"All of us know that Money talks throughout our glorious nation,But Money whispers low compared to business reputation.For men will talk this wide world o'er; take this under advisement.To have them talking for you is the wisest advertisement.Pull off no slick nor crooked deal, for pennies or for dollars.God! think of all the trade you'll lose if just one sucker hollers!"
"All of us know that Money talks throughout our glorious nation,But Money whispers low compared to business reputation.For men will talk this wide world o'er; take this under advisement.To have them talking for you is the wisest advertisement.Pull off no slick nor crooked deal, for pennies or for dollars.God! think of all the trade you'll lose if just one sucker hollers!"
"All of us know that Money talks throughout our glorious nation,But Money whispers low compared to business reputation.For men will talk this wide world o'er; take this under advisement.To have them talking for you is the wisest advertisement.Pull off no slick nor crooked deal, for pennies or for dollars.God! think of all the trade you'll lose if just one sucker hollers!"
"All of us know that Money talks throughout our glorious nation,
But Money whispers low compared to business reputation.
For men will talk this wide world o'er; take this under advisement.
To have them talking for you is the wisest advertisement.
Pull off no slick nor crooked deal, for pennies or for dollars.
God! think of all the trade you'll lose if just one sucker hollers!"
For some reason these admirable verses seemed to irritate Coronel Saturnino more than all the abuse shouted by Captain Vargas. He turned sharply on Strawbridge.
"Señor," he snapped, "there is a difference between a stupid business conducted in the midst of profound peace and a band of men struggling for life in the midst of war. In peace one can look to the future, but in war we must seize on the present. That barter on the dock represents so much available capital for our insurgent government. Do you imagine I am going to divide it with a private individual when the salvation of our whole country hangs in the balance?"
Captain Vargas reiterated his intention of sailing away without more ado, down the river, but Coronel Saturnino then informed him that the insurgent government would be forced to conscript theConcepcion Inmaculadafor the purpose of freighting barter to Rio.
Oaths, arguments, and prayers availed nothing with the colonel. TheConcepcion Inmaculadawould be employed by the provisional government until hostilities ceased.
As Strawbridge returned up theplayawith the colonel, that officer's good humor returned. He began smiling again, a little ironically.
"Now, this matter of theConcepcion Inmaculada.... If our revolution wins, Señor Strawbridge, I shall be accountedin history as a great financier; if we lose, I shall be known as a thief and a murderer. In your own country, señor, have you ever discovered any difference between thieves and financiers, except that the one loses and the one succeeds?"
On the third day a part of the insurgent cavalry set out for Canalejos. San Geronimo was now "consolidated." It belonged inside the red line on the map in General Fombombo's study. Strawbridge decided he would go back with the squadron.
During these three days the drummer's wounded hand had been steadily growing worse. Coronel Saturnino tried to persuade the American to remain in San Geronimo until his wound healed, but Strawbridge declared he had important business with General Fombombo. He said he was afraid that the capture of so many federal rifles would ruin his trade with the general.
Saturnino assured him the acquisition of the rifles in thecasa fuertewould not influence the general in the slightest degree. But Strawbridge was far from convinced. He had seen Saturnino's word tested often enough to doubt it. He knew the colonel's Latin penchant for a pleasant falsehood rather than an unpleasant truth.
But behind his anxiety about the rifles, Strawbridge was homesick for Canalejos. He really wanted to see the señora, to sit with her on the piazza in the evenings, and hear her play the piano. Thoughts of her came to him with an ineffable charm and sweetness.
So on the third day he set out with the troops, with a wounded hand and with the vision of a slender music-making figure in a nun's garb, moving before him like a mirage over a desert.
The drummer had not traversed twelve kilometers before his wound took a wicked turn. With the jolting of his horse the aching increased, and the arm swelled clear up to hisshoulder. He grew feverish, then somehow, in the furnace of the llanos, he imagined that he was in the cavalry charge again. He suddenly began spurring his horse and waving an imaginary carbine at a roof full of Federals. Then the Federals seemed to capture him. He struggled terrifically, but the Federals pinioned him and were going to execute him, just as Rosales had been executed.
Thereafter Strawbridge's delirium was broken by intervals of clarity. Several times he became rational, to find himself bound fast to a litter which was swung between two mules. Then he would be about to be executed again.
For a long time, when the drummer emerged into an interval of clear thinking, he found himself in the furnace of sunshine on the llanos; an eternity or two later he regained consciousness shuddering with cold, and saw the sky above him filled with stars. The squadron had gone on ahead, leaving the sick man with Father Benicio, Gumersindo, and the pack-mules.
On the morning of the second day, Strawbridge thought he heard the priest say they would soon be at home. The next thing the drummer knew he lay in a great bed, with cold packs on his hand and arm and all over him. And he saw what to him was the most beautiful face in the world, looking down at him, weeping silently. The American had barely the strength to extend his good hand.
"Señora ..." he whispered.
The woman suddenly sobbed aloud.
"Oh, señor, they have told me what a hero you were!"
Then the señora suddenly flickered out again.
Strawbridge could understand only snatches of Benavente's satire which the señora was reading. When the Spanish girl read, she reverted to the soft Castilian pronunciation of her childhood, and Strawbridge's ear was accustomed to the hard colonial accent of South America.
Benavente has a leaning toward the theme of unfaithful wives, and the comedy which the señora had chosen to read was of this type.
As the reading progressed, the mood of the satire, the quirks and turns of Benavente's wit played over the girl's face as if from some delicate, changing illumination, as indeed it was. Presently, in the sheer pleasure of watching her, the sick man gave up the effort to follow the text. He had never before observed such a radiance about her, such a fine, ardent life in her. The drummer's nationality evoked the thought that some artist ought to paint Dolores sitting thus reading. It was his American instinct to commercialize the moment, not for its monetary value but for its pleasure value. He was under the abiding American delusion that pleasures are somehow bottleable; that a pleasure can be commanded to stand still in the heavens, somewhat after the fashion of Joshua's sun. It is the command of these American Joshuas which has inflicted on the world the phonograph, the kodak, the college annual, place-card collections, and the family album.
As the drummer studied the señora's face, he observed,when she smiled, a little dimple in her left cheek. Somehow this tiny discovery stirred the sick man in a subtle way. With a feeling of peculiar intimacy he watched it come and go. It seemed to advertise, ever so delicately, veiled and exquisite reserves in the nunnish figure. It amazed him that he had not seen, until just now, how lovely the señora was. It seemed as if beauty had been spilled over her.
He lay warming himself in this miracle, when the girl looked up, studied his face a moment, then accused playfully:
"Cá!señor, you are not listening to a word I read. What are your thoughts?"
The sick man was taken aback when he was thus brought to a realization of the vague compound of admiration, sensuous longing, and wistfulness which moved his heart, for the wife of another man. He moistened his lips to say something, when the señora assisted him:
"I dare say you are lying there thinking about your business."
The drummer accepted the suggestion:
"Perhaps I was."
"You mustn't worry about it."
At this negative suggestion, Strawbridge did begin to worry:
"I think I have a right to, señora, when my trip down to San Geronimo spoiled the very thing I went after."
"How is that?"
The sick man tossed his head on his pillow.
"Oh, you know I wanted to sell the general rifles. Well ... I helped him capture all he can use ... ruined my own sale." The salesman laughed a little, but he was not amused.
The girl did not smile.
"Has your trade really fallen through, after all you've done?"
"Sure! A sale can slip away from you just so easy." He stared at the ceiling, with hollow, troubled eyes.
With a faint, tender smile, the girl looked at her patient.
"Tell me, Tomas: why do you place such great stress on selling, selling, selling?"
He looked at her, weakly surprised.
"Why, that's my job!"
"Yes, I know, but you will sell to some one else if not to the general."
"But the idea is not to miss a sale; to get everybody; to do a big business."
The señora laughed outright but kindlily.
"Yes, but what is the object of your big business, that you work at it with such fury? You already make the money you need."
"I didn't know I worked at it with such fury."
"Cá!You do!"
The drummer pondered a moment.
"Well, a man just naturally wants a big business, and, besides, my old man expects it. I'll lose my job if I don't."
"Pues, your 'old man,' then: why does he want a big business? What does he mean finally to do with it?"
Strawbridge, with a sick man's suggestibility, stopped fretting about his own sale and lay pondering gently what his old man meant to do with his business. He could not imagine his old mandoinganything with his business except running it, expanding it, beating down competitors with it. Just then he recalled an explanation which is current with every American, and which finds expression in every American paper and magazine, so he repeated it:
"Why, business is a game with my old man, señora; he never will stop, because that's his game. He takes a pride in seeing how big a business he can develop, just as he tries to make a low golf score. Business is the American game."
The señora smiled at such naïveté. She might not have smiled had she known that Strawbridge had sounded for her the depth of American popular philosophy on the point; but, not knowing that, she put it down to the drummer's general childishness.
"Tomas," she said gently, "do you really think that a game, any game, is the whole of a man's life? Would you be willing, Tomas, to spend the whole of your life playing a game?"
"That's what everybody believes in America, señora."
"Surely Americans must be wrong!"
"I don't know. What do you think?"
"I have wondered. You are the only American I have ever known, Tomas, and you were so big and strong and restless, I could not help saying to myself, 'Why is he so restless? He is not poor; any one can see that. What does he mean to do with his fortune that he rushes so to get?'" The señora quoted her thoughts pensively, and then added, "Still, I suppose I do know."
"Why, why?" blurted out the drummer, greatly surprised.
"You wish to make your fortune equal to that of some wealthy girl's."
"A wealthy girl's...." The drummer looked at the Spanish girl quite blankly, then, as her implication penetrated him, he was moved to a somewhat abrupt denial:
"No, señora, no girls for mine ... at least not yet." He shifted his bulk a trifle and lay looking at her defensively; then he saw where her logic had led her. "Why, the idea! We were talking about why all Americans work so, and you think they work because they want to get married. What an idea!"
"But doesn't that explain a great many, señor?"
"Mighty few business fellows. When we are boys we have our sweethearts, of course, but when we get out intobusiness, women sort of drop out of our lives for eight or ten years. We chase 'em a little, but not much. Later, when our business justifies it, we buy us a motor, a bungalow, and a girl,—I mean, we pick out a girl and marry her,—but getting married is just a symptom that a man is getting on in his business; it's not the aim of his business, at all. The business clicks away just the same, whether he marries or not."
It would be difficult to say just how much the señora was moved at this reversal of ordinary human motives. She looked at the drummer for several moments, and finally asked in an odd voice:
"How do you decide you have the reached a position to marry, Señor Tomas?"
"Oh, that depends on your ideals. When I was a kid I thought fifteen a week and a flivver would do. As I got older my ideals went up, and now I've got to have ten thousand a year and a twelve-cylinder."
"And you have no particular girl in view?"
The drummer laughed weakly.
"When you've got ten thousand a year, you don't have to have any particular girl in view. You've got to keep out of view, or some flapper 'll land you."
The señora shook her head.
"I don't understand it, Tomas," she said gently. "It seems to me you deserve something finer than what you say. It's so ... like a machine." She flushed faintly, and arose, saying that she must make the sick man some broth.
"You'll be back soon, señora?" he asked anxiously.
She smiled at him, picked up a salver from a table, and went out.
With the departure of the señora, the sense of pleasure which had enveloped Strawbridge also vanished. It gave him the same feeling of loss that he experienced at timeswhen he stepped out of the glow and romance of a theater, into a dull, prosaic street. Still, after all, it was in dull, prosaic streets that money was made and ambitious young fellows gained headway. A query trickled into the drummer's mind. He wondered if it would be possible, if it were in the scope of things to take some of the glow and romance of the theater out into life, to keep it there, always to have this dear warmth in his heart ... if theseñora.... A quiver went through the drummer at the direction in which his musing had led him. He came to a sudden stop, deserted the theater which his fancy had built, and walked slowly out into the prosaic street once more.
When his door opened again, Strawbridge saw, to his disgust, that it was thegriffegirl who had brought him his broth. The girl had had a serious part in nursing Strawbridge over his wound and the solar fever which exposure in the campaign had caused. This had bred in her considerable authority. So now, as she entered, she narrowed her black eyes, nodded firmly at her patient, and said, "You are to drink this, señor."
The salesman was outraged that the maid should have come instead of the mistress. He turned on his side away from her.
"Don't want any."
"But the señora said you were to drink it."
"Don't believe it's time."
"You can look at your watch, if it hasn't stopped running. You never remember to wind it. Have you wound it this morning?"
The drummer fumbled under his pillow for the watch. It was still running, and stood at eleven minutes after his broth-time. He wound it with the sensitive fingers of the sick. As he did so, he stared ill-temperedly through thewindow and observed a number of banners waving in the plaza. He broke out:
"Look here! Are they going to have another damn fiesta? What's it for? Good Lord! the time they waste on fiestas!"
At this outbreak thegriffegirl stared at him, then wrinkled her freckled snub nose, and went off into such a gust of light-headed giggling that Strawbridge was irritated anew.
"What the hell you whinnying like that for?"
The maid caught up the corner of her apron and stuffed it into her mouth as a mirth-extinguisher. The American received the tray on the side of his bed, glaring at the girl, who plainly was about to burst out laughing again. A sudden plan came to him.
"I'm going to get up," he announced.
The maid was horrified.
"Oh, señor, you are not!"
"Oh, señorita, I am!"
"But you mustn't. It'll make you worse!"
"I'm all right. I feel all right. I'm going to get up, so get out of here!" He began tumbling his big body around under the sheets.
Thegriffegirl became desperate.
"But, señor, the señora has not said so; the doctor has not said so; nobody has given you permission...." She was trying to shoo him back under the cover with her hands.
"Are you going to get out or not?"
"Señor, you must not get up!"
"Oh, all right! Stick around and get an eyeful...." He began heaving himself up, tumbling back the sheet.
Thegriffegirl started backing out of the room. She resisted him morally to the last ditch, motioning him back into bed, but being gradually expelled as larger and larger segments of his pink pajamas came into view. The queer part was that in Strawbridge's extreme weakness thegriffegirlhad assisted one of the guards in the drummer's necessities; now she was whisked out of the room by the sight of his pajamas. Such is the power of matter over mind.
Strawbridge made a sorry mess of getting his clothes on, until Pambo, the guard who had served him during his illness, came in—sent, no doubt, by thegriffegirl—and helped. Pambo was a pleasant little fellow, and instead of discouraging the invalid's effort he congratulated him on his improvement, and suggested a walk down into the plaza.
After the dressing, the two men left the palace and moved very slowly through the sunshine to a seat in the plaza. The guard placed the invalid's chair in the deep shade of amamonetree, then, promising to return in half an hour, went back to his duties.
Already a crowd of idlers were gathered in the plaza, watching the preparations for the fête. The invalid sat in the color and stir, with that feeling of soft, weak pleasure that comes to a man after the pains of the sick-bed have vanished. All things were very grateful to him—the sunshine, the movement of the crowd, the calls of the venders, the heroic statue of General Fombombo offering on a scroll to the State of Rio Negro, Liberty, Fraternity, Equality.
Presently the firemen's band in red coats and blue trousers began gathering, with their instruments. Pleasure-seekers grew thicker, and commenced renting chairs and placing them around a band stand which was shaped like a huge conch-shell. Girls in mantillas began with their fans to conduct discreet flirtations. Certain bolder women moved among the crowd, waiting for some one to accost them. Two or three priests from the cathedral mingled with their flock. One father moved about with his eyes riveted on a little Bible, having selected this strange place for his religious meditations.
A number of persons saluted the drummer, which rather surprised him, for the upper-class Venezuelans are usually reserved toward foreigners. Strawbridge was thinking over his sudden popularity, with the mildly amused superiority of a North American, when he saw approaching him a negro in a white linen suit. As this figure came nearer, the sick man recognized Gumersindo in gala attire. The negro bowed deeply, congratulated Strawbridge on his early convalescence, then took a copy of "El Correo del Rio Negro" from his pocket and pressed it upon his friend.
"Have you read my description of the battle of San Geronimo,mi caro señor?" he asked warmly. "Caramba!I do not say I have excelled, but Father Benicio, a man of excellent judgment, assures me these pages—" he tapped the paper—"will go down to posterity as one of the great battle descriptions of history. You will find your own name mentioned,mi amigo. I have taken the liberty of comparing you to the Swiss Guard at Versailles and the English regiment at Carabobo—a wounded lion, señor, crouched before the shield of Rio Negro!"
All this was uttered in a tone of impassioned eloquence, and now the black editor astonished Strawbridge by suddenly wringing his hand and hurrying away, leaving the paper with the invalid.
The drummer was amused at this emotion in Gumersindo, which he did not understand, but his sickness had brought with it a certain pensiveness, and he sat pondering on the springs of Gumersindo's enthusiasm. To write a history that would be handed down to posterity! What was the use of it? The American wondered what he would like to hand down to posterity, and he thought of life-insurance. Strawbridge glanced through his "Correo." Gumersindo had written six columns of closely printed matter. The American folded the paper and laid it across his lap.
The crowd in the plaza grew more interesting. Government dignitaries, merchants, and professional men began to arrive. Men collected in knots and conversed with excited gestures. Presently a great cheering went up, and Strawbridge saw General Fombombo traversing the plaza, in the presidential motor. At his side sat the peon girl Madruja. She held up her chin like a queen, and the line of her olive throat against her furs might have been a stroke of Raphael. Even in the brief glimpse of their passage, Strawbridge got an impression that the general was fondling her hand.
The outrage set up in the sick man's head vague fancies of liberating Dolores. He thought of divorce. The Spanish girl ought to get a divorce. She had every provocation. But of course there were no divorces in Roman Catholic Rio Negro.
The sound of a chair being dragged close to his own caused Strawbridge to glance around. He saw Lubito smiling and settling a chair in the turf by his side. On the other side of Lubito, Esteban was unfolding another chair. The peon youth seemed thinner and more care-worn than on the night when he had attacked General Fombombo.
The bull-fighter was very cordial.
"Caramba!I'm glad to see you alive, señor! I read in the paper how badly you were wounded, and what a hero you were." At the drummer's demurring gesture, he persisted with renewed force: "Oh, we know all about it. I said to Esteban, 'You called Señor Tomas acobardebecause he did not choose to assist you that night in thepalacio. Nothing could be farther from the truth.'"
The peon youth stopped his steady stare into the plaza, to ask:
"But why did he turn against me?"
Lubito shrugged and made a gesture.
"How should I know? Am I as deep as the sea?Perhaps to save you. Had he not used his influence onel Presidente, no doubt you would have been rotting to-day in La Fortuna; but instead he had you turned out, and here you are, as free as a bird."
"I don't understand why he turned against me in a fight," repeated the peon, doggedly.
"Caramba!If you had a head to understand that, Esteban, you would not need to sit here gnawing your fingers now. I am far brighter than you, Esteban, but this Señor Strawbridge is a dark man to me. He moves in his own way, Esteban. He is like a cayman in the Orinoco; no man can tell when or where or at what he strikes."
The drummer followed this panegyric a little uncomfortably.
"Look here," he inquired: "how did I get such a swell reputation for double-crossing?"
"How!Caramba!Did you not despatch poor Lieutenant Rosales to his death at thecasa fuertein San Geronimo? He would have failed, but you gave him the strength to go on—but how far?" The bull-fighter held up a stubby forefinger and whispered an answer to his question: "Just as far as you pleased that he should go—and then he fell. But you: did any blame attach to you? None at all. You had a wealthy ship-owner sail up the Orinoco and bribe the insurgents in your behalf. Oh, we have heard everything, not through this paper, but—you know—from mouth to mouth.Caramba!this ship-owner poured out gold for you—box after box. It was easy enough to see whose gold it was!"
"Whose?" cried Strawbridge, quite amazed at so grotesque a misinterpretation of the facts.
"Whose! Whose!Diantre, Esteban! such a man! Why, señor, whose should it be but your own! Would any ordinary sailor have so much gold to fling about? No, it was your own gold, and only He who looks down upon the doings ofmen—only He knows how many other ways you are reaching out, raking this poor country of Rio Negro into your power. You had poor Rosales killed; he would have been a rival of yours one day, for he had the pride of Satan. You have a warm friend in Señor Tolliver, and yet he has been the enemy of allrevolutionistasfor years. You have twistedel Presidentearound your finger, and—" Lubito paused and winked delicately—"and I hear thatla señorais no bitter enemy of yours, either!Caramba!What a man!"
Strawbridge flushed and dropped his amused look.
"Say, just leave the señora out of this, will you?"
"How?"
"She is a lovely girl in the most painful position. I have done nothing more than any gentleman would do if he had a spark of manhood."
Lubito looked at the American rather blankly.
"Seguramente, señor, anycaballerowould do what you have done ... if he had a spark of manhood.Seguramente!I ... I hope you will allow a friend to ... to....Cá!... to congratulate you, señor."
This equivocal sentence brought the conversation to an impasse. The drummer was on the verge of taking offense at the innuendo, when Esteban interrupted in a very miserable voice:
"Señor Strawbridge, you are a wise man. Tell me what I can do to regain Madruja."
The drummer was touched at the peon's unashamed desolation.
"Esteban," he said seriously, "I don't know what you can do. I have been thinking over your very question—in a general way. There are no courts to separate her from ... from him. There is no public opinion to force him to give her up. There is no—"
"But, señor," interrupted the peon, "she—mi Madruja adorata—is not withel Presidenteany more!"
Strawbridge leaned forward and peered around the bull-fighter at the peon.
"Not with him any more? What do you mean, Esteban?"
The youth made a desperate gesture.
"May the lightning strike God, but he has flung her out into the streets, señor!"
Strawbridge stared.
"Are you crazy, Esteban? I saw Madruja and the general drive past in a motor, not ten minutes ago!"
Lubito interrupted:
"No, you did not, señor. That was another girl he has picked up. Madruja is ... well, to speak plainly ... Madruja is growing heavy after the manner of women, and really, now—" the bull-fighter shrugged and opened a hand—"really, now, what couldel Presidentedo but turn her out?" He looked from one of his friends to the other and said intimately, "Now, really.... I dare say we have all been fathers at one time or another.... What else could he have done?"
Strawbridge did not hear this observation. He sat perfectly still in his chair, and said in a shocked tone:
"He really did!"
Lubito answered again:
"Ciertamente, señor; but any one could have foretold that. Do you not recall, Esteban, I told you that in advance? Do you not recall my saying, 'Esteban,mi bravo, cheer up. Presentlyel Presidentewill grow weary of your Madruja, and you will have her back'?"
The drummer sat pondering the facts, in a benumbed manner. Somehow this Madruja affair touched him painfully. Presently he looked at Esteban and asked:
"Well, ... did you get her back! Do you want her back?"
Lubito replied for his friend:
"Diablo!no, he didn't get her back!El Presidentehas a way with women. The poor girl is completely mad. She lives alone in a big house, and weeps night and day. She says the general will come back to her as soon as he grows weary of this new mistress. 'But, Madruja,' I argued with her, 'he will always have a new mistress! He always has had. Now take back poor Esteban. Look at him. See how he loves you. Your poor Esteban!' But she curls up her pretty mouth. 'Esteban! Esteban!' she says. 'Stupid as a donkey, dull as an old hound's tooth! Do you think I would take a poor lout of a peon in this house whichel Presidentehas given me?'
"'Pues,' I said, for I always did admire her, 'Pues, take me!' She gave me a straight look, for we were talking to her through the bars of her window. 'You! What do you know, Señor Lubito, about the grand super-civilization of the future republic of Rio Negro? Do you know how to make all these wide sandy llanos bloom and bear fruit! Your sword has never carved an empire—nothing but bulls!'" The bull-fighter looked at the drummer in a puzzled fashion, shrugged, and finally added, "She is utterly mad."
Strawbridge did not know why the general's second infidelity stirred him so deeply. For some reason it sent him hurrying weakly back, through the heat, to the palace. What he meant to do when he got there, what he could do, he did not know.
The drummer reached the side door almost exhausted and rang the bell. He waited several minutes in the intense heat of the sunshine. At last the door was opened by thegriffegirl. She gave just one glance, then swooped on him, caught him about the waist, and helped him inside.
"Caramba!Señor Tomas, you are as white as a sheet! You are about to fall! You must go to bed at once. I told you—"
"Where is your mistress?" panted the drummer.
The girl was dictatorial.
"Cá!What do you want with the señora? I tell you to go to bed! I told you never to...."
The maid's question helped temper Strawbridge's impulse. After all, what did he want with the señora! What did he mean to say to her! There was nothing to say, much less to do. He began to realize how empty his impulse was of any possible action.
"What do you want with her?" repeated the maid, holding him up and leading him inside.
The drummer fumbled for an answer, and then explained lamely that they were reading a play together.
The freckled maid looked up at him, amazed.
"A play!Caramba!it must be a wonderful play!"
"Look here," frowned the American, recovering his dignity, "can't you answer a simple question without making remarks?"
"Pues, was I making remarks? You told me you were reading a play!"
"Yes, you do make remarks! Damn it! you talk all the time! If you've got to chatter like that, beat it!"
She would not let go her patient, for fear he might really fall and hurt himself, but she was offended.
"Seguramente!" she snapped. "If I ever get you in bed, trust me, I'll never lift another finger to get you out!Caramba!after all I've done!" She seemed about to cry. "As for the señora, she is in the music-room, and when you rush in through this heat, all white and trembly, to read a play, I think you are crazy; that's what I think!"
"Well, damn what you think! Here, let go; I can walk without you!" He shook himself loose and walked on in weak irascibility.
The girl stood looking after him with angry tears in her eyes and much anxiety for his welfare as he passed through the transverse corridor and turned down the main hallway.
He moved more and more slowly past the old doors which lined the corridor. There were no guards in the passage; they had been drawn away, no doubt, by the fiesta. The palace seemed rather empty without them. He was thinking of this when the door of the music-room opened and a man stepped into the hallway. He stood holding the door ajar and looking back into the room. The drummer was surprised to see that it was Coronel Saturnino. The salesman had thought the colonel was in San Geronimo, but no doubt he had come to Canalejos for the fiesta. The expression on the officer's face struck Strawbridge. For once his look of satire had vanished, and it left exposed what must have beenthe real Saturnino beneath all his quips and mockeries. He was speaking through the door, in a low tone:
"When a man has only one desire in life, señora, would he not be a fool to sacrifice that! Why should he sacrifice it! Shall his one brief glimpse of existence be entirely empty?"
There came a gasp from the music-room, and Strawbridge caught the phrase, "But, Pancho, that is sacrilegious!"
"Sacrilegious!" echoed the officer, in a sudden passion. "Sacrilegious! A word to trap fools with! To give up the very heart of this life, here, expecting another which will never come.... Dolores, can you imagine the immeasurable unconcern with which Nature views us! And then expect me to give up the very essence of my little glimpse of existence, for fear, forsooth, that the hand that made me will not precisely approve my squirmings toward the ends for which He framed me! Puh! it's too absurd!" With pallid face he stood looking through the doorway; then came a return of some of his old pococurantism: "Well, señora, I leave you now, but I will come back one day, you might say as a missionary, to convert you to a happier view of life and the Deity. Until then,adios." He bowed gracefully and turned up the passage toward the front of the palace.
With considerable surprise, and also a certain questioning, the American watched the colonel go. The officer evidently had concluded a tête-à-tête with the señora which was unsatisfactory to him. Strawbridge was secretly glad of this; he had always been glad that Saturnino was persona non grata with the señora.
But what set up a questioning in the drummer were the tones of the man and the woman, and the nickname, "Pancho," which the señora had used. This diminutive and just such overtones the drummer recalled hearing through the hedge as he stood in the plaza outside thecathedral garden. The idea that those quarreling lovers in the garden had been Saturnino and Dolores came to him with a shock. All along, had Saturnino been a suitor for the señora's favors? Was the officer attempting intimacies with the wife of his employer and general? Such duplicity filled the American with disdain. He was shocked at Saturnino. Then, as he stood thinking about it, he asked himself why he should be shocked. The colonel was no Anglo-Saxon, with a restraint cultivated by long generations of controlled ancestors. He was a Latin, a Venezuelan.
The door of the music-room was still ajar when Strawbridge reached the entrance. He had meant to express, in a roundabout way, his deep moral approval of what the señora had just done, but what he saw in the music-room put completely out of his head any sentiment he meant to utter.
The señora half knelt before the window-seat, with her head in her outstretched arms and her rosary clutched in her fingers. As a sharp accent in the picture was her hair. Her nun's cap had fallen off and revealed a great jet corona wound about her head in a complexity of cables. The glint and sheen of the light from the window fell over this luxuriant coiffure, and the slender white nape of her neck curved up into it. The loveliness of it clutched at something in the drummer's chest as if with physical fingers.
At his continued gaze the girl stirred, looked about, saw him, and made a little defensive movement toward her nun's bonnet.
The American protested involuntarily:
"For God's sake, señora, don't hide it! What makes you want to hide your hair?"
Her eyes showed she had been crying, but such an outbreak of admiration moved her to a brief smile; immediately she was grave again.
"It is a vow I made for my sister, señor."
"A vow to what?"
"To Saint Teresa."
"To a saint! Are you hiding your lovely hair just to keep a vow to a saint?"
"Sí, señor."
"Well, I declare! think of that! Wait, don't put it back on right now...."
Nevertheless she replaced the bonnet, smiling faintly at his protesting face. Then she became concerned about him.
"I didn't know you were out of bed. You ought not to be, Señor Tomas. You look quite worn out. Come over here, on this couch by the window."
She was swiftly becoming herself again, pleasant, softly gracious, and remote. She crossed the room, took his arm, and helped him to the wicker couch she had indicated. Her mere presence and touch wove a deep comfort about the sick man. Whatever were her relations with Saturnino, they faded into a small matter in the atmosphere of her delicate charm. Strawbridge leaned back against the end of the couch, looking at her.
"What were you crying about when I came in, señora?" he asked simply.
She looked at him with dark eyes that appeared slightly unfocused.
"I would rather not tell you, Señor Tomas."
"You might tell me, señora. I'm a mighty good friend of yours."
The girl sighed with some comfort of her own.
"Yes, you are. You are so ... nice. But you don't want to be my confessor, do you, Señor Tomas?"
"I wish I could be. Who is your confessor, señora?"
"Father Benicio."
"Sure! it would naturally be him."
She noted his tone, with surprise and a delicate amusement in her face.
"You seem really aggrieved. Do you want to be a priest?"
"I wish I could sit in a little box with you and hear you talk what is really in your heart, señora. I wish I could find out what is in your heart. I think it must be a pure and lovely place, señora, like one of those chapels in the cathedral, with an alabaster cross and a soft rug to kneel and pray on."
She seemed almost startled.
"Oh, no, Señor Tomas," she denied hurriedly, "it is not like that, at all. Holy Mary! I wish it were!"
"But it is!" affirmed Strawbridge, warmly. "Why, señora, the very first morning I saw you going to chapel I thought—"
The Spanish girl arose abruptly.
"Listen," she interrupted. "Don't talk to me of chapels and crosses and souls!" She stood looking down on him, with tragic eyes. "I am not a person who should speak of such things. I ... I...."
The American looked at her in dismay. He thought of Saturnino.
"Why ... what do you mean?" he asked in a lower tone.
She studied him a moment longer.
"I was a girl when I came here to Venezuela, Señor Tomas, a little girl of sixteen, just out of a convent; and then ... I was dropped in a place like this!" She made a quick gesture, spreading her hands as if to fling something from her fingers.
A rush of pity caught the sick man.
"Whatever made you come here?" he questioned gruffly, then frowned and cleared his throat.
The two understood each other with remarkable economy of words. The girl answered the implications of his question:
"Because he was rich! He had millions of pesetas, millions. My parents said it was a wonderful opportunity, and I—" she touched her breast sharply—"why, I knew nothing of life or love or marriage! They said he was a wealthy Venezuelan who owned a territory almost as large as Spain itself. Well, he does ... but nobody said what he did in that territory!" She gave a brief, shivering laugh.
The sick man arose unsteadily.
"That's the damnable point!" He trembled. "That's what I can't endure. I think about it all the time. I was sitting in the plaza thinking about the shame he puts on you—"
The girl looked up at him.
"Señor, what do you mean?"
"I mean the shame and disgrace of it. I can't endure staying here seeing you continually disgraced in your own home by one stray woman after another!"
The señora stared.
"Señor, do you fancy I want it to be different?"
The drummer was astonished.
"You don't! Do you mean you condone such offense? Do you mean?..."
The señora's black eyes grew moist at the reproach in his voice.
"Dear Señor Tomas, that is something you do not understand. You don't know how glad I am to be free of him—such a brute! Oh, señor, you can't imagine how horrible it was—the very sight of him. It seemed to me I could not endure it another day. A murderer, a robber...." The expression on her face moved the drummer. "At last I went to Father Benicio. I told him I would jump in the river and let the caymans eat me rather than ... continue."
Strawbridge was trembling as if he himself had been tormented; yet how much of this was from sympathy, and how much from this heady topic of sex which had suddenly sprung up between them, the youth himself had not the faintest idea.
"And what did he do? What did Father Benicio say?"
The girl exhaled a sick breath.
"Oh ... duty ... sacrament.Sacrament—with him!" She stood breathing heavily through her open lips. "When Father Benicio saw I really meant to kill myself, when he saw I was desperate, then, finally, he told me to wear this." She touched her black nun's robe.
"To wear what?"
"This robe."
The drummer looked at the robe as if he had not seen it before.
"What has that got to do with it?"
"Pues ... cá!" The señora began to laugh hysterically. "When I wore this nun's robe, he stayed with other women all the time. He would not touch me. He ... he.... Father Benicio said he would not!"
She laughed till the tears stood in her eyes. Strawbridge stared at her. There was something dreadful about her laughter. Presently she sobered abruptly.
"Why ... why was that? Why-y?" The drummer was utterly at sea.
The señora shook her head.
"Father Benicio told me to wear this robe and conceal my hair."
"What an extraordinary thing!"
"Father Benicio is a very wise man."
"But there is no sense to it. Still, if it worked...." The drummer cogitated, and presently made the observation, "So, you are not wearing it for your sister, after all?"
"Señor, I have never had a sister."
Such an extraordinary ruse required thought. The salesman sat down slowly, and the girl followed his example. She was perusing his face while he puzzled over the unaccountable quirk in the dictator's amorousness.
"Why, señora," he said at last, as if coming to a conclusion, "that doesn't seem possible. Why, I think you are lovelier in your nun's robe than.... Why, you look as pure and tender and as fair as the stars of heaven. If I—"
The Spanish girl reached out an impulsive hand and gripped the American's.
"Ah, Señor Tomas, that is because you are a dear, dear boy; it is because you, yourself, are pure and tender and fine!"
At her caress a force apparently quite other than himself moved him, to his own fear and dismay. His unwounded hand went groping beneath the voluminous sleeve of the robe, up the soft naked arm of the girl. With his other arm he caught her as she swayed against him. She gave a long sigh, as if utterly exhausted. The touch of her body to his set Strawbridge quivering and trembling. His bandaged hand groped over her with delicate pains until it touched the warm supple mounds of her bosom; there the sheer pain in his fingers mingled with his passion and edged it into a sort of tingling ecstasy.
The two lay relaxed together in the corner of the couch, without a sound. The music-room swam before the man's eyes, in the melting madness of her warmth and passion. She wore no perfume—no doubt by the wisdom of Father Benicio—but the faint, intimate odor of a woman's hair and body ravaged his senses with its provocation. He drew her closer. He was trembling as if with sickness. He passed his lips over her temples, cheeks, nose; their lips met.
He had desired her subconsciously for so long; he had repressed his passion for her so endlessly into the very formof propriety that now it suddenly burst loose like a flood and rushed over his senses. The two clung together quite silently except for an occasional sob, an intake of shaken breath, and the rapid murmur of their hearts.
Strawbridge first recovered himself. Her embrace had whisked away all his feeling of futility and doubt. He knew now precisely what he must do.
"First," he said, "I've got to get you out of here."
She looked at him with misty eyes and a faint, sad smile.
"Out of thepalacio?" she whispered.
"Out of Rio Negro, out of Venezuela, to the States." Her sweet puzzled face amused him, and made him feel tenderer than ever.
"But, dear Tomas, I am married."
"We'll get a divorce."
"But that is impossible in Rio Negro."
"It's easy in the States."
She studied his face so intently that he grew a little afraid of what she might say about the divorce. Finally she asked:
"My own dear life, when did you firstknowyou loved me?"
After that the sequence of their plans to elope was continually broken by caresses and the wistful interrogations of a newly revealed love. Mixed in with these they planned with what coherence they could their elopement. They discussed horses, a motor, but finally decided on a small boat down the Rio Negro. Strawbridge would get one that afternoon, and the next night they would start from the piazza in the darkness. By daylight they would reach San Geronimo and the Orinoco.
The señora tried to make her lover realize the gravity of the undertaking, the danger and certainty of punishment if they were discovered, but the whole affair glowed on the American in a rose-colored light. They would escape, of acertainty. He had never failed to do anything he set out to do, and he wouldn't fail now. Luck was always with him, and he was predestined to win. He was in gala mood. He commanded fortune! Once the girl put up a hand to his mouth.
"Eh, hush! don't say that! It ... it reminds me of ... him."
Their talk came down to the odds and ends of the affair—how large a bundle of clothes she could smuggle out of the palace; the food they should carry, hammocks andmosquiteros. In the midst of these trifles came the sound of many feet in the corridor. The man and the woman got away from each other quickly and sat on opposite ends of the couch, looking at the door a little anxiously, when there really did come a sharp rap. With a glance at Strawbridge, the señora sprang up, crossed the room, and opened the shutter. In the entrance stood General Fombombo in full uniform. Banked behind him were ranks of men, most of whom were in uniform. After an instant the blurr of color defined itself as Coronel Saturnino, a number of other officers, several of the governmental dignitaries, some of the alcaldes from the surrounding villages, Gumersindo in his white linen, and behind them ranks of the palace guards, in dress uniform. It was a fiesta assembly.
The drummer stared at the processional in the utmost amazement. A wild suspicion shot through his head that somehow General Fombombo had learned of his dalliance with Dolores, and that all this pomp was a movement to arrest him and send him to prison. The American moistened his lips. He could feel the blood leave his face as he stood looking at Dolores's husband.
But the general was smiling. Indeed, the faces of thewhole group of dignitaries wore expressions of mysterious kindliness and good-will. The black man Gumersindo seemed to labor under some beneficent excitement. The dictator began speaking, not in ordinary conversational tones, but in the somewhat over-emphasized articulation of an orator.
"Señor Strawbridge," he began, "we, the admiring citizens of the independent republic of Rio Negro, have chosen during this fiesta and on this historic spot to express to you our never-dying respect, gratitude, and affection for a man, who, impelled by no selfish motive, but moved only by a flame from the very altar of freedom itself, by the purest love of human liberty and the world-wide brotherhood of man, has hurled himself upon the field of battle and, at the risk of his own life, made safe the social and political securities of a young and struggling people. Amid the defiance of cannon and the flashing of swords, you, Señor Tomas Strawbridge, led the forces of liberty to complete and glorious victory. It is with tears of gratitude that we, the representatives of the free and independent state of Rio Negro, bestow upon you this token of our love and appreciation for your heroic act in saving the insurgent army on the bloody field of San Geronimo. There will come a time, Señor Strawbridge, when our beloved valley will be decked with great and smiling cities; when men and women will live with no tyrant to make them afraid; then, carved in letters of gold in the pantheon of that happy people, will shine the name of Tomas Strawbridge, hero of San Geronimo!"
The President was moved. His eyes were misty as he drew from his pocket and pinned on the drummer's lapel a little gold decoration pendent from a rainbow-colored ribbon. It was the Order of theLibertador, for heroic action. Strawbridge had seen dozens of these decorations in Venezuela, but he had always put them down to the SouthAmerican's love of fripperies. Now there was something about these men and their solemn, admiring faces that moved him.
A play of incongruous emotions kept harassing the American's nerves. He alternately flushed and paled. How grotesque it was that the general should have given him this medal just as he was planning to abduct the general's wife! As the dictator bent toward him to pin on the decoration, the drummer caught a strong odor of musk.
After the presentation other dignitaries delivered orations reviewing Rio Negro's heroic past. They pointed out, from the very music-room windows, spots where martyrs had perished.
When the officials had finished, Gumersindo read his whole six columns describing the battle of San Geronimo. The black man seldom glanced at the paper, but recited the whole from memory, in an agreeable resonant baritone.
After the ceremony the whole audience shook hands with the drummer, and each man expressed his admiration with a suppleness of phrase that was very graceful and yet seemed sincere. Perhaps it was.
There are certain moments in the lives of men when the only course of action morally possible lies along immoral lines. By dint of hard necessity such moments lose the reproach of bad faith and assume the simple pathos of misfortune. Perhaps three-fourths of the crimes committed because of women fall into this unhappy class.
Long before convention softened the rape to its symbol, the marriage ceremony, men abducted the women they loved. There must have been a time when the highest social virtue was for a passionate swain to steal a girl from her jealous guardians. Upon this broad corner-stone of passion have arisen daring, stalwart, and reproductive generations, and that is the final word of approbation with which life lauds conduct.
Since that simpler era, minor moral obligations hinging on property, society, friendship, nationality, and former marriages have confused but have not transformed the issue. To-day, when any of these obstacles are swept aside by passionate lovers, one feels its pathos but not its sin.
It was precisely in this dilemma that Strawbridge labored. The little gold medal fastened on his lapel by the dictator reproached him continually as he worked in his room, packing in a canvas roll those of his belongings which were absolutely indispensable. He meant to carry them inconspicuously to the river. General Fombombo was his host; he had been a prospective customer until the capture of the rifles at San Geronimo, and he still was a trusting friend. And now he, Thomas Strawbridge, was about to steal the general's wife! The big American sickened at the thought of it, but thecomplementary idea of resigning Dolores never once presented itself to his mind. This would have been a desertion of something exquisitely more dear and intimate than his own flesh. Since the señora's embraces, her body seemed more native to him than his own. There was something shrine-like about her.
With Hebraic simplicity the Bible says of a man and wife, "Ye are one," and this was meant for lovers. Strawbridge tingled and thrilled with this amazing oneness. Some miracle had occurred within him to extend his sentiency into the señora. As he worked, she rushed upon him at intervals with such poignancy that he would lay down his packing and sigh and tremble at the sudden and sweet transfiguration. He was not himself any more. Body and soul were impermeated, somehow, with the sweetness of Dolores.
In the midst of one of these epiphanies came a tap at his door. The drummer had a sense of being waked out of a sleep. He saw his canvas pack under his hands and made an effort to conceal it by thrusting it hastily into an open cabinet drawer. Some of his toilet articles and clothes lay scattered about, and he tried to cover them under the sheets of his disordered bed. It seemed to him that his jumble of packing must advertise to the world his intention of eloping with the señora. When the American had concealed enough to give his room an aspect of innocence, he went over and opened the door. Thegriffegirl stood in the hallway. Her freckled face seemed screwed up with some internal tension. Her black eyes sparkled.
"Ola, señor!" she whispered, and stepped inside with her air of excitement and her glittering eyes. Strawbridge looked at her in dismay. Plainly she knew his plans, and he thought to himself that they might as well have been published in the "Correo."
The maid burst into ejaculations:
"Caramba!How well you look! You have been cured by magic!" She reached out and gave his arm a sudden squeeze, giggled, then, with an effect of legerdemain, thrust into his hand a little green-gold watch.
The American looked at it blankly.
"What the hell?" he asked in a low tone.
His profanity shook the girl into a hysteria of choked giggles; then she produced, also apparently out of nothingness, a blue envelop directed to himself. Instantly Strawbridge knew that it was from the señora, and his heart began to beat. His fingers trembled so that he could not get into the envelop with his one good hand. He was forced to ask the girl to open it.
The half-breed went at the matter in her own way, moistening an edge with her little red tongue and picking open the damp crease with a hair-pin. The big American stood with his good hand gripping her plump shoulder and delaying the operation by his impatience.
The note was exceedingly brief. It said simply:
Set my watch with yours. Piazza, 11P.M.to-morrow.Dolores Juana Avilon y Bustamente.
Set my watch with yours. Piazza, 11P.M.to-morrow.
Dolores Juana Avilon y Bustamente.
The implication of the señora's maiden name written in full moved Strawbridge with a delicate tenderness. He looked at the letter, then at the watch. It was an old-fashioned timepiece, carved on the obverse side with a faint landscape which was worn smooth in places; on the reverse was an antique coat of arms with its quarterings colored by a worn but exquisite enamel. The drummer did not know that he was looking at an heirloom of centuries; he had no idea that on the back of this watch he saw the combined coats of arms of two of the most ancient houses of Spain. A sense of pathos moved him at its evident age.
"Poor little girl!" he thought to himself. "The first thingI'll do when we get to New York will be to go to Tiffany's and get her a wrist-watch." He set the timepiece, with care, and returned it to thegriffegirl.
In the afternoon Strawbridge went down to the native market to lay in provisions against his voyage down the river. Among the little market stalls the only prepared food he could find were the cart-wheels of cassava bread. The sick man looked at this bread dubiously. He knew that at one stage in the making of cassava it is a rank poison, and he wondered if the Indians in making this bread had extracted all its bane. The sight of the loaves which had once been poison filled him with foreboding. He imagined himself and the señora going down the river in a small boat and becoming poisoned on this bread. What a horrible end to their romance!
The possibility depressed him. However, he purchased a loaf, had it wrapped in a palm-leaf, and recalled wistfully the little delicatessen shops in Keokuk where he could order a lunch with a word. He wished keenly for them, as he bought some wood-like yammi and two or three big plantains shaped like rough bananas. When he started back home with his bundle, a dozen porters besieged him begging to be allowed to carry it.
Later in the afternoon he went to the fish-wharf, to bargain for a boat. He found clumsy crafts, each one carved out of a single log, leaky, greasy, and smelling overpoweringly of fish. The drummer walked slowly from one end of the quay to the other. The notion of embarking Dolores in one of these vile boats filled him with disgust. At last he chose the least loathly of the dugouts, and began dickering with its fishy owner, to buy it. The fisherman was a barefooted, chocolate-colored peon, who carried a paddle about with him as a sign of his calling. He was naked from waist tosombrero. His legs were thin, but his torso rippled with muscles developed by his boating. His face, his inch of forehead, and his coarse hair were just a few centuries this side of the pithecanthropus. He could scarcely believe thecaballerocould want to buy his fish-boat. He stared and scratched his head at the marvel.
"You are no poor man, señor. Why should you fish?"
"I fish for sport."
"Caramba!sport! Do you think it is sport to bake in the sun, to be flung into the rapids, to fight the crocodiles that eat your catch? Do you call it sport to pack atoneladaof fish on your back, trying to vend them when no one will buy?"
Some fellow fishermen drew about the two at this curious conversation. One of them interposed:
"Perhapsel caballerois going to fish as a penance, Simon. Perhaps he has committed some grievous sin andel padrehas imposed—"
"Basta!Are you blind, Alessandro? Do you not see thishombreis anAmericano, and not a Christian at all? The padre is nothing to him."
Another voice in the fish-scented crowd took up the argument:
"AnAmericano! Perhaps he does fish for sport. They do the maddest things for sport; they run and walk and jump and fight for sport. This one went to the battle of San Geronimo and won a ribbon. There it is; you can see it for yourself on his coat."
One of the older fishers shrugged a naked shoulder:
"Sport never sent theAmericanointo the battle, brothers. I was talking to anhombrenamed Lubito, a bull-fighter, and what he said ... what Lubito said about thisAmericano...." The old peon nodded, and thumped the butt of his paddle on the ground.
"What did he say?" asked Alessandro.
The ancient lifted a shoulder, pulled down his wrinkled lips, nodded at the palace up the river and at the gloomy bulk of La Fortuna down the river, made a clicking sound with his tongue, and went silent.
These clicks and glances seemed to explain something. Simon, who owned the boat, looked at Strawbridge, with his small black Indian eyes stretched wide.
"Cá!Then you don't want to fish, after all?"
"Look here!" rapped out the drummer, feeling very uncomfortable. "Do I get that boat or not?"
Simon shrugged, and mentioned a price which no doubt was grotesquely exorbitant, according to his peon sense of value. The drummer reached into his pocket and drew out a roll of Venezuelan bills.
"I'll take it provided you'll scrub the damn thing with sand and get it clean."
The whole crowd stared at this amazingly swift trade. Here and there came a sharp intake of breath at such an amount paid for such a boat. Only the peon who owned the boat kept his head, but his excitement was shown by the sharp dints in the sides of his sun-blacked nose.
"Señor," he jockeyed, breathing heavily and staring at the bills, "it is impossible for me to clean the boat at such a price. Already I have given the boat away; I have pushed it into the rapids. I am a poor man, señor, and I cannot possibly clean the boat for less than ... for less than—" he stared fishily at Strawbridge, fearing to name too small a sum—"t-t-two, t-three ...sí... t-t-three more bolivars, señor, and it will be cheap as mangos, at that!"
The drummer drew out the three extra bolivars and tossed them to the fellow. Three bolivars are sixty cents.
"Scrub it with sand, and hitch it below thepalaciowhen you finish."
One of the fishermen shook his fist violently in the air, a peaceable Spanish gesture to work off unusual excitement. The oldish peon leaned forward on his paddle.
"No one must speak of this unless all of us want to...." He drew his finger across his throat, made a clicking sound, and nodded toward La Fortuna.
It was sundown when Strawbridge returned to the palace. In coming up the river bank the drummer took a short route behind the cathedral. As he came closer he saw that a nest of little adobe houses were built like lean-tos against the sides of the church. These little mud huts clinging humbly to the soaring walls of the great fane, and the whole illuminated in the deep yellow of sunset, formed a picture which arrested even the drummer. It drove away for a moment the permeating thought of the señora. It extinguished his desire and his sense of hurry, in the timelessness of beauty.
Beyond him on his left lay the wide vacuity of the river. The terrain on which Strawbridge walked was high above the river and was grown with patches of thistles, cactus, and a thin, harsh grass. Through this wound a number of paths leading to this or that little hut. The scene was animated with a scattering of naked brown youngsters who played silently and seriously after the manner of Latin children. They almost blended with their background of sand and adobe.
As the drummer walked through this quaint place, an old woman, with her apron full of charcoal, came out of a little shop. She hobbled along a path, evidently meaning to intercept the American. Her intention became so obvious that he stopped and waited for her.
"Can I do anything for you,vieja?" he inquired, running a hand into his pocket.
The old creature crossed herself with her free hand.
"May the Holy Virgin guard you, señor!"
The sick man got out a centavo, but to his surprise the crone did not extend her palm.
"Señor Americano" she whispered, "when do I get my Josefa back!"
The question sounded so pointless that Strawbridge thought she must be slightly unbalanced.
"Your Josefa, señora?"
She pointed with a trembling hand.
"The poorjovenyou sent to La Fortuna, señor."
The drummer was nonplussed. She seemed to be rational; indeed, she had shrewd wrinkled eyes and a high-bridged, aristocratic nose. She might have been a kind of dowdy dowager.
"Isent a youth to La Fortuna, señora!"