm.
"Florence," she said, in a whisper, "have you--"
The girl raised her head slowly, and lowered it again. "Yes,"
she answered; "I told him to come back--to come back to me.
Alice," she cried, "I--I begged him to come back!" She tossed
her hands apart and again walked rapidly away, leaving the older
woman standing motionless.
A moment later, when Sir Charles and Mr. Collier stepped out upon
the deck, they discovered the two women standing close together,
two white, ghostly figures in the moonlight, and as they advanced
towards them they saw Mrs. Collier take the girl for an instant
in her arms.
Sir Charles was asking Miss Cameron how long she thought an
immigrant should be made to work for his freehold allotment, when
Mr. Collier and his wife rose at the same moment and departed on
separate errands. They met most mysteriously in the shadow of
the wheel-house.
"What is it? Is anything wrong with Florence?" Collier asked,
anxiously. "Not homesick, is she?"
Mrs. Collier put her hands on her husband's shoulders and shook
her head.
"Wrong? No, thank Heaven! it's as right as right can be!" she
cried. "She's written to him to come back, but he's never
answered, and so--and now it's all right."
Mr. Collier gazed blankly at his wife's upturned face. "Well, I
don't see that," he remonstrated. "What's the use of her being
in love with him now when he can't be found? What? Why didn't
she love him two years ago when he was where you could get at
him--at her house, for instance. He was there most of his time.
She would have saved a lot of trouble. However," he added,
energetically, "this makes it absolutely necessary to find that
young man and bring him to his senses. We'll search this place
for the next few days, and then we'll try the mainland again. I
think I'll offer a reward for him, and have it printed in
Spanish, and paste it up in all the plazas. We might add a line
in English, 'She has changed her mind.' That would bring him
home, wouldn't it?"
"Don't be unfeeling, Robert," said Mrs. Collier.
Her husband raised his eyes appealingly, and addressed himself to
the moon. "I ask you now," he complained, "is that fair to a man
who has spent six months on muleback trying to round up a
prodigal brother-in-law?"
That same evening, after the ladies had gone below, Mr. Collier
asked Sir Charles to assist him in his search for his wife's
brother, and Sir Charles heartily promised his most active co-
operation. There were several Americans at work in the interior,
he said, as overseers on the coffee-plantations. It was possible
that the runaway might be among them. It was only that morning,
Sir Charles remembered, that an American had been at work
"repairing his lawn-mower," as he considerately expressed it. He
would send for him on the morrow.
But on the morrow the slave of the lawn-mower was reported on the
list of prisoners as "missing," and Corporal Mallon was grieved,
but refused to consider himself responsible. Sir Charles himself
had allowed the vagrant unusual freedom, and the vagrant had
taken advantage of it, and probably escaped to the hills, or up
the river to the logwood camp.
"Telegraph a description of him to Inspector Garrett," Sir
Charles directed, "and to the heads of all up stations. And when
he returns, bring him to me."
So great was his zeal that Sir Charles further offered to join
Mr. Collier in his search among the outlying plantations; but Mr.
Collier preferred to work alone. He accordingly set out at once,
armed with letters to the different district inspectors, and in
his absence delegated to Sir Charles the pleasant duty of caring
for the wants of Miss Cameron and his wife. Sir Charles regarded
the latter as deserving of all sympathy, for Mr. Collier, in his
efforts to conceal the fact from the Governor that Florence
Cameron was responsible, or in any way concerned, in the
disappearance of the missing man, had been too mysterious. Sir
Charles was convinced that the fugitive had swindled his brother-
in-law and stolen his sister's jewels.
The days which followed were to the Governor days and nights of
strange discoveries. He recognized that the missionaries
from the great outside world had invaded his shores and disturbed
his gods and temples. Their religion of progress and activity
filled him with doubt and unrest.
"In this century," Mr. Collier had declared, "nothing can stand
still. It's the same with a corporation, or a country, or a man.
We must either march ahead or fall out. We can't mark time.
What?"
"Exactly--certainly not," Sir Charles had answered. But in his
heart he knew that he himself had been marking time under these
soft tropical skies while the world was pushing forward. The
thought had not disturbed him before. Now he felt guilty. He
conceived a sudden intolerance, if not contempt, for the little
village of whitewashed houses, for the rafts of mahogany and of
logwood that bumped against the pier-heads, for the sacks of
coffee piled high like barricades under the corrugated zinc sheds
along the wharf. Each season it had been his pride to note the
increase in these exports. The development of the resources of
his colony had been a work in which he had felt that the
Colonial Secretary took an immediate interest. He had believed
that he was one of the important wheels of the machinery which
moved the British Empire: and now, in a day, he was undeceived.
It was forced upon him that to the eyes of the outside world he
was only a greengrocer operating on a large scale; he provided
the British public with coffee for its breakfast, with drugs for
its stomach, and with strange woods for its dining-room furniture
and walking-sticks. He combated this ignominious
characterization of his position indignantly. The new arrivals
certainly gave him no hint that they considered him so lightly.
This thought greatly comforted him, for he felt that in some way
he was summoning to his aid all of his assets and resources to
meet an expert and final valuation. As he ranged them before him
he was disturbed and happy to find that the value he placed upon
them was the value they would have in the eyes of a young girl--
not a girl of the shy, mother-obeying, man-worshipping English
type, but a girl such as Miss Cameron seemed to be, a girl who
could understand what you were trying to say before you said
it, who could take an interest in rates of exchange and preside
at a dinner table, who was charmingly feminine and clever, and
who was respectful of herself and of others. In fact, he
decided, with a flush, that Miss Cameron herself was the young
girl he had in his mind.
"Why not?" he asked.
The question came to him in his room, the sixth night of their
visit, and he strode over to the long pier-glass and stood
studying himself critically for the first time in years. He was
still a fine-looking, well-kept man. His hair was thin, but that
fact did not show; and his waist was lost, but riding and tennis
would set that right. He had means outside of his official
salary, and there was the title, such as it was. Lady Greville
the wife of the birthday knight sounded as well as Lady Greville
the marchioness. And Americans cared for these things. He
doubted whether this particular American would do so, but he was
adding up all he had to offer, and that was one of the assets.
He was sure she would not be content to remain mistress of
the Windless Isles. Nor, indeed, did he longer care to be master
there, now that he had inhaled this quick, stirring breath from
the outer world. He would resign, and return and mix with the
world again. He would enter Parliament; a man so well acquainted
as himself with the Gold Coast of Africa and with the trade of
the West Indies must always be of value in the Lower House. This
value would be recognized, no doubt, and he would become at first
an Under-Secretary for the Colonies, and then, in time, Colonial
Secretary and a cabinet minister. She would like that, he
thought. And after that place had been reached, all things were
possible. For years he had not dreamed such dreams--not since he
had been a clerk in the Foreign Office. They seemed just as
possible now as they had seemed real then, and just as near. He
felt it was all absolutely in his own hands.
He descended to the dining-room with the air of a man who already
felt the cares of high responsibility upon his shoulders. His
head was erect and his chest thrown forward. He was ten
years younger; his manner was alert, assured, and gracious. As
he passed through the halls he was impatient of the familiar
settings of Government House; they seemed to him like the
furnishings of a hotel where he had paid his bill, and where his
luggage was lying strapped for departure in the hallway.
In his library he saw on his table a number of papers lying open
waiting for his signature, the dog-tax among the others. He
smiled to remember how important it had seemed to him in the
past--in that past of indolence and easy content. Now he was on
fire to put this rekindled ambition to work, to tell the woman
who had lighted it that it was all from her and for her, that
without her he had existed, that now he had begun to live.
They had never found him so delighful{sic} as he appeared that
night. He was like a man on the eve of a holiday. He made a
jest of his past efforts; he made them see, as he now saw it for
the first time, that side of the life of the Windless Isles which
was narrow and petty, even ridiculous. He talked of big men in a
big way; he criticised, and expounded, and advanced his own
theories of government and the proper control of an empire.
Collier, who had returned from his unsuccessful search of the
plantations, shook his head.
"It's a pity you are not in London now," he said, sincerely.
"They need some one there who has been on the spot. They can't
direct the colonies from what they know of them in Whitehall."
Sir Charles fingered the dinner cloth nervously, and when he
spoke, fixed his eyes anxiously upon Miss Cameron.
"Do you know," he said, "I have been thinking of doing that very
thing, of resigning my post here and going back, entering
Parliament, and all the rest of it."
His declaration met with a unanimous chorus of delight. Miss
Cameron nodded her head with eager approval.
"Yes, if I were a man, that is where I should wish to be," she
said, "at the heart of it. Why, whatever you say in the House of
Commons is heard all over the world the next morning."
Sir Charles felt the blood tingle in his pulses. He had not been
so stirred in years. Her words ran to his head like wine.
Mr. Collier raised his glass.
"Here's to our next meeting," he said, "on the terrace of the
House of Commons."
But Miss Cameron interrupted. "No; to the Colonial Secretary,"
she amended.
"Oh yes," they assented, rising, and so drank his health, smiling
down upon him with kind, friendly glances and good-will.
"To the Colonial Secretary," they said. Sir Charles clasped the
arms of his chair tightly with his hands; his eyes were half
closed, and his lips pressed into a grim, confident smile. He
felt that a single word from her would make all that they
suggested possible. If she cared for such things, they were
hers; he had them to give; they were ready lying at her feet. He
knew that the power had always been with him, lying dormant in
his heart and brain. It had only waited for the touch of the
Princess to wake it into life.
The American visitors were to sail for the mainland the next day,
but he had come to know them so well in the brief period of
their visit that he felt he dared speak to her that same night.
At least he could give her some word that would keep him in her
mind until they met again in London, or until she had considered
her answer. He could not expect her to answer at once. She
could take much time. What else had he to do now but to wait for
her answer? It was now all that made life.
Collier and his wife had left the veranda and had crossed the
lawn towards the water's edge. The moonlight fell full upon them
with all the splendor of the tropics, and lit the night with a
brilliant, dazzling radiance. From where Miss Cameron sat on the
veranda in the shadow, Sir Charles could see only the white
outline of her figure and the indolent movement of her fan.
Collier had left his wife and was returning slowly towards the
step. Sir Charles felt that if he meant to speak he must speak
now, and quickly. He rose and placed himself beside her in the
shadow, and the girl turned her head inquiringly and looked up at
him.
But on the instant the hush of the night was broken by a
sharp challenge, and the sound of men's voices raised in anger;
there was the noise of a struggle on the gravel, and from the
corner of the house the two sentries came running, dragging
between them a slight figure that fought and wrestled to be free.
Sir Charles exclaimed with indignant impatience, and turning,
strode quickly to the head of the steps.
"What does this mean?" he demanded. "What are you doing with
that man? Why did you bring him here?"
As the soldiers straightened to attention, their prisoner ceased
to struggle, and stood with his head bent on his chest. His
sombrero was pulled down low across his forehead.
"He was crawling through the bushes, Sir Charles," the soldier
panted, "watching that gentleman, sir,"--he nodded over his
shoulder towards Collier. "I challenged, and he jumped to run,
and we collared him. He resisted, Sir Charles."
The mind of the Governor was concerned with other matters than
trespassers.
"Well, take him to the barracks, then," he said. "Report to
me in the morning. That will do."
The prisoner wheeled eagerly, without further show of resistance,
and the soldiers closed in on him on either side. But as the
three men moved away together, their faces, which had been in
shadow, were now turned towards Mr. Collier, who was advancing
leisurely, and with silent footsteps, across the grass. He met
them face to face, and as he did so the prisoner sprang back and
threw out his arms in front of him, with the gesture of a man who
entreats silence. Mr. Collier halted as though struck to stone,
and the two men confronted each other without moving.
"Good God!" Mr. Collier whispered.
He turned stiffly and slowly, as though in a trance, and beckoned
to his wife, who had followed him.
"Alice!" he called. He stepped backwards towards her, and taking
her hand in one of his, drew her towards the prisoner. "Here he
is!" he said.
They heard her cry "Henry!" with the fierceness of a call for
help, and saw her rush forward and stumble into the arms of
the prisoner, and their two heads were bent close together.
Collier ran up the steps and explained breathlessly.
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