The commandeering of the horses at the English ranch shocked Strawbridge; when the cavalcade set forth on the march again, the heat and glare of the llanos aggravated his mental disturbance. As he sweltered in the center of a vast shimmering horizon, he kept repeating mentally, at unexpected intervals, the epithet "horse-thieves." Each time these words bobbed up in his mind he put them down, rather like a man who is trying to keep some buoyant object under water, "horse-thieves ... horse-thieves ... horse-thieves ..." over and over. His thinking did not progress much farther than that. What made the buoyant object so difficult to control was the fact that he himself was riding one of Tolliver's horses. The very rhythm of the fine animal between his legs was a reminder and a reproach.
Sweat trickled into the drummer's eyes and stung them. He blinked through the quivering heat, with screwed-up lids, and wondered what he could have done about the horse. When Coronel Saturnino insisted that he take one of the best of the English mounts, he could not have said, "No, I am a decent American salesman, and I won't ride a stolen horse." He could not have said such a thing as that in the face of the colonel's polite consideration.
On the other hand, the damning thought that he was riding a stolen horse gnawed at the drummer with the persistence of a rat. It gave him a faint, ghastly feeling in the pit of his stomach, where, perhaps, is located the genuine seat of conscience with us all.
Presently Strawbridge noted a surprising thing. Looking back over the cavalcade, he observed Father Benicio riding one of the confiscated horses. The good father jogged along in his dusty black cassock and his little round hat, with the sacred emblems dangling from his pommel, and he was riding a stolen horse. His questionable mount had not changed the priest's face at all. It was the same thin, ascetic face with its look of passionate spirituality burning through the repression, almost the mortification of the flesh. Strawbridge wondered what mental attitude Father Benicio assumed toward his horse in order to preserve so eremitic an expression. He felt the holy father must have some inward justification which he, himself, did not possess. Almost involuntarily he picked his way among the troopers, to the priest's side. As he came near he observed that Gumersindo was riding beside the father. The negro editor's face was covered with dust, and he looked queer because the dust settling in the furrows of his forehead made whitish lines against his black skin.
The black man waved the American a grave salute.
"Do you know, Señor Strawbridge," he called above the wide noise of the horses' feet, "that this is the same sort of expedition Bolivar led against Montillo when he freed this continent? They had beaten theLibertadoreverywhere else, but when they threw him back upon these interminable llanos, he drew fresh strength, like Antæus, and struggled on."
Strawbridge nodded wearily.
"Sure, sure...." He looked at the priest, a little doubtful how to proceed. The negro journalist continued talking, in a sort of exaltation:
"I never start on an expedition of this kind that I do not think, 'Perhaps to-day I am making history.' That is a wonderful thought, Father Benicio—history! Think! Perhaps this very moment is historic! Perhaps it will be embalmed in the memory of the future. It is just as if we should marchforever through the mind of mankind! Other deedless generations will rise up and vanish as unremarked as the succeeding harvests of llano grass, but perhaps what we do to-day will be painted, carved in marble, sung in song, and told in story as long as civilization lasts! I say it is possible!"
Such a dithyramb from a negro among a band of horse-thieves moved Strawbridge with a certain disgust. He drew a handkerchief and wiped his sweaty, gritty face.
"I guess you're making history for that English ranch," he satirized; "a record of these horses will appear in their profit-and-loss column."
Gumersindo looked around at the drummer, and suddenly began to laugh.
"Caramba!He's thinking about the dollars and cents of this adventure!"
This was just the fillip needed to set the drummer off. He straightened in his saddle.
"Well, by God, it's not dollars and cents, either; it's just plain honesty. I don't know how you fellows feel, but I'm damned uncomfortable riding a horse we stole from Tolliver!"
Both editor and priest were staring at him.
"What a disturbance over a detail!" ejaculated the black man.
"How do you feel about your mount, Father Benicio?" asked Strawbridge.
The priest's ascetic face relaxed into a rather pleasant smile.
"I feel it is much more comfortable than the mule I rode, my son."
The drummer was amazed.
"Don't you think it's wrong?"
"Our action is directed toward a great and noble end, my son. Venezuela is sick to death. If confiscating these horsesrids the country of a dictator, surely the end justifies the means!"
"But look here!" cried Strawbridge. "The English company is not in on this. They are the innocent bystander who gets the bullet through the heart."
"They are already shot through the heart, señor," answered Father Benicio, patiently; "their horses and cattle are worth nothing to them, on account of unjust legislation."
"But their property still belongs to them," cried the drummer. "That doesn't justify us in stealing it!"
"Did God create these horses simply to live and die without being of use to any one?"
"That's up to the company. It's their horses."
The priest looked at the drummer oddly. Gumersindo interposed:
"Father, let me explain Señor Strawbridge to you. I said, a while ago, he had reduced this to dollars and cents. So he has. You must remember that property is a fetish in America. Americans do not possess their property, they are possessed by it. In America the prime factor of civilization is property; in Venezuela the prime factor is Man."
Strawbridge was hot enough to grow angry instantly.
"Look here," he cried, "let me nail that lie right now, while I got my hammer out! We Americans spend our money just as free as you Venezuelans, and a damn sight freer!"
"But, Señor Strawbridge," returned the editor, politely, "that has nothing to do with my analysis. In America all your social framework is built around money. Rich men are respected, and poor men are not. It would be better to say that in America property is respected and men are not."
"That's impossible!" cried Strawbridge, steadily growing angrier.
"Not at all. When an American loses his money, he loses the friendship and respect of his fellow Americans. The manwho acquires the former rich man's fortune, acquires also the respect that goes with it." Gumersindo made a gesture. "Pues, do you recall, Señor Strawbridge, that the first draft of the American Declaration of Independence read in this fashion: 'All men are born free, and are equally entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of property'? The word 'happiness,' substituted by Jefferson, was merely an American euphemism for 'property'; it means the same thing in America."
"Why—by God!—I recall nothing of the kind!" shouted Strawbridge, with the American conviction that if one denied history in a loud voice it would cease to exist. "No, that's just a damn lie some damn Venezuelan started on Americans!"
"Certainly I am no expert in American history," agreed the editor, smoothly. "You doubtless know the history of your country better than I do."
"Well, I hope I do!" grumbled Strawbridge, feeling for the moment that because he was an American he necessarily knew more of American history than Gumersindo, who was not an American.
"So, dropping the historical statement—which may be false, although I discovered it in some research work in your own Congressional Library at Washington—dropping that, pure inductive reasoning will tell you Americans do respect property, and that they do not respect human beings.
"Remember, your country is populated mainly by immigrants who came to the New World to seek their fortunes. Most of these newcomers were without culture and without any feeling for human values. They were poor, and, never having had any money, they naturally thought that money must contain all value. Therefore they transposed the value of a man's fortune to the man himself. They thought any man who became wealthy must have great value, and theycalled him a success. They thought any painting which commanded a high price must be a great painting; they thought any piece of jazz music which sold a million copies must be a great piece of music. They thought that any house which cost a million dollars must necessarily be finer than one that cost only five thousand dollars. Now Americans think that."
The drummer peered hard at the negro editor.
"Well, by God, that's a fact," he declared vigorously. "Nobody denies that, do they? Don't you know a million-dollar house would be finer than a five-thousand-dollar house?"
Even Father Benicio joined Gumersindo in the laughter this article of faith evoked.
"Pues," placated the priest, the next moment, "that is the reason, my son, why we ride our horses without compunction, and why your horse annoys you. And I must observe that your scruples honor you. I respect your frankness and your point of view."
Strawbridge rode some farther distance with the two men, but he was uncomfortable. He knew they were amused at him, and it was not pleasant. Presently he returned to the head of the column.
At last Strawbridge's adventure had come to a focus. He sat, galled and dusty, on his English mount and stared at the distant metallic gleam which encircled the southern and western segments of the horizon. That thin, shining arc was the junction of the Orinoco and the Rio Negro. Against its shimmer arose a single spire, so tiny and so far away that the drummer had to scrutinize it with particularity before he could make it out at all. So this was the upshot of all their riding and burning and thirsting—for these sweat-caked peons to advance against a church steeple!
Half a dozen different impressions clamored for the American's attention. Just behind him officers were barking their soldiers into two squads. A little farther to the rear, the men were pulling themselves from their wives and mistresses, to join the ranks again. There was something elemental and unashamed in the passion of their parting. They were much the same color as the sand they trod. They might have been figures sprung out of the heat and travail of the melancholy llanos, as indeed they were. They clung to each other, these earth-colored peons; they sobbed, they kissed each other with unrestraint, absorbed in their griefs. There was something wide and impersonal in this passionate outpouring of their misery. They were mummers depicting completely what every lover feels on parting with his love. Some inhibition, some reserve seemed to melt in Strawbridge's mind, and with a trembling tenderness he thought of the señora. He could see her delicate face looking at him sorrowfully. Such a senseof pathos filled him that he wondered if it did not forbode some evil to him. Perhaps he was about to be killed; else why should the señora's sad face appear to him so vividly?
Strawbridge became aware of a horseman coming up, on his left. It was Coronel Saturnino, his face a mask of dust. For once the colonel seemed keen and alive. His black eyes, in this dust mask, were full of fire, but the dusty mouth was set in its inevitable sardonic quirk.
"I rode over to suggest that you hang a carbine to your saddle." He smiled.
Strawbridge looked down at his pommel doubtfully.
"I thought perhaps if I went in as a neutral—"
"Pues, you are likely not to come out at all."
"Then you think I had better carry a gun?"
"It's safer." The colonel beckoned a soldier to him and gave an order that sent the man to the rear, to return presently with a carbine for Strawbridge. While the peon strapped it to the drummer's saddle, the colonel's black eyes, with their look of chronic amusement, passed over his recruits.
"These peons are going out to fight for their freedom," he observed with his tone of satire. "They are perpetually going out to fight for their freedom. Different saviors rise up—a Miedo, a Fombombo. Now it is Saturnino, and only the Holy Virgin knows who next will be leading these tatterdemalions to freedom!" With sardonic wrinkles in his dust mask he looked at the drummer.
Strawbridge tried to shift his leg so it would not touch the hard carbine. He was somehow incensed at Saturnino's tone.
"What better thing can they fight for than their freedom?"
The colonel shrugged.
"Probably nothing. It makes a very exciting game forgentlemen—these peons wanting to be free. What finer thing could a peon do than to entertain acaballero?"
Strawbridge stared at the dust mask.
"Good God, Saturnino! Is that all this is to you?—an entertainment, a game?"
The officer shrugged again.
"Pues, of course it isn't business." He paused with a quizzical look, and then went on: "But what I really rode over to tell you is, I am dividing the men into two squadrons. I will lead one in a frontal attack on thecasa fuerte. The other, Lieutenant Rosales will lead around by the river. It will make its way through the wharves and attack thecasa fuertefrom the rear."
Strawbridge had become attentive, and nodded to these plans.
"You may go along with either of the parties," invited the colonel, "or you may stay here with the women until the fight is over."
"No, certainly not! I'll go by the river," chose Strawbridge, at once.
The colonel nodded, and smiled once again through his grime.
"As you will; and may luck wait on your courage!Adios!"
The two men reached across the necks of their stolen horses and shook hands.
"Same to you, colonel, and so long," said the drummer, somewhat moved.
Saturnino suddenly jerked his horse in a curvette, and saluted easily as the big English animal plunged with him back toward his line.
The drummer turned his own mount and rode toward Rosales's column. Lieutenant Rosales was a smallish, sharp-featured youth whose eyes were surrounded with such darkrings that they showed through the dust. Strawbridge remembered having seen him before, in the plaza. Now he was going to fight under this littleroué, perhaps die under his command. He felt as if he were going to fight with a crowd of street gamins. It was a mean adventure.
The men under Rosales sat stolid and quiet on their mules and horses. Saturnino's sarcasm revisited the drummer's mind: "These peons are perpetually fighting for their freedom, under this savior and that. They've been at it upward of four centuries. Now I'm leading them," and he had laughed.
A gust of pity shivered through the American's bowels for these stolid men, arming and seeking a leader for four centuries, and led by Saturnino, a man to whom their travail was a game!
At that moment the sickly-looking officer whipped out his sword and barked an order, and the next moment the cavalry set off at a gallop through the heat and dust. The drummer fell into the ranks. He twisted in his saddle for any easement he could find. His carbine added a new pain to his riding. It banged his thigh with a strange adroitness. Within ten or fifteen minutes a dust rose up among so many galloping horses which made the air almost unbreathable. These petty tortures so harassed the drummer that he looked forward to actual fighting as a relief. To avoid the dust he swung his horse out of line and spurred him to the van of the column. By the time the American was even with Lieutenant Rosales, he had reached clean breathing, and he expanded his lungs with a sense of great relief. But the peons, the dirt-colored men who after four hundred years of rebellion were now playing Coronel Saturnino's game, these peons rode resolutely in the heat and dust without breaking line. The thin-faced officer with the black circles about his eyes stared fixedly ahead.
Presently the troopers galloped up another long swell in the desert, and when they reached its crest Strawbridge was shocked to see how close they were upon the city of San Geronimo. He could see the red roofs of the adobes, a wireless tower run up like a spider-web, and the very bells in the campanile. Around the street entrances were swarms of people in a state of excitement. Some rushed into their houses; others went flying into the llanos—straggling figures bound for no other goal than to escape the coming storm.
Strawbridge watched the scene curiously, as if he were some idle spectator. Presently Rosales drew his sword, swung his men out of line with the main entrance, and veered toward the west, toward the stretch of water which was growing more and more enormous as they approached it.
Horses and mules, on they went, faster and faster. There was a wide space between the town and the river, to give play to the overflow in the rainy season. Into this space Rosales headed. The hoofs of the cavalcade made a dull drumming in the sand. Far down the river bank, opposite the business part of town, Strawbridge could see the big freight goletas from Trinidad and Ciudad Bolívar, hastily making sail to escape the tempest.
Suddenly, from somewhere over on their right, came a hard blow in the air. The flat plains lent no resonance. It was simply a crash—a sharp, terrific impact. It was followed by another, by twos and threes, by some indeterminable number. They hammered terrifically at Strawbridge's ear-drums with a sense of devastating power. The Federals in thecasa fuertewere cannonading Coronel Saturnino.
The cannonading must have been an agreed signal between the colonel and Rosales. At its roar the lieutenant yelped at his men and flung his column headlong into the open space along the wharves of San Geronimo.
Strawbridge went with them. He rode inexpertly, swayingdangerously on his English mount. With his left hand he jerked at his carbine, trying to get it out of its holster, with his right he clung to the pommel of his saddle. He peered ahead, and the whole wharf-side seemed rushing at him, shaken by the terrific vibrations of the horse. The few stragglers left in sight skurried about to avoid the cavalry charge. Far ahead, puffs of smoke came out at barred windows in the adobes. At that moment the rumble of hoofs in the sand turned into a crashing clatter. The horses had struck the cobblestones of the wharf. An increased heat from the glare of the hot cobbles pinched the drummer. More smoke puffs blew out at the windows. It occurred to the drummer that these were peons firing on the cavalry.
A long row of palms were planted straight down the middle of theplaya. As these palms vibrated toward him, the drummer glimpsed the head and shoulders of a man, pointing a rifle, high up in a clump of leaves. A little thrill went over him. He swung his carbine toward the figure.
"Hey, look at that scoundrel up that palm! Blow him out of there!" He pointed his gun without thinking of using it. "Blow him out, I say."
Half a dozen riders heard and looked. They swung up their carbines and fired as they galloped. Strawbridge could see the spatter of the bullets against the big leaves; next moment the head and shoulders made a limp lurch forward, and the figure of a man dropped out of the palm and turned over and over in the air. With a primitive satisfaction the drummer watched the fall. He had wiped out an enemy. He stared down theplaya. Far down where the quay narrowed with distance, a line of men were marching through the sunshine. He could see the glitter of their bayonets and their intense shadows moving in front of them. At sight of these federal soldiers the carbines about Strawbridge began a staccato snapping. The distant line of soldiers stopped, knelt, aimed,like a little row of toys in the brilliant sunshine. Then came the faint crack of their volley.
The effect appalled Strawbridge. A peon on the drummer's right reeled from his saddle; ahead of him a horse reared and fell, flinging his rider on the cobbles, under the hoofs of the horses. The drummer saw the wretch thresh about as he was broken upon the stones.
For answer the insurgents deployed the width of theplaya, between the houses and the palms, and charged. Horses, mules, howling peons, and chattering carbines roared down the quay. The Federals fired one more volley, then suddenly broke and fled. They scurried in every direction. Their little human speed was so puny that the horses overhauled them like giants. A feeling of tremendous strength filled Strawbridge. He was a Gulliver plunging down on Lilliputians. He selected a man to kill. The Federal sprinted desperately, but his short legs seemed barely to move in front of the English stallion.
The chase became a vertigo. A hard pulse pounded in Strawbridge's ears. Never before had he known the terrific excitement of hunting a man down and killing him. The drummer's adroitness and horsemanship sharpened to the delight of murder. He cleared his carbine and aimed at the runner. He meant to hit him in the cross of his canteen strap. He pulled the trigger....
A terrific concussion almost bowled over the drummer and his horse. It displaced the whole platoon. Strawbridge whirled, and saw the roofs of the adobes lined with federal troops, firing down on the cavalry.
Men and horses fell beneath continuous volleys. The squadron was falling back toward the river. The men acted as if they struggled in the teeth of a furious wind-storm. Suddenly some of them wheeled off toward the river. Rosales was behind his men, howling and spewing Spanish oaths. He beatthe fugitives with the back of his sword. In the uproar the hatchet-faced lieutenant, leaning forward toward the enemy, pointed at the roofs. He might have been trying to reach the crashing rifles with the tip of his saber. He was howling for his men to charge. A flame of sympathy went through Strawbridge for this indomitable knave of an officer. He headed his stallion about in the careening column. He shouted a mixture of English and Spanish:
"Adelante!Bore into 'em!Pronto!Wipe 'em out—the hellions!"
The powerful horse might have been a stanchion shoring up the column. His mere lunge turned three or four fugitives toward the enemy. This whirling movement became the focus of a renewed charge. Every man took courage from Strawbridge, from the thin-faced reprobate who led them. The column flung itself into the teeth of the fire from the roofs.
The stink and sting of powder-gas jabbed up Strawbridge's nose. The Federals on the roof shone dimly behind a mist of smokeless powder. As Strawbridge charged in, he could see the face of a man staring at him, and the circle of a rifle muzzle under his right eye. The cavalry plunged in against the mud walls. Horses smashed against them, reared, fell, or squatted trembling at this blank obstruction. What for? Strawbridge did not know. He was furiously angry. He meant to strike.
Rosales had directed his charge toward the lowest roof in the wholeplayaside. It was not more than eight feet high. The focusing of his fire on this point had cut down the defense just here and left a gap in the line of defenders. As Rosales dashed up to this building, he caught the adobe eaves and succeeded in drawing himself up to the roof. A Federal seemed to discharge a gun through his head, but the daredevil pressed on, with his automatic going. Half a dozen, adozen otherllanerosfollowed. A score gained footing on the low roof. They were amazing horsemen. The Federals were not deployed on the roofs. They could fire only from the ends of their columns. The knot of cavalry on the red tiles grew, expanded, pressed back the feeble ends of the enemy. The fight had transferred itself from the streets to the house-tops—the classic stage for South American battles.
In the midst of this extraordinary manœuver, Strawbridge found himself trying to scramble up the corner of a building. He could not take off from the saddle. From the ground he could just reach the eave. He clung to the hot adobe and pulled with all his strength, kicking and pawing at the corner with knees and feet. Now and then a bullet flicked adobe dust into his face. With a desperate kick he did succeed in hanging a toe over the cornice. Just as he was wriggling his heavy body up on the roof, something about his hold broke. He dropped broadside from where he sagged, falling about five feet and landing in the litter which collects about Spanish-American huts.
The big drummer lay inert, and cursed with every blasphemy to which he could lay his tongue. He cursed Federals, insurgents, house, sun, dust. He invoked the Deity to consign each to its particular hell. He lay in burning dust, swearing at a mud wall not six inches from his nose.
The tearing volleys of rifle shots were drawing a little away from where Strawbridge lay. The quest of the peons for liberty was withdrawing itself somewhat. Presently the American made an effort to get out of his burning bed. He stirred, and found to his discomfiture that one of his arms was numb. He wondered anxiously if he had broken it.
He used his good arm, made shift to sit up, then got to his feet. Then he was surprised to see that his numb hand was bloody. A closer examination showed that the bones in his palm had been shattered by a bullet. That was what flunghim from the roof. He looked at his hand in dismay, turning it over and back. It did not seem to belong to him. He began swearing again, mentally. What a hell of an accident to happen to him! For him, Thomas Strawbridge, to get shot! What a damnable piece of luck! He continued damning his luck, with quivering earnestness. He could not realize that it was his hand, attached to his wrist. He kept looking at it. The hand did not pain him in the least. It had no sensation at all.
There had been a certain order kept by the peon cavalry, of which Strawbridge had not been aware. Now, as he looked about, he saw the insurgents' horses trotting in a dark group far down theplaya. They were under the care of hostlers, which the hair-splitting plans of Saturnino no doubt had arranged for, for just such an emergency as this. Naturally, Strawbridge's English stallion had vanished with the herd.
Near at hand lay men and horses, dead and wounded. One mule, shot through the back, was dragging itself by its fore feet. Strawbridge picked up his carbine with his good hand and ended its struggles.
For a few minutes the drummer stood looking at this dead mule, at a dead peon some ten steps farther east, then at a sort of windrow of mules and horses and peons where the cavalry had hesitated before charging.
These were the men whom Strawbridge had seen, only an hour before, embracing and weeping over their loves; now they lay in all sorts of twisted and grotesque postures; already the green flies were buzzing about the mouths their sweethearts had kissed. Such was the outcome of their fight for liberty. This was the freedom they had found, these brown exhalations of the llanos, who rose up out of the earth, fought, struggled, plotted, murdered, and sank into the llanos again. And all their pain and fury had ever done in four centuries was to exchange one dictator for another....
A profound weariness came over Strawbridge. The crotches of his legs, which the horse had skinned, began burning again. An unlocalized throbbing set up in his wounded arm. A fly came buzzing about, and the drummer waved it away. Then he examined his wound again, and as he looked he grew sick at heart. He would be crippled for the rest of his life. Never before had a mishap befallen his big, comfortable body, and now his hand was gone and he could never have it again. This seemed to Strawbridge the most tragic thing which had happened in the battle of San Geronimo—that he, who was such a busy man, who needed his hand so much, should have lost it.
With an American's dread of germs he wanted to tie up his wound, to prevent infection. With this object in view, he looked anxiously about over the shambles.
The wharf was deserted by the living. The smalldrogistaswhich usually are found along Latin-American streets were all shut like blind eyes. Sounds of the fighting, a little softened, came from the direction of thecasa fuerte. A rather wild notion came to Strawbridge to follow the soldiers and obtain his dressing from the medical corps of the insurgents; then he recalled that they had no medical corps. They had brought along with them a priest to save the dead, but they had not even a first-aid pack for the wounded.
Beyond the row of palms down the center of theplaya, the drummer presently observed a goleta, one of those curious Orinocan schooners with preternaturally tall masts, and a little square sail swung down under her jib. She was lying close to the bank, and evidently was stuck on a sand-bar, for her owner was on deck, trying, with a long spar, to pry her off.
This sort of craft often carried passengers on the river, and the American felt sure she would possess some of the simplersurgical aids. So he picked up his carbine and set off at a painful pace to the waterside.
When the drummer had passed the row of palms and appeared moving definitely toward the schooner, the man on deck stopped poling. He peered through the glare, at the American, and next moment dashed out of sight below deck.
His action cheered Strawbridge. The drummer felt that the skipper had understood the situation and had rushed below for his surgical dressings, to have them ready by his arrival. This thoughtfulness put a little better heart into the wounded man as he moved shakily along through the glare and heat. He could not help thinking of the inherent courtesy in all Venezuelans. It was perhaps not sincere every time, thought the American, but it was as soothing as a poultice.
As Strawbridge moved gratefully toward the goleta, the skipper reappeared on deck with a stick; no, it was an outrageously long gun. He leveled it at the drummer and fired point-blank. The bullet whistled past the American's ear, and plunked into a heap of balata balls behind him.
Strawbridge stopped and stared, bewildered. The skipper was feverishly reloading his extraordinary gun. It seemed to be some sort of single-shot arrangement. The drummer was amazed, and suddenly outraged.
"Here!" he shouted. "What the hell do you mean?"
The master of the schooner lifted his weapon again, to correct his faulty shot, when the salesman instinctively dived behind some bags of tonka-beans. He peered over the tops, still scarcely able to believe his senses, when the captain fired again and something nicked the American's hat.
At this second discharge the drummer went furious. To be fired on casually and without any provocation whatever! With his good arm, he flung his carbine along the top of the bags leveled down, and fired at the captain. At his firstmovement, however, the sailor had dropped down and disappeared below the garboard of the schooner.
The American fired two vicious shots at the place where the captain must have been prone. Then he glared at the vacant deck, with the bitterest sense of injury he had ever known. To be fired upon when he was seeking aid and comfort—to be shot at like a rat!
His feeling of injury became so intense he burst out cursing the invisible sailor, loading him with every obscene and profane qualification. With his carbine leveled over the bags, he swore furiously for two or three minutes. Then he began to repeat his oaths, and presently fizzled out through a mere sense of rhetoric. Then he damned his enemy for a coward, and invited him to stand up like a man and get killed.
Passed a slight interim, and a voice behind the gunwale, but considerably removed from where the fellow had disappeared, called out, "Señor!"
Through some strange reaction, this placating "Señor" added fuel to Strawbridge's wrath. He broke out again, howling, swearing, and urging the captain to get up and be shot.
But the captain conducted his end of the conversation from cover.
"Señor," he repeated without any resentment in his tone, "are you not arevolutionista?"
"No!" yelled Strawbridge. "I'm a decent American citizen down in this hell-fired country...." He continued this strain upward half a minute.
When he became silent again, the hidden one ejaculated mildly:
"Caramba!How should I know you were anAmericano, señor?"
"Well,—by God!—you ought to look who you're shooting at!"
"Up this Orinoco valley, señor, if you look too long before you shoot, you may not get to shoot at all."
"Huh! I bet you knew I was an American all the time."
"No, really, señor! Why should I shoot at anAmericano?"
Strawbridge could think of no reason why any one should want to shoot at an American. During the silence which followed, the sailor asked in a placating tone:
"May I stand up,Señor Americano? This deck is very warm indeed."
The drummer relinquished his notion of killing the man.
"All right, get up," he conceded. "We're not doing any good like this." And Strawbridge walked out from behind the tonka-beans at the same time the captain sat up and then stood.
The sailor was a brown man, dripping with sweat, and with smudges of pitch on his clothes which he had got from the seams in the deck. He had a good-humored face, rather scared just now, and he looked curiously at Strawbridge as he mopped his face and neck with a red handkerchief.
"Will you come aboard my ship, señor?" he inquired courteously, getting his spar again and running it out to where Strawbridge could by wading a little reach the end of it. The drummer walked aboard.
The moment the drummer stepped on deck, the captain began hastily:
"Now, señor, if you would be kind enough to lend me a little help ... I am trying to float theConcepcion Inmaculada."
"What's the rush?" asked the salesman, looking at his wounded hand.
The fellow swung his weight against the spar.
"Caramba!If therevolutionistascatch me here, they will strip my poorConcepcion Inmaculadato her last sheet."
"Steal your stuff!" echoed Strawbridge. "What makes you think so!"
"Lightning of God!" cried the shipmaster. "They are ladrones, bandits, cutpurses! Come, give a poor man a hand, señor!" He was shoving now with all his strength.
"You're wrong about that!" defended the drummer, warmly. "I know those fellows. Came up here with 'em." He doubled up his good fist and began making strong, convincing selling gestures with it.
"You can take this from me, señor," he said: "The revolutionists are just as high-toned a set of men as you'll find in Venezuela. I honestly believe General Fombombo has higher ideals than any public man I ever knew, and as for that Coronel Saturnino—say! you got to hand it to him for courtesy and politeness! So don't get all fussed about your boat. You're safe as a church, right here." Strawbridge paused impressively, and then asked, "Say, can you do anything for this damned hand of mine!"
The captain was convinced. Perhaps of all the men in the world the American salesman has a style of talk the most sincere in sound. The captain visibly put by his doubts of the revolutionists, and then looked at the hand.
"Caramba!that's a bad punch!"
"Yeh, tough luck."
A faint suspicion crossed the brown man's mind.
"You were not fighting, señor? You are not arevolutionistayourself?"
"Hell, no! I got this following the troops around. I wanted to see how they worked."
"Cá!Are you a military attaché,Señor Americano?"
The ship-owner was visibly impressed, but Strawbridge straightened.
"Say, do I look like a damn diplomatic lounge lizardsunning himself in some South American post! By God, I'm a man! I'm an American salesman down here investigating a point of business. I sell hardware, myself. I make this territory once a year. What's your line!"
The captain of theConcepcion Inmaculadaopened his eyes at a man who so scorned a governmental position. His respect mounted. In fact, the captain was born into the South American cult of respect for office. He had never before met the North American's thoroughgoing contempt for politics and politicians, nor was he aware of the fact that it is barely respectable to be anything less than a senator in the United States—and often not that.
So now the sailor introduced himself with circumspection to so important a personage. He was Noe Vargas, commander of theConcepcion Inmaculada, sailing out of Coro. He had cruised up the Orinoco to buy tonka-beans and balata, and would carry them to Curaçao to be reshipped to Holland. In fact, a large part of the beans and balata which Strawbridge saw lying on the wharf was consigned to theConcepcion Inmaculada, if only Noe could succeed in lading his vessel.
All this information was delightful to Strawbridge. In fact, this was the first conversation which he had really enjoyed since coming to Venezuela. And while Captain Vargas was not particularly fond of talking of sago, copra, cassava, guarapo, and such articles of commerce, he was flattered that so great a man as Strawbridge should deign to listen to him.
As they talked, Captain Vargas made shift to bind up Strawbridge's hand. He had no surgical linen, but he thought the tail of one of his shirts would do. Strawbridge objected, on the score of germs. The captain assured him these were impossible, because only the day before he had washed this shirt, which he proposed to use, in the Orinoco, and it was a well-known fact that running water purified itself once every thousand yards.
"And think how pure the Orinoco must be, señor," added the captain, "for the Orinoco had flowed for thousands and thousands of miles!"
So Strawbridge went below, into a smelly cabin. The captain found the shirt he meant, in a bag of dunnage, pulled it out, cut off the tail, and bound up the drummer's hand.
The two men were still talking business when they returned to the deck. Strawbridge had excited himself somewhat by explaining that if the revolutionists took San Geronimo it would mean for him an order of thousands of rifles and cases of ammunition. This meant a rich commission. The skipper and the drummer stood on deck, listening to the gun-shots which would decide the American's commission. The reports came in gusts.
Strawbridge peered in the direction of the fighting. He tiptoed and moved about the deck, but all he could see was the haze of semi-smokeless powder hanging over the city in the direction of thecasa fuerte. Presently the captain ejaculated:
"Caramba!To think that this fighting may put a fortune in your pocket!"
The drummer nodded.
"It may do it. Damn it! I hope Saturnino wins!"
Both men stared cityward. The volley-firing had almost died out. In its place came a desultory snapping which gave Strawbridge the impression of some person shooting the last few rats in a corn-bin. Now a rat would be found behind a plank—bang!Then two would start from a covert—bang! bang!These were the sounds which came from the city. Single reports at irregular intervals. There was something dreadful and cold-blooded about it.
Suddenly Captain Vargas pointed.
"Mire!Yonder they come out of thecalle! Look!"
Sure enough, through the palms the drummer saw a line of soldiers march out of a street into theplaya. Captain Vargas turned and ran below for a telescope. The drummer screwed up his eyes against the glare and peered without breathing. He was trying to find out whether he was thousands of dollars winner, or whether his side had lost. In the heat the soldiers and the quay danced and shimmered. It was impossible to tell whether they were Federals or rebels. However, the crowd fell into a definite arrangement. A line of men were standing up against the low adobe walls, while another line stood opposite to them in theplaya.
A kind of crawling went over Strawbridge. His heart began to beat heavily, and he stared at the scene with fascinated eyes. At that moment Captain Vargas hurried up on deck with the telescope.
Strawbridge turned, almost jerked the instrument from the Venezuelan, and fumbled at it with his good hand and the wrist of his wounded arm. The captain helped him, and he peered through the glass. Views of palms, of blank walls, of roofs and rolling clouds swung back and forth, up and down; then abruptly appeared a line of men standing against a wall. At the very first glimpse Strawbridge's whole ventral cavity seemed to collapse. At the head of the unhappy column stood Lieutenant Rosales. The drummer could make out even his sharp, dusty features. A figure in a cassock stood in front of the lieutenant, holding up a cross. A nervous spasm swung the lense out of line. When he refocused it, Lieutenant Rosales had disappeared from the head of the column, and an ordinary peon stood next. A solitary rifle report reached theConcepcion Inmaculada.
Strawbridge stopped looking and with a shaking hand handed the glass to the captain. His mouth was so dry he could scarcely speak.
"That ... that ... that was ... Rosales...."
"Your friend?"
Strawbridge nodded.
"Then the insurgents have lost!"
Strawbridge nodded again. Then he went to a coil of rope in the shade of the mainsail and sat down. The slow reports came to him from the end of theplaya—bang!—bang!—bang!Rosales ... Saturnino ... Gumersindo ... the peons, the indomitable peons who had ridden out with their lives in search of liberty. The banging would never, never cease.
The horror, the pathos of it shook the drummer. He leaned forward on his knees and let his head go limply in his folded arms. He did not care whether he lived or died. From the end of theplayathe slow reports assaulted his ears. After a while they stopped. There was a singing in his ears as if he had taken quinine. Presently Captain Vargas said, "They are coming down here." Strawbridge paid no attention. All of his friends on that brave adventure were gone. Gumersindo, with his strange philosophy, was no more, nor the mocking Saturnino, nor the kindly priest. Captain Vargas was saying, "Remember,mi amigo, you are my first mate, if any one should ask. You have been on theConcepcion Inmaculadaall the time. You and I did not fly as the other cowardly vessels did, because we felt that Justice, God, and the federal forces must win."
Strawbridge looked up at the captain and nodded mechanically. He could feel that his face was putty-colored. The two men ceased talking and watched the approach of the federal troops.
As Strawbridge stared at the marching men he scrutinized the officer at the head of the column, a graceful figure of medium height, with slender waist and broad shoulders. This man had just executed a whole column of insurgents, but he bore his bloody deed with a light heart. He walked jauntily,with his visor tipped up and a hand resting lightly on the hilt of his sword.
The drummer tried to make out the features of this man upon whom his own fortunes, even his own life, rested so heavily. He peered intently through the downpour of sunshine. As he looked, a queer illusion took place. The face of the strange officer seemed to melt and change into the features of Coronel Saturnino. A kind of exaltation shone through the dust on this handsome and familiar face. The drummer was shocked at such a resemblance to his executed friend. Then, in the ranks, he espied the black face of Gumersindo. Strawbridge thought he was going mad. At that moment the officer at the head of the column whipped out his sword and saluted the drummer on deck.
"Bravo, Señor Strawbridge!" he shouted joyfully. "I have heard how you stopped a panic and headed a cavalry charge against the ambuscade on the roofs.Mire, mis bravos!There stands the man who won the battle of San Geronimo!"
Under his violent revulsion, the drummer could scarcely breathe. He gaped and stared.
"What! What! Are those our troops! My God! I thought you were all dead—executed. I thought I saw poor Rosales facing a firing-squad!"
Saturnino lost his ebullience.
"You mean at the end of theplaya?"
"Yes."
"That was Rosales. When his forces gained thecasa fuerteby a most gallant charge from the flank, he then tried to hold the fort against my own troops." Saturnino's voice took a metallic tang: "I had to win the stronghold by fighting half my own troops. That young whelp's insurrection almost frustrated my plans."
Strawbridge was dumbfounded.
"You mean ... he deserted you in battle?... turned on you in the midst of battle?"
Saturnino waved a hand.
"For a long time there has been a plot brewing in Canalejos, against General Fombombo. It came to a head in Rosales...." He shrugged. "Cá!You can scarcely blame ajovenof spirit from playing the game. If he had won...." Saturnino looked at the town and the wide river. "Caramba!he would have won a nucleus for a state of his own, thrust in between federal and insurgent territory.Cá!It was quite a stroke. I think I will give the lad a military funeral. Such souls as his have made the Latin race great." Just then the colonel's eyes fell on the drummer's bandaged hand.
"Ola, mi amigo!I see you are wounded!"
The sheer human waste involved in the execution of Lieutenant Rosales horrified Thomas Strawbridge, and filled him with a fundamental discouragement toward all Venezuela. What fire and courage had been wantonly squandered! Could nothing have been done to reclaim so brilliant a daredevil?
However, Strawbridge was the only one who brooded over Rosales's untimely death. The captors of San Geronimo were very jovial and very busy. Saturnino began a series of confiscations which worked with machine-like efficiency. No doubt in his plans for the attack on San Geronimo the colonel had worked out the details of this confiscation. From some source he had obtained a list of the wealthy citizens in the captured town, and now he began collecting what he called "voluntary contributions to the insurgent cause." The colonel fostered the "will to give," by explaining to the prospective contributor what would occur in the event that the sum marked against his name was not forthcoming.
He was forced to carry this threat into effect in only two instances. One cocoa-broker he chained bareheaded in the plaza, and kept him there all day with a pitcher of water just out of his reach. Strawbridge got a glimpse of this wretch, but hurried away for fear he should get himself into trouble by pushing the water closer. The other man, Strawbridge simply heard about. He was shot. The plaza incident was designed purely as a publicity measure, a means of teaching cheerful and abundant donations to a worthy cause. Its value could hardly be questioned.
But the colonel's methods of suasion were not always physical. When he occupied the big wireless telegraph which the federal authorities had constructed at San Geronimo, he persuaded the federal officer to stay at his post.
The wireless plant was a little east of the city, on one of the long, gentle knolls in the llanos. It was a quiet place, barring the whine of the radio, and it was free from the scents left by the battle around thecasa fuerte. Strawbridge often walked out there. It was operated by a dark, silent little man, an Austrian. All the wireless operators in Venezuela were foreigners, because the system itself was new and as yet there were no natives trained for the positions. The Federal Government had given this Austrian the rank of lieutenant, and he had been a regular officer in the Venezuelan Army.
There was a humanity about Strawbridge which eventually drew the operator out. One night the two were sitting outside the station, looking up at the stars and cooling off after the day's heat. As they conversed, presently the ex-lieutenant began a half-hearted defense of his desertion. He said he would not hear to it at first, that he insisted that Coronel Saturnino imprison him or stand him up before a firing-squad, but the colonel scouted such an idea. He said that really the colonel was the kindest-hearted man. He had shown the lieutenant where he was wrong.
"You are a wireless operator," said the colonel. "You should consider yourself strictly a part of your machinery, equally efficient for either side that owns the plant. It would do me no good to execute you and replace you with another man. If the Federals ever recapture this town, they will certainly feel the same way about it. You are as much a part of your plant as the aërials overhead."
The little Austrian sat staring up at the aërials swung high against the stars.
"I am just as much a part of this plant as those aërials,"he repeated gloomily. "They receive messages from anywhere, and transmit them correctly—to any one."
It rather disgusted the drummer.
"Even the aërials have a static," he said, "which sometimes interferes withtheirtransmission. I supposeyouhave no static."
The dark little man seemed disturbed by this, but merely repeated his formula. Heaven knows with what more casuistry Coronel Saturnino had beguiled him. To Strawbridge there was something smudged and pitiful, rather than treacherous, about the little operator.
In all these functionings of warlike ethics, Strawbridge yielded a rather shocked acquiescence to the logic of the situation. In only one instance did he become personally involved, and that was when a revolutionary squad went aboard theConcepcion Inmaculada.
It was a typical Latin-American scene on the schooner's deck, with the sun boiling pitch out of her strakes and a squad of short, brown, empty-faced riflemen standing in the heat, listening as Saturnino, Strawbridge, and Captain Vargas threshed out the rights of the matter.
At Captain Vargas's request, Strawbridge explained to Saturnino that he, Captain Vargas, had remained at San Geronimo during the revolutionary attack, upon the drummer's assurance that he and his schooner would receive complete justice at the hands of the insurgents.
Saturnino assented to this, with the utmost graciousness.
The captain himself then added that he did not fly with the other cowardly schooner-owners because he confided then, as he confided now, in the integrity of therevolutionistas, the nobility of their cause, and the spotless characters of their leaders.
Saturnino bowed deeply over the tar-streaked deck, andassured Captain Vargas that his confidence honored his heart as his judgment honored his intellect.
The captain then asked for assistance in getting his tonka-beans and balata aboard theConcepcion Inmaculada, that he might sail and spread abroad tidings of the justice and equity of therevolutionistas—which no doubt would greatly aid their cause.
The colonel agreed to this, heartily, but suggested that, since all the barter on the wharf had become insurgent property by force of capture, the insurgents now stood in the shoes of the original owners of the property, and that he, Coronel Saturnino, should be paid for the freight.
At this Vargas became thoughtful, and said that he had already paid the owner for the goods. When the colonel asked him for a receipt, the skipper made some vague excuse about the receipt not having been delivered, but he assured the colonel that payment had been made.
Saturnino said he did not doubt this; he said if he were acting for himself he would deliver the freight at once and allow Captain Vargas to sail, but he was not acting for himself. No, every transaction he performed had to be accounted for with the strictest business formality, to President Fombombo, in order that every citizen might be treated with an exact and impartial justice. Thereforeel capitanwould excuse the technicality, but he would have to pay for his tonka-beans and rubber again, in order that he, Saturnino, might have a proper record of the deal. Then the captain could file a claim, if he wished, with the insurgent government, against the man who originally took the money, and thus he would infallibly get it back.
Captain Vargas's good-humored face immediately became serious, but eventually the three men went below into the skipper's cabin, and there Vargas opened a strong-box andturned over to Saturnino a considerable quantity of American gold pieces, and several ounces of raw gold which the skipper had traded for at the mouth of the Caroni River. When the soldiers had lugged the box of money up on deck, Captain Vargas's cheerfulness returned, and he requested that soldiers be furnished to lade the schooner with the beans and rubber on the wharf.
The colonel seemed surprised.
"On the wharf?"
"Seguramente, señor!" exclaimed the skipper, also surprised. "That was the cargo consigned to me."
"But, señor," demurred the colonel, "you cannot expect the revolutionary government of Rio Negro to be bound and crippled by the contracts of its enemies! We should soon land in a pretty impasse."
"But you sold me the balata on the wharf, yourself!"
"Cá!No. Your tonka-beans and balata will be delivered in their proper turn. Here, I will give you a receipt for the money. Now, this balata, we are going to ship to Rio...."
Coronel Saturnino was drawing forth a receipt-book, to write Captain Vargas a receipt, when the injured sailor forgot caution and broke into all manner of Spanish abuse. He declared therevolutionistaswere thieves, cut-throats, and rascals, exactly what he had heard and believed all the time. He shouted that Saturnino might keep the rubber, tonka-beans, and gold, that he was going to sail away and never cruise up the accursed Orinoco again!
Strawbridge, too, was incensed at the barefaced robbery. He declared that such methods were bad business, that Saturnino would ruin all possible commerce in Rio Negro, that the country's reputation was worth more than a cargo of balata.
"It's just like one of our great American poets says, colonel," cried Strawbridge, earnestly. "You must recallthe famous poem entitled, 'Has It Ever Struck You?' Everybody knows the lines. I'll bet they are pasted up in half the offices in America. Now listen to this. The poet says: