"It was like stepping into hell, Señor Strawbridge. There never was a woman so miserable as I. I was afraid to confess such awful things, even to Father Benicio, but at last I did. He was the only human soul to whom I could turn. Good, kind Father Benicio! He saved me from going mad."
As she finished her story the American's optimism returned. "Maybe I can do something about this," he said thoughtfully. "I never have talked to General Fombombo about his business policy, but I really must now. I'll start in about Josefa. I'll show the general how the boy meant no harm. I'll get him taken out; then I'll show the general how his policy as a whole is bad for business—"
"Oh, no, no, no!" interrupted the señora in alarm. "It won't help at all."
"Not if I show him it's bad business?"
"Señor, the general doesn't care that about business!" She snapped her fingers.
Thomas Strawbridge smiled in the darkness.
"That's where you don't know men, señora," he assured her from his wider knowledge. "Every man cares about business. There is no man on earth that isn't wrapped up in some sort of business. Well, I think I'll step inside and see what I can do." He patted her hand where it lay on the arm of her chair. There was something about its softness and littleness that sent a strange, sweet sensation up Strawbridge's arm and suffused his body. The next moment he moved into the palace, with his usual quick, rangy strides.
When Strawbridge entered the library of the palace he found only Coronel Saturnino, who was working at his desk. Near the entrance stood one of the palace guards. The silence was almost complete; Strawbridge could hear the faint scratch of the colonel's pen as he toiled at his endless preparations to seize San Geronimo.
The drummer was on the verge of calling out to ask the whereabouts of General Fombombo, when it occurred to him that this Coronel Saturnino was at that moment devising plans upon which, quite possibly, his own safety depended.
It was rather an extraordinary thought for the salesman. There was something dramatic about it—a man working silently in the great, still library, determining whether Strawbridge should live or die. And there stood Strawbridge, near the door, unable to assist in the slightest degree in this determination of his fate. It was a queer, almost a ghostly feeling. Somehow it clothed Coronel Saturnino with a kind of awesome superiority. A sort of premonition of the raid on San Geronimo came to the drummer, a charging of horsemen, sword thrusts, the flash of small arms.... His visualization was based largely upon a cheap chromo called "The Fall of the Alamo" which had hung in the parlor of his home in Keokuk. In this picture the artist had been very liberal with blood and dead men. Strawbridge decided not to call to Coronel Saturnino, but to allow him to work undisturbed.
The drummer nodded the guard to him. The little brown man glanced around at the colonel, then moved silently toward the American, evidently with scruples. When he was close enough, Strawbridge whispered:
"Where is the general?"
The man was amazed at such a question.
"Señor, I am a guard, not a spy."
The salesman was faintly amused.
"Aw, come now! What's the big idea? You know me. You see me every day around this joint. So spit it out, man: where did the general go?"
The little fellow shrugged, pulled down the corners of his mouth, and moved silently back to his post.
This irritated the American. He told the guard, under his breath, to go to hell, and that faint explosion sufficed to wipe the incident from his mind. He turned out into the corridor again and walked toward the front of the building, in an aimless search for the dictator, while his thoughts returned to the señora and the misfortunes of little Josefa.
He began composing a speech against the time he found the general, a kind of sales talk designed to set Josefa free. He would say the little clerk had not volunteered the information about General Fombombo's business methods. That had been wrung from him by the fact that he, Strawbridge, was about to arrange a hardware display. From this point of departure the drummer hoped to proceed into a constructive criticism of the general's whole dictatorial policy. It might do a lot of good, probably would. He was making the general's problems his problems, and now he rather thought he had solved one. He could fancy the general looking him straight in the eye and saying, "Strawbridge—by God!—I believe you've hit the nail on the head!" As a matter of fact, the drummer knew the general never used profanity, but somehow he placed this blasphemy in the general's mouth because it sounded strong and admiring, as one frank, manly American curses at another when his admiration reaches a certain low boiling-point.
The drummer walked slowly down the corridor, listeningat each door as he passed, but he reached the entrance of the palace without hearing the general's voice.
Strawbridge came to a halt near the guard at the entrance, and stood wondering what he should do. The injustice of Josefa's imprisonment spurred him to do something. He stood looking into the plaza below him, which was illy lighted. A rather large audience was collecting, for it was concert night. The semi-weekly concert of the firemen's band would begin in about half an hour. A thought that he might find General Fombombo in the audience sent the drummer down the long flight of ornamental stairs into the plaza.
In the park was a typical Wednesday-evening crowd such as were gathering in all the larger towns in South America. Near the band stand was a high stack of folding chairs, and peon boys hurried among the audience, renting these chairs at two cents each for the evening. Dark-eyed señoritas in mantillas and fashionable short skirts chose seats under the electric lights, where they could cross their legs and best display their well-turned calves and tiny Spanish feet. The greater part of the crowd preferred to walk. They moved in a procession around the plaza, the men clockwise, the women anticlockwise, so the men were continually passing a line of women, and vice versa. There was an endless tipping of hats, tossing of flowers, and brief exchange of phrases. Here and there an engaged couple strolled about the square together. To be seen thus was equivalent to an announcement.
The drummer was walking among this crowd, glancing about for the President, when a hand touched his shoulder. He looked around and saw Lubito the bull-fighter with a peon companion. This peon was a youth who wore alpargatas, but the rest of his costume had the cheap smartness of the poorer class of Venezuelans who trig themselves out for the Wednesday-night concerts. In contrast to his finery, there was something severe, almost tragic in the youth's pale-olive face.
"This is Esteban, señor," introduced the torero, reaching back and settling his wad of hair. "You remember him—Madruja's lover, who is half married to her. That makes him the demi-husband of a demi-monde."
Strawbridge extended his hand, rather amused at the oddity of the introduction.
"Caramba!" ejaculated Lubito. "Do you smile at a man in distress, señor?"
The drummer straightened his face.
"Oh, no, not at all! I am glad to meet Señor Esteban. By the way, I was just out hunting General Fom—"
Esteban lifted a quick hand.
"Señor," he cautioned in an undertone, "it is not wise to speak that name in a public place, such as this."
Strawbridge glanced around, rather surprised.
"I was saying no harm. Besides, he's a friend of mine. In fact, I was looking for him, to ask a little favor."
"Yes?" interrogated Lubito.
"It's about a youngster named Josefa. The general put him in prison—"
"Diablo, señor!" gasped Esteban. "I beg of you not to speak of these things in the plaza!"
The drummer was impressed with the peon's alarm. His feeling was reinforced by the knowledge that Josefa was in prison on account of just such a casual conversation as this. So he said:
"Well, now you know what I had to tell you, and who I am hunting."
The bull-fighter nodded gravely.
"I see you are going to do a certain friend of yours a little favor."
"Yes, get him out of trouble."
The torero turned to his companion.
"You see, Esteban, he isun hombre muy simpaticobutvery indiscreet. Do you know what he did to me in Caracas?Caramba!I was standing on the street corner watching some domino-players. Every one knows that the domino-players are the police's own stool-pigeons.Cá!I was standing there watching them when thishombrecomes along and roars in my ears, 'Where is thecasawhere the great revolutionist, General Adriano Fombombo lives!'Madre de Jesu!I almost fainted. I could see myself rotting in La Rotunda!"
"He has a lion's heart," declared Esteban.
"And a donkey's brain," retorted the bull-fighter.
Strawbridge had heard enough of this.
"With your permission, señors, I will continue my search."
"But don't you want to watch the crowd, señor?" suggested Lubito. "There, look at that little officer with the swagger-stick; perhaps you know him?"
The drummer saw a sharp-featured young officer with dark circles of dissipation under his eyes.
"No, I don't know him."
"You don't know the Teniente Rosales?"
"No, I never heard of him."
Lubito gave the drummer a side glance.
"It is not a bad idea to say you don't know him, at any rate."
"Why, I don't!" repeated the drummer, emphatically, looking around at the bull-fighter in surprise.
Esteban interrupted:
"You see, Lubito, he is far more discreet than you gave him credit for. Perhaps he recognizedyouon the street corner of Caracas."
The bull-fighter looked at Esteban and then at Strawbridge.
"Caramba!I never thought of that!"
This conversation was getting too cryptic for Strawbridge.
"I don't know what you're talking about," he said, "so,once more with your permission, I'll go." He turned to leave his companions.
Lubito interrupted:
"Wait; we're going in your direction ourselves. Come on, Esteban, we might as well have pleasant company."
"Oh, ... all right," agreed the drummer, rather surprised at this.
The three men drew away from the crowd, and for some distance walked in silence. They directed their course along the shadowy parts of the plaza and then to the adjoining streets. At last Lubito said with a casual air:
"We hear you have joined the cavalry, señor."
"For the expedition against San Geronimo," qualified the drummer.
"You are a military man, no doubt?"
"No, not at all."
The bull-fighter seemed surprised.
"Are you going as a simple private?"
"Well, y-es," hesitated Strawbridge, with the complete reason of his going floating unsaid in his mind.
"No doubt you wish to make friends with the common people—the peons, thegriffes, the mestizos, who make up this God-forsaken country, señor, and who are not of the pure Castilian blood as Esteban and I."
Strawbridge could not see whither this conversation was leading. He said, very honestly:
"Naturally; I want to make friends with every one."
"We thought so," nodded the torero; "we observed how you speak to all persons, great and small, how you stop on the street to give moral advice even to the lottery-ticket venders, how you sympathize with the unfortunate Josefa, and say conditions should be changed. Yes, you certainly are very careful to make friends with every one."
Strawbridge was surprised that the bull-fighter had so complete a digest of his most trivial acts. Also, here and there in Lubito's tones flickered an insinuation of some hidden meaning which annoyed the drummer.
"Look here," he said frankly. "What are you driving at? You know I rode from Caracas with you. You know I'm selling firearms to the general, and hardware to anybody else."
"Sí, señor," agreed Lubito, politely, "but why should you seek to make friends with this fellow and that fellow—the lowest and the meanest?"
The drummer was a little irritated.
"I want to make friends with everybody; in the long run it will be of advantage to my house."
"Your house?" from Esteban.
"I mean the commercial firm I work for."
The two peons nodded thoughtfully. Esteban observed:
"A lottery-ticket vender, who cannot afford clothes for his nakedness, will hardly buy guns and hardware...."
The salesman was growing weary of these innuendoes.
"Look here," he said in the perfectly friendly voice with a disagreeable content that is sometimes used by Americans in these circumstances, "I don't give a damn what you fellows think. I can't explain every look and word by my business. I'm friendly because I ... I'm just naturally friendly. I call a man who isn't friendly a damn fool. Here I am walking with you two guys. I don't expect to sellyouguns and hardware, either, but I'm walking with you, just the same."
He looked at both of them after this little speech. Both were obviously and entirely unconvinced. They shrugged slightly.
"Pues, pues! Bien! Cá! Seguramente!" They walked slowly on, evidently in deep thought. Presently Lubito broke the silence:
"Señor, you will pardon me. We knew all the time you were telling us the precise truth. What I said was by way of jest. Esteban, there, misunderstood, because he is a little dull. There is just one other point Esteban does not understand, and I confess it puzzled me a bit, too. But I will not ask it if you are angry, señor. Perhaps, after all, we would better talk of other things. I think you have lost patience with your two poor stupid friends."
"No," denied the drummer, rather ashamed of his little outbreak, "I haven't lost patience, but you don't seem to believe what I tell you."
"Oh,sí, señor! yes we do!" chorused the two, earnestly. "Caramba!We would not think of doubting acaballero'sword!"
"Well, then, what's your question?"
"Exactly this: you are not a military man?"
"No."
"You are going to fight at San Geronimo as a trooper?"
"Yes."
"You came here to sell hardware?"
"Yes."
"Then ... I am very stupid ... but why do you fight?"
"Can you sell hardware to dead men on a battle-field?" added Esteban.
Strawbridge looked at his questioners, with a misgiving that he would never make them understand the true situation. They would never realize the necessity of learning the complete details of a customer's business. He began talking very carefully, as if he were explaining a lesson to a child:
"I am joining the raid on San Geronimo to get a working idea of my patron's business conditions."
Lubito nodded.
"Before I sell a market, I like to know it thoroughly."
"Precisamente."
"Before I sell a man a tool, I want practical, first-hand knowledge of just how he is going to use it, what he needs, why he needs it. That's the American method." Launched on his favorite theme, Strawbridge spoke with a certain fervor.
"But why is that, señor?" puzzled Esteban. "If you sell a man anything, it is his. He has it. You have sold it."
"Sh! let him explain!"
"No, that's a good question," declared Strawbridge, with enthusiasm. "I sell you something. Why am I concerned about how you use it? The use of that article is your problem. But perhaps with my expert knowledge I can show you how to use it better, or perhaps I can devise a way to make you a better tool. Then you will be a satisfied customer, and a satisfied customer is the best advertisement in the world." Strawbridge shook his fist. "When you buy anything from me, gentlemen, you are not buying just my goods, you are buying human service!" He popped his fist into his palm. "You are buying the best in me to coöperate with the best in you, and between us we'll make this world a better world to live in." He nodded sharply. "See?"
The drummer paused. The bull-fighter and the peon looked at each other. After several seconds had passed, Esteban said:
"For example, señor, if I wanted to buy a dirk to cut Lubito's throat, you would come and cut it first to see what kind of knife I should use?"
Strawbridge was a little cooled.
"Well, ... that is just about the size of my San Geronimo trip; isn't it? You seem to have hit the nail on the head."
Esteban became thoughtful.
"So you are going to aid—" his voice sank—"General Fombombo."
"Yes, sure I am."
"And it makes no difference whetherheis right or wrong. You will help him steal my Madruja, steal Señor Fando's horse, steal Señor Rosario's ranch, put Josefa in irons, do this, that, and the other, break our bodies, destroy our souls, cut us down, and grind us like corn in his mill. It makes no difference to you; you are going to help him in all that!"
Strawbridge was shocked at this sudden attack on the moral end of his business, by the peon who had lost his sweetheart. He became more carefully logical and less rhetorical. In fact, he was exploring new ground, a territory over which his old man had not coached him, so he was not so sure of himself.
"It's like this: I'm doing my part of this thing in a business way. If everybody would work in a business way, there wouldn't be any of this rough stuff you're talking about, because that's bad business. In fact, I was just on my way around to see the general. I'm going to get Josefa out of prison, and I think I can stop all this other sort of thing. I believe I can put this whole country on a business basis."
"But you, yourself, are going to San Geronimo to help kill men, just to show him how to work his guns!"
Here Lubito interrupted in a disgusted tone:
"Esteban, you fool, just because you've lost your Madruja, your head is hot and you see nothing in the light of reason. This tale Señor Strawbridge told us is the tale he tells the general, and makeshimbelieve it. By this means he goes to San Geronimo with the cavalry.Caramba!I am amazed that even a stupid peon should not see so simple a thing!"
Esteban stared, and grinned faintly.
"Cá!He told it so cleverly that even I believed it, too!"
Strawbridge looked at his companions.
"What'n hell are you talking about?" he demanded.
Lubito held up a finger.
"Everything is well, señor." He nodded confidentially. "You are a much deeper man that I thought. Everythingis as you would wish it. In only one way would I caution you."
"Damned if I know where you are heading in, but what do you want to caution me about?"
"It is this, señor—you will take it as a friend; we are brothers now—it is this: When our country became so bad under General Dimancho that it could go no farther, we appealed to General Miedo for aid, and he promised us if he won power we should have justice, that every peon should possess his wife and daughters and property in peace, señor, precisely as you say."
In the greatest astonishment Strawbridge stared at the bull-fighter.
"What's that got to do with me?"
"Nothing, nothing at all, señor, but General Miedo forgot his pledges when he reached power. He forgot his pledges as men are prone to do, and our country became even worse than when it was under General Dimancho. So we went to General—" Lubito dropped to a whisper—"to General Fombombo, who had a ranch down on the Orinoco near Ciudad Bolívar. Andhepromised our deputation if we raised him to the highest seat our wives and daughters and property should be our own. Señor Strawbridge, the monument to General Fombombo that stands back there in the plaza marks the spot where he stood General Miedo up before his soldiers and shot him through the heart."
A goose-flesh feeling brushed over the drummer.
"Lubito," he said, "what in hell has this got to do with me?"
"Nothing, señor, nothing at all. I merely mention this by way of information. You want information. All Americans want information. They want that the most badly of all the things they need. Also, there is a saying in Rio Negro, señor, that a gray-eyed man shall free us. And we have triedour own people so many times, señor, and so sorrowfully, that we are weary of trying Venezuelans, and would fain try a man of another nation."
Strawbridge was dumbfounded. He could do nothing but stand and stare at his companions. At last he made an effort and said in a queer voice:
"Men, you've got me wrong; you've got me completely wrong."
"Seguramente!You are a salesman of hardware, who goes to war to show the dictator what knife cuts a throat best." Lubito laughed briefly. "We do not know what throat you mean to cut first, señor—you are a deep man—but here we part for the night. This building on your left is the west wing of thepalacio. In those lighted windows you will find the general with Madruja. You said you wished to find him. There he is. I do not know what you wish to say or do to the general. I will not ask. You say, yourself, that you are amaestroin the cutting of throats. No one knows when or where you may see fit to give a lesson." Lubito laughed. "Remember, Lubito and Esteban are your friends.Adio' hasta mañana."
"Adios," returned Strawbridge.
His two companions turned and moved away toward the plaza. In the distance the firemen's band had struck up a sensuous Spanish waltz. The drummer stood meditating on the amazing thing Lubito had told him. Such a usurpation was as remote from Strawbridge's temperament as the stars, but nevertheless he was profoundly moved. For some reason the Señora Fombombo came into his mind. He saw her as clearly as if she stood before him in bright day. He put her vision from him, and stared resolutely at the brightly lighted windows across the dark street. In an effort to bring his mind back to his own affairs, he drew out his silver cigar-case and lighted up. He tipped up his face in order that his eyes mightescape the smoke. Out of the heavens a thousand brilliant stars offered him counsel. Presently Lubito and Lubito's insurgency faded from his mind. He finally sifted down the exact problem which he had to meet. Should he go over and ask for Josefa's release and extend to the general his views on the proper business methods to be used in Rio Negro?
Should he go now? That was his problem. An American caught in the presence of his mistress would probably be in a dour mood. On the other hand, the thought of the little monkey-eyed Josefa, lingering out another night in the filthy dungeons of La Fortuna, filled Strawbridge with pity and remorse. The youth was entirely innocent, and he, Strawbridge, had put him in his cell. On the other hand, a badly timed interview could very well be of no service to Josefa, and might lose the drummer a two-hundred-and-fifty thousand-dollar order for rifles.
He wondered what his old man would advise him to do in this emergency. The drummer looked up at the stars and sought advice just as earnestly as any religious martyr would have prayed to these same heavens. If he had known what his old man would suggest, he would have done it.
The coal on Strawbridge's cigar glowed and faded at long intervals, and presently there struggled up out of the drummer's subconscious a memory of a little framed motto which his employer had hung over his desk. It read:
The greatest assets of any firm are the honor and courage of its salesmen; next comes the quality of its goods.
The greatest assets of any firm are the honor and courage of its salesmen; next comes the quality of its goods.
Religious martyrs, in their extremity, have been known to receive answers from the heavens they interrogated. Thomas Strawbridge, also, had received his. He drew a deep puff of smoke, thumped away his cigar, which made a dull spiral of fire as it fell through the darkness; then he started briskly across the street.
One of the palace guards delayed Strawbridge for a few moments at the entrance of the west wing of the palace, to ask his master if the American might be admitted. A little later the soldier returned and opened a door into a brightly lighted sitting-room which evidently corresponded to the music-room in the east wing. Some rugs made of Indian blankets, chairs, and a couch of colored native wickerwork gave a look of richness and rather intemperate color to the room. The high light of this ensemble, that which held it all together and subordinated it, was the peon girl Madruja. Strawbridge obtained rather a bewildered impression of her. In fact, no man ever gets the details of an unusually comely woman at first glance.
General Fombombo, rising from the wicker couch where he had been sitting beside the girl, begged permission to leave her for a moment, to which Madruja assented with a mute gesture. The President came forward to Strawbridge, with both hands outstretched, radiating welcome.
"Mi caro amigo," he greeted, "I am charmed to have you see my little ménage. What do you think of my color scheme?" He stood gripping the drummer's hand and looking about at the room with that detachment which the arrival of a third person always gives an artist toward his work. The general picked out a doubtful point: "What do you think of the clasp that holds down the drapery between her breasts?"
Strawbridge barely managed to see the clasp against the glow of the girl. He said he thought it was a very nice clasp.
"No, I mean would you prefer garnet or ruby just there?I tried garnet at first, but I found that her eyes would endure the fire of a ruby. Ah, Señor Strawbridge, you are doubtless aware that not one woman in fifty can wear a ruby in her bosom."
Strawbridge cleared his throat and said he knew rubies were very expensive.
This introduced a little gap in the conversation. The dictator changed his manner from the enthusiasm of an artist to the courtesy of a host:
"I believe you have not as yet had the pleasure of meeting Señorita Rosamel." Here he led Strawbridge nearer Madruja. "Señorita, may I present my dear friend Señor Tomas Strawbridge of Nueva York?"
The girl remained seated and simply extended a hand. Whether she did this out of timidity, or out of pride in her new silks and jewels, the drummer could not guess. The hand she placed in his was small and not badly shaped, but hard and rough from the work of a peon woman. She said nothing at all, but sat looking at Strawbridge out of black eyes which could endure the fire of a ruby. They were the shining, surfacy eyes one sees in wild animals and in entirely illiterate persons. Of what thoughts, if any, lay behind those surfaces, the drummer could not get the slightest inkling.
However, she seemed tractable enough. With a little sinuous movement she made room on the couch for the general. With perfect inertness she allowed him to possess her hand. He picked it up, spread it in his palm, and began patting and stroking it while his conversation returned to Strawbridge.
"You may light a cigar in here and be comfortable," he invited. "Madruja is no obstacle to relaxation; rather, an assistance. Have you never observed that your thoughts flow more smoothly when your arm is about a pretty woman?"
None of the scene was agreeable to Strawbridge, but this peculiar turn caused him to ejaculate:
"You canthinkbetter with your arm around a woman?"
"Seguramente, señor," agreed the dictator. "Have you not observed that some men twiddle a pencil when they think, others smoke, some walk up and down with their hands behind their backs? All of these are mere bachelorish makeshifts. Your true thinker meditates with a woman's head on his shoulder. It is, you might say, señor, the only connection between a woman's head and thought."
As the general's thought had become more involved, he had drawn Madruja to him and now sat caressing her, his fingers playing abstractedly with the ruby and along the faint indentures of her clavicles.
Strawbridge disapproved of this almost beyond patience. He resented this establishment in the west wing of the palace, on account of the señora. It seemed to him that it would have been much more decent and respectful if the dictator had taken away this second ménage, had hidden it out of sight and denied it as Americans do in such cases.
"I don't know about a woman giving a man ideas," he blurted out, with disapproval tingeing his tones.
"Read the life of Simon Bolivar," returned the general, easily, still caressing the source of his own inspiration. "In the 'Diario de Bucaramanga,' by de la Croix, we learn that Bolivar was unable to plan any of the great battles which freed the South American continent except when he was dancing with a woman. Every night, during his military campaigns, he danced till one or two o'clock, planning his next great stroke at Spain. That is what genius is, Señor Strawbridge—the ability to draw on outside sources of power. The women with whom Bolivar danced—what were they? Batteries. Bolivar was the motor. They furnished him the energy to lift this whole continent from tyranny to the untrammeled freedom enjoyed in Rio Negro to-day."
The general paused a moment and continued:
"Take me and Madruja. Out of the wealth of this woman's muliebrity, I will extend the state of Rio Negro from the Andes to the sea. She and I will build up great cities; gardenize the llanos; develop a people with the finesse of the French, the energy of the Americans, and the immensitude of the Spanish!" He pressed the girl to him passionately, moved with the magnificence of his vision, then put her beside him again and came down to a more normal mood by taking her hand once more and spreading it in his own.
This last ebullition was more than Strawbridge could tolerate. If all this had been expounded over Dolores Fombombo, had Dolores been alternately crushed and caressed, the drummer would have thought the relations between the President and his wife the most beautiful he had ever known. But the fact that Fombombo had shifted women rendered it outrageous. Strawbridge had to speak for the wife.
"Look here," he criticized. "That's all right. You seem to get a lot of pep out of this young lady, but look here—" at this point Mr. Strawbridge made one of those moral pauses which Americans inherit from their Sunday-school teachers—"had you thought of your wife?"
"Had I thought of my wife?"
"Yes; had you?"
"What is there to think of my wife?"
For some reason the drummer blushed slightly.
"It looks to me like she ought to come in there somewhere. Doesn't look like another woman should step in and ... er ... uh...." He waved his hand.
The general was enlightened.
"I see what you mean." He smiled. "That is a quaint American idea of yours."
"It's American," defended Strawbridge stoutly, "but I don't see that it's quaint."
"Perhaps 'quaint' is not the word, but if I may speak impersonally and in no way appear to criticize the American point of view, I should say it is very disrespectful in a man to think of a wife in such a way as this. I feel safe in saying that no Spanishcaballerowould consider it for a moment."
The drummer stared at this extraordinary statement.
"Disrespectful! Do you think it would be more disrespectful to plan your empire under your wife's inspiration than to set up an establishment like this?"
"Caramba, Señor Strawbridge! certainly! When I enter my wife's presence I am a Spanish gentleman." Here the dictator made a bow to a space which represented his wife. "I think of nothing but her. For example, if Dolores were in this room would our conversation have wandered about like this? Certainly not. Could we have smoked, or talked on risqué topics? Certainly not. The Spaniard keeps his mistresses, Señor Strawbridge, out of sincere respect and devotion to—" he made another slight bow toward the empty space—"to his wife."
It was an extraordinary attitude, and as far as the drummer could analyze it, seemed informed with a fine chivalry. He sat looking rather numbly at the dictator with the gorgeous peon girl in his arms. He gave up that point of attack, and shifted the topic of conversation, American fashion, by saying suddenly and rather loudly:
"Well, not to change the subject, General, I dropped around to-night to set right a little mistake we made the other day."
The President abandoned South America's favorite topic, Woman, with evident reluctance.
"Yes?" he questioned.
"Yes, it's about Josefa."
The President repeated the name emptily.
"The little clerk you put in prison the other day; don't you remember? You jailed him because he told me how you ran your government."
Even the diplomatic general showed surprise.
"Josefa? How do you know I imprisoned a man named Josefa?"
Strawbridge burst out laughing.
"You can't expect me to tell who told me. You might jug that person, too."
"Hardly that," said the dictator, drily. "Then will you tell me why this unmentioned person said I imprisoned a man named Josefa?"
"I'll tell you about Josefa. He's already in trouble. The other day I was down at the 'Sol y Sombra,' and I wanted to make a hardware display to boost trade in my line. Josefa was dead against it. I was about to put up the display anyway, when Josefa said if I did it would certainly cause the government tax on the store to advance, and maybe lead to its confiscation. I didn't believe it, but he went ahead to tell me how the Government had grabbed one man's ranch because it stood the dry season better than—"
"Señor Strawbridge," interrupted the general, with a little line coming around the lobe of his nose, "you have been made the victim of the usual calumnious gossip which circulates too freely in Canalejos. The ranch to which you probably refer was a deserted hacienda, and, rather than allow its lands to go to waste, the Government occupied it."
Strawbridge saw by the general's face that he would help no one by pursuing that course, so he said, "Oh, was that the way?" as if he had heard the explanation for the first time. He then shifted about to his next topic.
"General," he began, "I've been thinking about Canalejos and Rio Negro, and the way you run things down here.Don't you believe you would get more out of it if you would make all investments perfectly safe in your country?"
"I shall have to ask you to explain that, too."
"For example, Fando, that peon whose horse you took for your cavalry. No doubt the loss of his horse stopped the cultivation of his hacienda, and yet to some extent the wealth of Rio Negro depends upon Fando's land being cultivated."
"That is true," admitted the dictator, stiffly, "but it is more important that the liberty and independence of Rio Negro be maintained than that Fando have a horse. You must be aware, Señor Strawbridge, that the prime necessity of any government is its governmental existence. You are an American. Everything you possess, down to your body, is liable to conscription in time of military necessity, is it not?"
"Yes, that's true, but I get paid for what my Government seizes."
"What would it pay you?"
"Money, of course."
"There you are," smiled the general, getting back on comfortable abstractions again. "Money is a medium of exchange, a promise of goods in the future. The value of American money depends upon America's winning her wars. Unfortunately I have no Rio Negran money yet, though I think I shall print some. If I had it, of course I would pay Fando. Why not? It wouldn't cost me anything. On the other hand, if I finally win against the State of Venezuela, Fando will not be forgotten. In short, my dear Señor Strawbridge, I seize the goods of the people for the good of the people—just as every other government does."
Thomas Strawbridge nodded his agreement and, with a sense of frustration, arose to make his devoirs. He wished he could have got Josefa out. The poor little monkey-eyed clerk was at that moment lying in some loathsome dungeon of La Fortuna. Well, it could not be helped.
Strawbridge gave a little sigh, smiled mechanically, and advanced to the couch with outstretched hand.
"Well, I hope my talk has done no harm, General. I'm really keen to help you in a business way."
The dictator arose, and suggested that his guest remain. He said Madruja would be charmed if Strawbridge would stay. With the girl thrust on his attention like that, the salesman bent over her hand to make his adieus to her.
Her hand rested limply in his, and she remained mute while he expressed his pleasure at meeting her.
As she stood thus, looking at him over their clasped hands, with her black surfaced eyes, there came the sound of a door opening behind the men. The black eyes of the girl shifted a little from Strawbridge's face and stared over his shoulder. A change came over her features as if she had seen a ghost. Even her scarlet lips paled. With her lips she formed, rather than said the name, "Esteban!"
Both Fombombo and Strawbridge whirled. In the doorway stood a peon boy with a knife in his hand. He wore the cheap finery which peons don for concert night. Esteban's face was drawn and clay-colored, and he stood blinking in the bright light which bewildered his eyes.
The dictator evidently did not know who Esteban was. He rapped out sternly:
"Bribon, what do you mean entering this room without permission?"
The youth replied with a sudden lunge at the President. Strawbridge saw the flash of the knife, and, with a remnant of his old football interference, shot his body, shoulder down, straight into the midriff of the leaping figure.
The American's two hundred and ten pounds hit the boy like a catapult. It smashed him backward and down. His knife snapped out of his hands, his hat flew off, his head struck heavily on the tiled floor. The general was callingangrily for the guards. A moment later three of these little men entered the door, with their rifles.
The President pointed at the youth on the floor.
"Take thatbribon. He made an attack on me. You rascals will have to explain how he got in!"
The three guards, rather panic-struck, pounced on the peon. They got him up and held his arms behind him. Strawbridge's blow in the stomach had made Esteban sick, and now he bent over as far as his captors would permit, retching and slobbering, with anguished eyes looking at the girl.
"Madruja!" he gasped between his convulsions. "Eh, Madruja,mi vida, I would give my last breath for—"
"What are you saying to Madruja?" demanded the President.
"She is my wife," gasped Esteban, painfully. "You locked her up in this room and then ... took her!"
The dictator stared at the fellow.
"Locked her up and took her! Do you imagine I would take any woman? She came to me of her own will!" He turned to the girl and his voice changed: "Here, Madruja, my darling, my little heaven, deny this empty-headed rascal's charge!"
The girl stood staring at the two men.
"What,Señor el Presidente?" She trembled.
"Deny this charge. Or, rather, here is a villain who calls himself your husband; choose between us. You are free, you have always been free. And you,bribon, you too are free. I mean it.—Loose him men!—Choose between me and this wretch!"
The three guards released Esteban's arms. The peon looked about, then advanced a step toward the girl, with a bewildered joy coming into his sick face.
"Madruja!" he wavered, holding out his arms. "Madruja,did you hear what thePresidentesaid? Did you hear what the goodPresidentesaid, little Madruja?" He was approaching her, shuddering with his sickness and his sudden rapture.
The girl looked at him fixedly. She withdrew a step.
"Caramba, Esteban!" she shrugged, "you smell of donkeys. You have done a mad thing coming here. I am not a peon girl any more. I am the mistress ofSeñor el Presidente. Look at me! See this silk, this ruby! Do you imagine I would grind cassava for a peon who smells like a donkey?" She shrugged, and turned away to a window.
In the silence that followed, one of the little guards saluted.
"What shall we do with him, your Excellency?"
"Kick him out of thepalacioand let him go!"
The three soldiers obeyed literally and promptly. They seized Esteban from behind and trundled him toward the door, with hard kicks of their knees against his buttocks. The wretch moved, half falling, half held up, in a series of jounces which kept his head bobbing and his mop of shining youthful hair whipping from side to side. After the quartet passed through the door Strawbridge could still hear the muffled thuds of the guards' knees as they kicked Esteban down the corridor toward the entrance.
The incident left Strawbridge mute. The dictator interrupted his intellectual vacancy by saying:
"Señor Strawbridge, I have to thank you for your interference. I might have had a cut or two from that young madman before I could secure his knife." The general's arm encircled Madruja as he spoke. The girl submitted without any expression whatever on her wild, handsome face.
"It was nothing, General, nothing at all. As I have said before, any little service...." Strawbridge broke off and stood pondering a moment, then asked, "Will you tell me,General, why you imprison Josefa for merely speaking a word of criticism of your country, and then have Esteban kicked out and allowed to go free when he makes an attack on your life?"
The dictator shrugged.
"What I did to Esteban will stop Esteban; what I did to Josefa will stop Josefa." The President of Rio Negro stood faintly smiling and caressing the finely molded shoulders of his mistress.
Strawbridge was outraged.
"Why, there is no justice in that! Imprison a man for life for speaking a word; let another go free when he attempts murder!"
With amused eyes the President regarded his guest.
"Señor Strawbridge, what you say is a result of your unfortunate American commercial training. You Americans have a naïve idea that justice is a sort of balancing of an account. You try to make the severity of the punishment balance with the heinousness of the crime. It is your national instinct to keep a ledger.
"But what is justice? Is there any accountant in heaven or on earth calling for any such exactitude? Is punishment a thing that can be measured or weighed? What good does punishing a man do? Whom does it benefit? Nobody. There is only one object in punishment, and that is to stop crimes. Any effort to balance a punishment with a crime is absurd and the work of infantile intelligences. Take Esteban. He attacked my life. If I disgrace him before this lovely señorita here, if I kick him out of my palace, do you fancy he will ever have the hardihood to return? You know he won't. On the contrary, if I had imprisoned him, as I did Josefa, that would have made a hero of him, and every lover of every one of my mistresses would feel obliged to come and chop at me with hisknife. If they know they will be kicked out and laughed at, they will not come. In short, the punishment cures the crime."
"But look at Josefa!" cried Strawbridge. "He did almost nothing, and you have put him in a dungeon for life!"
The dictator became stern.
"He talked too much. The only place for a man who talks too much is where there is no one to talk to. No other punishment on earth will stop an idle tongue."
Strawbridge stood thinking over this extraordinary code of law. It was not justice as the drummer knew it; it was a code of expediency. As usual, the President's reasoning appeared to be correct and unanswerable.
To Thomas Strawbridge the expedition against San Geronimo was invested with a sense of unreality. Every detail of it cast a faint doubt on the credibility of the drummer's impressions—the rabble of peon cavalry, mounted on mules, donkeys, and a few horses; a motley of women—wives, mistresses, and sweethearts of the soldiers—some in carts, some riding donkeys, some on foot. The troops hauled a single three-pound field-gun with its snout in an old canvas bag and its breech wrapped in palm-leaves. Not less unbelievable was the priest, Father Benicio, in his black cassock and priest's round black hat. He was mounted on a mule, and at his pommel hung his crucifix, a little gourd of consecrated oil, and a vial of holy water. With these instruments of grace he would administer extreme unction to the unfortunate of the expedition.
The string of adventurers was sufficiently long so that when Strawbridge looked back from his place in the van the women and soldiers at the end of the column appeared hazy from the dust and shimmered with the heat-waves.
It was a breathless and wilting heat. When Strawbridge crossed the llanos in a motor-car the hot wind had depressed him, but now, without the speed of the automobile, the heat enveloped him with a greasy, pinching sensation. The warmth of his horse's body kept his legs sudsy. He tried to squirm his flesh away from his wet underclothes. Often he would ride five minutes at a time with his eyes shut against the glare of the sun reflected from the sand.
For ten or twelve kilometers the route of the army followedthe left bank of the Rio Negro. The rapids set in just below the city of Canalejos, and for upward of a mile they filled the air with a vast watery rumble. But the river was so wide that Strawbridge could see from the shore nothing but a ripple in the broad yellow waters. The thunder of the rapids appeared to arise out of a placid expanse without cause. It was as if the river were in some mysterious travail.
The passage of the army flushed white egrets from along the bank, and once six flamingos arose and winged slowly away, making a crimson line against the sky. Along the sand-bars huge caymans slept in an ecstasy of heat. Their long whitish bellies fitted over stones and the curves in the sand with a kind of disgusting flexibility.
Some time later the line of march veered away from the river and lost itself in the endless, almost imperceptible undulations of the llanos. The monotony of these llanos somehow nibbled away the last shred of reality for Thomas Strawbridge. It seemed to him that everything in the world had ceased to exist except this shimmering furnace of sand.
The drummer rode at a post of honor, at the head of the column beside Coronel Saturnino. Behind him came the fighters, in a gradually thickening dust, until the end of the column traveled in a cloud. The colonel himself moved along impassively, apparently as little affected by the heat as the saddle he sat. He kept looking about as if he recognized landmarks in the endless repetition of the llanos. Presently he pointed through the glare and said:
"There is 'El Limon,' Señor Strawbridge."
The drummer screwed up his eyes against the shimmer, and made out what looked like a grove of trees on the horizon. Nearer, the spot developed into trees and a house of some sort. There seemed to be only one house. Strawbridge stared mechanically. The heat dulled his perceptions.
"What is it?" he asked.
"A hacienda. It belongs to an English firm, and is in federal territory. We are outside of General Fombombo's scope of influence now."
Strawbridge repeated these last words mechanically; the meaning was almost baked out of them by the heat of the sun beating on his head. "Outside of General Fombombo's scope of influence...." The drummer remembered the red line on the map in the library. So that was where he was—on that red line. The whole force of peons, officers, men, and women were crossing that red line and trying to extend it.
"How far is it to San Geronimo?" he asked.
"We're about half-way."
Strawbridge rode on for ten or fifteen minutes, with his eyes resting on the deep green of the grove. It was a eucalyptus grove. He noted this vaguely; then his mind went back to the answer to his questions. They were about half the distance ... outside the scope of General Fombombo's influence.... A red line on the map of Venezuela.... They were extending that, pushing it eastward and southward.... Somewhere the señora was playing a piano in a cool room.... The pleasant señora.... God, but it was hot!
The estate of "El Limon," in the Orinoco basin, belonged to an English meat-packing concern, and it was managed by a Trinidadian and his wife, the Tollivers. These English colonials lived in a ranch-house made of stone instead of adobe. Near the dwelling-house stood a vast wooden barn. It was this barn which Strawbridge had seen from a distance. House and barn were shaded by a magnificent eucalyptus grove, and these great trees formed the only restful spot amid the leagues of burning llanos. It was an English experiment and importation, this grove, and not another like it existed in all Venezuela.
Mr. Tolliver was a tall, rangy man wearing a native palm-fiber hat and alpargatas. He was burned browner than thenatives themselves, but it was the deep reddish-brown of the Anglo-Saxon, not the yellowish-brown of a Spaniard. Out of this deep-brown face two pale English eyes looked on Venezuela, in chill condemnation.
As the seekers of liberty rode up, Mr. Tolliver stood with his back to a high barbed-wire enclosure around his barn, with his elbows and one big foot propped back against its wires. With a depth of sarcasm marking his bearded mouth and glinting out of his pale eyes, he watched the cavalcade. As the army filed into the cool glade, Mr. Tolliver remarked in the queer mouthy English of a West Indian colonial:
"Well, you bloody sons of liberty are after my stock again, I see."
Coronel Saturnino betrayed no annoyance at this reception. He bade the rancher "Buenos tardes," and asked if his men might eat in the shade. The big Trinidadian gave a sardonic consent. Saturnino sat on his horse, enjoying this relief from the sun, and glanced about over the barbed-wire enclosure.
"You have a fine Hereford bull, Señor Tolliver," he admired.
The rancher did not turn his head.
"At present I have," he remarked drily.
"And some excellent chickens," smiled the colonel, who seemed to be enjoying some private jest.
These very mild and complimentary observations seemed suddenly to enrage Tolliver. He put his foot down and burst out:
"What the bloody hell makes you drool along like that? Why don't you say what you're going to steal, and quit purring like a cat?"
Saturnino shrugged politely.
"You must pardon me, Señor Tolliver. I so seldom meet an Englishman, I am not yet an expert in discourtesy." The officer continued his observation of the estate: "And horses,Señor Tolliver, mounts for my men. If you could spare a few horses...."
The suggestion irritated the Trinidadian to a remarkable degree. His eyes filled with a pale fire, and with a concentration which surprised the drummer he called down the curses of God on the colonel. In the midst of this outburst, the rancher's eyes fell on Strawbridge. He stopped his profanity abruptly and stared.
"Look here," he demanded, "aren't you a white man?"
The tone and implication left Strawbridge rather uncomfortable in the presence of the Venezuelan.
"I'm an American," he said, avoiding the issue of color.
"Well, what the bloody hell are you following this gang of cut-throats and horse-thieves around for!"
The rancher's qualifications were edged with a righteous anger. Indeed, the fellow's oaths seemed to strip off a certain moral semblance which had hung over the expedition and leave it threadbare and shabby. The drummer hardly knew how to answer, when Coronel Saturnino relieved him of the necessity of answering at all. The officer very courteously introduced the rancher to the salesman and explained the latter's business.
The deep-brown Englishman stood appraising Strawbridge, and at last remarked:
"Well, you Americans certainly chase dollars in tighter places than any other decent man would. But, anyway, you're a white man. So come on in and have lunch. My wife and I get so bloody lonesome out here in this hell-hole, we're glad to see anything that's white."
Strawbridge was about to refuse this scathing hospitality, when Coronel Saturnino burst out laughing.
"Go!" he urged. "We shall be here for some time, rounding up some horses, and you need a rest and something to eat; you look exhausted."
The drummer agreed, and climbed stiffly off his horse. Notwithstanding the Englishman's brusquerie, Strawbridge rather liked the tall, brown, pale-eyed man. After the perpetual tepid courtesy of the Venezuelans his downrightness was as bracing as a cold shower.
Once Tolliver had decided to accept Thomas Strawbridge as a respectable white man in good standing, he did it wholeheartedly. He preceded his guest through a yard set with flowers in formal stone-bordered beds, a mode of flower arrangement dear to an Englishwoman's heart, no matter in what part of the world she is. The stone house had a wide wooden porch running completely around it. In front this was furnished with mats, a number of pieces of porch furniture, and a swing; around at one side were littered harness, garden tools, two or three boxes, and a number of large calabashes sawed off at the top. All the doors and windows were screened with copper gauze. Tolliver went to the door and spoke through the screen.
"Lizzie," he called, "Mr. Strawbridge, an American gentleman, will lunch with us," and a moment later a woman's pleasant voice called back, "Ask him whether he will have green or black tea, George."
While the two men were seated on the porch, looking over the grove, Tolliver, with an Englishman's pertinacity, returned to the topic of American dollar-chasing.
"I don't see how you run around with these scrapings," he criticized. "My eyes, man! you've got to be careful who you sell rifles to in this bloody country! Half these beggars can't be trusted with firearms—" He broke off, peering out into his barn lot. "Look—look yonder, at those women catching up my chickens! When an army of liberation sets out from Canalejos, about half of 'em stop at my ranch, load up with my live stock, and go back home—the damn,thieving...." Here Tolliver clapped his hands, and a native boy of about fourteen appeared in the doorway.
"Pedro," snapped the rancher, "go tell that bloody officer not to disturb any hens with chickens. I won't have it!"
The boy bobbed and darted away with the message.
The Trinidadian watched him go, and then returned sourly to the subject under discussion:
"Revolutions are always stewing in Rio Negro—one set of thieves after another. A bunch comes through every six or eight months. They are always about to do wonderful things. I remember one time I provisioned General Dimancho. He was just about to save his country. I believed him. He won, and spoiled like an egg. Then Miedo made me a very expensive visit. He really talked me over. They can all talk you over if you listen to 'em. As long as they are not in power, they're the best of patriots. Miedo was going to stabilize Venezuela. Well, he did take Rio Negro, and he squeezed it drier than the shell of that calabash yonder." The rancher made a rough gesture. "God! the rotters who have squirmed and fought their way to power and debauchery in this damnable country!" With pale, angry eyes he stared into the grove. "The trouble is in the stock ... scrub ... scum. You can't make any decent government out of this ... manure." And Tolliver dropped the subject.
Twenty minutes later a rather faded but still pretty young woman in a gingham dress came out at the door, smiled at the two men, and told them that tiffin was ready. Strawbridge was introduced to Lizzie Tolliver. Later, during the lunch, the drummer learned that his hostess was the daughter of the Bishop of St. Kitts.
The luncheon hour was occupied by George Tolliver in relating the peculiar difficulties which beset his cattle ranch. This hacienda had been established as a feeder for an English meat-packing corporation at Valencia.
To begin with, a packing-house had been established at Valencia, and a contract made with the Venezuelan President that he should furnish the house with so many first-class steers daily. This the President had failed to do, furnishing, instead, a supply of under-grade animals. Repeated protests from the English company produced no effect. At last the company had established this ranch on the Orinoco to furnish itself with meat. The venture proved a success. By importing fine bulls the company raised the grade of the llano longhorns into a very superior beef cattle. As soon as the English syndicate had demonstrated its ability to raise good beef, the Venezuelan President instructed the Venezuelan congress to place a heavy interstate tax on all cattle transported from one state to another. This tax was so onerous that the company could not afford to move a hoof from the State of Guarico to the State of Carabobo, where Valencia was situated. The result was that the company was forced to buy the President's low-grade cattle, while the meat raised on its own hacienda had no possible market and simply went to waste.
At the conclusion of this narrative, Tolliver broke into acidulous laughter.
"Now you see why I aided General Dimancho and General Miedo to start a revolution against the Venezuelan Government. In fact, I was given the hint from the London office. Well, each of these men won in his turn, and both grew so bad that they were ousted. Fombombo was the last deliverer. But of late I hear rumors that he has turned out to be a damned rascal and they are trying to overthrow him now."
Here Lizzie Tolliver, who had been giving her husband significant glances throughout this narrative, interrupted to say:
"George, you would better not speak so unreservedly of Mr. Strawbridge's friends."
"Friends! Friends!" shouted the Trinidadian. "They are not Strawbridge's friends! We Anglo-Saxons trade with these natives; we talk with 'em, live among 'em, and occasionally marry 'em, but we never really get acquainted with any of 'em, and we never make a friend."
There was a certain verity in the rancher's appraisal, and the Tollivers themselves proved it. During this brief lunch hour the drummer and his English hosts were talking intimately and understandingly in a fashion which Strawbridge perhaps would never achieve with the colonel, Lubito, Father Benicio, or even with the señora....
The drummer wondered about the señora....
A few minutes later the little party was interrupted by the appearance of the native boy in the doorway, who said that Coronel Saturnino was waiting outside. Tolliver arose, and Strawbridge followed, saying that perhaps the troops were ready to march.
On the porch they found Coronel Saturnino standing at attention, with a very affable air, holding in his hand a sheet of paper.
He made a slight bow and tendered the paper.
"Here is a receipt, Señor Tolliver, for twenty horses, three cows, fifty chickens, and eleven ducks," he explained blandly. "As we come back by here General Fombombo would greatly appreciate one of your thoroughbred Hereford bulls, to be used on his ranch for breeding-purposes, and I have just included the bull in this receipt."
The Trinidadian burst out into another paroxysm of profane anger. The officer shrugged mildly.
"You need not take it,mi amigo, unless you want it, but it will be valuable to you some day."
"What day? How? I've heard that before!"
"This receipt is payable on the day General Fombombo extends his estate to the sea. When that day comes, presentthis receipt at the capital of the future state of Rio Negro, and you will be paid in full."
Tolliver broke into sardonic laughter.
"To hell with you and your receipt! General Miedo was to pay me when he marched into Caracas as a conqueror."
Coronel Saturnino bowed and tossed the paper away.
"You English folk are childish," he philosophized. "You have no sense of the inevitable. You, señor, suffer from the same evils as all other citizens of Venezuela. I, and my men out there, are risking our lives to rectify those ills. Many of them will die to-morrow, that is ineluctable. Yet while they spend their lives to benefit you, you grudge them even the beef and a few fowls which they eat and the horses upon which they ride to their death."
Tolliver drew a disgusted mouth.
"I've heard that so many times it makes me sick."
Saturnino bowed again.
"May I pay my respects to the señora, and may I wish youadios, pues." He turned to Strawbridge. "Señor, the company awaits your convenience."