Viva el Coronel Saturnino,Son of Freedom and Rio Negro!Save our daughters and our niñas.To Hell with General Fombombo.
Viva el Coronel Saturnino,Son of Freedom and Rio Negro!Save our daughters and our niñas.To Hell with General Fombombo.
Viva el Coronel Saturnino,Son of Freedom and Rio Negro!Save our daughters and our niñas.To Hell with General Fombombo.
Viva el Coronel Saturnino,
Son of Freedom and Rio Negro!
Save our daughters and our niñas.
To Hell with General Fombombo.
The crowd danced about the bonfire to this absurd chant—men and women, embracing, kissing, singing, whirling in and out like brown vortices of sand blown up by the winds on the llanos.
The drummer stood near the façade of the palace, watching the growing saturnalia. He thought of the señora, and he thanked God she was safe in some convent, out of all this fury and madness. Greater and greater crowds gathered in the plaza; they streamed in from everywhere. An old woman passed Strawbridge, with her arms about a filthy skeleton-like creature. In the gathering gloom of evening, Strawbridge recognized the old charwoman of the cathedral, Doña Consolacion, and her grandson Josefa. These two had been reunited. The drummer watched them pass. The strange thought came to him that he had brought them down to their poor plight.
The bonfire was leaping high by this time, and with the delicacy of an etching the ornamental trees stood out against the flames. Below circled the dark figures of the peons, singing of liberty, justice, and Saturnino. Amid the rhythmic intervals of this uproar, the American heard a solitarysobbing. The sound was so consonant to his own mood that he looked about for the mourner. He found the weeper in the gloom beside the long stairway that led up into the palace. He walked slowly around the curve of the marble balustrade, and in the shadows he saw a misshapen woman bending over some object on the pavement and weeping vehemently. Strawbridge drew closer until he could see her face, distorted with grief. It was Madruja. The peon girl was heavy with an unborn child, and in her arms she held the body of the fallen dictator. The dead tyrant looked curiously small as he lay on the pavement, where he had been thrown from the roof of the palace. Occasionally the girl would pause in her sobbing, to stroke the dead man's face with her puffed fingers; then she would break out afresh.
As Strawbridge stood blinking his eyes a street vender came running along, lifting his hands in an attitude of prayer and shouting a priest-like singsong at the skies. Strawbridge listened to him. He was chanting in a frenzy of satire:
"O Saint Peter! O good Saint John! Guard well your eleven thousand holy virgins; General Fombombo is on his way to Paradise!"
The dead man's fate oppressed Strawbridge, and the irony of all the rejoicing at the rise of Saturnino filled him with bitterness. He turned away. He meant to go back to the priests' house. He would leave this anarchic land as quickly as he could. As he turned, a girl came running down the steps of the palace. She stopped half-way down and peered at the man on the pavement. Next moment she called his name, under her breath:
"Ola, Señor Strawbridge! is that you?" She started quickly down the rest of the steps to him. "Cá!Señor Strawbridge, come to my señora at once; she needs you! Quick!Pronto!Ehue, señor, hurry!"
The drummer recognized thegriffegirl. The urgency in her voice brought him up sharply.
"What is it,chica?"
"Oh,Madre de Jesus! The soldiers are searching the convents! She has slipped into the garden and hid! The poor angel! I came flying for you! Señor, hurry! For love of the Virgin! Would you have a heretic like Saturnino seize a nun?"
A terrible feeling came over Strawbridge.
"Seize her! Is that hell-hound...." The monstrousness of it throttled him. The girl pulled at his sleeve, and by this time both were running diagonally across the plaza. They were not conspicuous: they might have been new merrymakers, hurrying to sing, around the bonfire, of the rise of Saturnino and of his protection to "our daughters and ourniñas." But these two angled into one of the narrowcallesthat emptiedinto the plaza. Even from this little run the convalescent began to breathe heavily. He caught his breath to ask:
"How do you know they are searching the convents?"
"I was in the convent of Saint Ursula with her."
"What did they do there?"
"The soldiers surrounded the place, and allowed no one to leave."
"That might be to keep you from getting hurt," gasped the drummer, with a ray of hope.
"Oh, no; they are searching other convents. One of the sisters escaped and told us. Everybody knows who Coronel Saturnino is hunting."
The drummer mended his lagging trot a trifle.
"God almighty!" he breathed in despair; then, "Aren't we almost there?"
The girl pointed ahead at the upper story of a big convent that rose above the poor huts which surrounded it. It was hazy in the gathering shadows of night.
"She is hiding in the garden on this side."
"Were you in there with her?"
"Sí, señor."
"How'd you get out?"
"I climbed the limb of a tree and dropped out."
The drummer was filled with apprehension.
"Good Lord! we'll never get in, that way!"
Thegriffegirl suddenly began to whimper.
"Oh, señor, don't say that! It is the only way we can get back! We can't let the poor señora be caught in the garden!"
At this moment the two rounded a corner and came upon the dark wall of a Venezuelan garden. It was quite as high as an ordinary adobe house, and was finished in the same way, with plaster masonry. It had not a foothold from top to bottom.
The girl caught the American's arm and drew him to a standstill.
"Ola!" she breathed. "There they are now!"
The drummer paused to peer through the gloom, and saw two peons with rifles, standing half-way down the length of the garden. He looked at them, ransacking his brain for some plan. Then he moved forward again, with his shoulders back and with a certain air of authority. The soldiers heard him approach, clicked their rifles, and called him to halt.
The big man stepped out of the shadow of the wall.
"I am theAmericanowho is backing Coronel Saturnino's rebellion with money," he stated briefly. "I suppose you saw me give him a chest of gold in San Geronimo; at least you heard about it."
One of the guards saluted.
"Sí, señor."
"Thecoronelhas reached Saint Ursula now; he told me to come out here and send in you two guards to help him search the place."
One of the soldiers looked at him suspiciously.
"Why did not thecoronelask you to help him, señor?"
"Me? Why, I'm no Catholic. I am a Protestant. You don't imagine thecoronelwould allow a Protestant to go searching through a Catholic convent, do you? He respects the decencies of life."
The doubting guard touched his cap.
"Very well, señor." Both of them turned about, shouldered their rifles, and marched off down the garden fence toward the convent.
When they were some distance away, Strawbridge turned and beckoned. Thegriffegirl came to him. She was doubled up with stifled explosions of laughter.
"Caramba!what a man!" she gasped. "Send those twodonkeys trotting off like that!Cá!" She put her hand on her stomach and doubled again.
Strawbridge shook her out of her mirth.
"Here, cut it out! How can we get into this garden?" He looked up the sheer wall. "How in hell are we ever going to get in?!"
The girl looked up.
"I got out on that tree." She pointed at an overhanging bough.
"Well—damn it!—you see you can't reach it now. You couldn't reach that from the top of the wall!"
"No, señor."
The drummer took the girl by the arm as if he meant to throw her over, and moved distractedly back along the wall.
"I wonder if you could hold on to that Bougainvillea," he speculated hurriedly. "The only thing I see to do is to boost you up to it. We can try it."
They hurried up under the bush. Strawbridge picked her up bodily with his good hand and the elbow of his bad arm. He got her to his shoulder, put one hand under her, and shoved upward with his whole strength. The smell of the kitchen enveloped him. Her sandaled feet were on his shoulders; then she stepped on his head. Flickers of flame danced before his eyes as she kicked off and grabbed the down-hanging bush above them. The next moment she was scrambling toward the top of the wall, clinging to an armful of Bougainvillea stems.
Strawbridge watched her, with his arms straining upward, as if he still bore her weight. He stood thus, as the half-breed girl gained slowly upward and wriggled her body over the top of the wall.
The drummer stood for a monotonous age in the gloom beside the garden, waiting for the reappearance of the maid and her mistress. As he stood there the stars came out amongthe overhanging branches. A faint perfume of some flowering tree sifted down to him, and its fragrance alternated with the smells of a Latin street. A rumor of the turmoil in the plaza still reached his ears, but it was overpowered at regular intervals by the sharp trilling of some insect in the wall. This tiny creature repeated its love-trill over and over, until at last it caught the drummer's attention. He thought what a strange thing it was for this little living speck to send out its love-cry thus and to expect, out of the immensity of the night, some final satisfaction. And there was he, Thomas Strawbridge, on precisely the same quest of love as the midge in the wall.
It was a fantastic thought. The drummer shuddered, and moved about. It seemed to him the insect had been trilling for hours, when he heard a movement on the top of the wall. Then the voice of thegriffegirl whispered:
"Señor, we went to the gate. There are four guards there. How will the señora ever get down?"
Strawbridge was at the edge of his nerves. He thought in irritation: "You fools! wasting time to go to the gate!" He said aloud: "Dolores! Are you up there, Dolores!"
"Oh, dear Tomas, how can I get down?" came the girl's whisper.
"You'll have to drop!" He braced himself for a violent strain.
"I'll catch you!"
The salesman heard a movement above, then the rapid breathing of women attempting some uncertain feat. Presently he made out an object lowering itself, or being lowered, from the rim of the wall. Then he heard a strained whisper: "Oh, señor, Ican'tlet go! Please come up and help me!"
Strawbridge was writhing in a rigor of impatience.
"Drop! For God's sake, drop, Dolores!"
"But I can't drop in the dark! I can't!"
"For Christ's sake, Dolores, drop!" he cried. "Chica!chica!Break her grip! Shove her hands loose! Quick! Damn it! here they come!"
At that instant came a flurry of falling skirts; a blow of soft flesh staggered the drummer and almost brought him to his knees. An aura of faint perfume surrounded him. The breath burst from the girl's strained lungs as she jarred through her lover's arms to the ground. The next moment they had straightened themselves and set out running, hand in hand, down thecalle.
"To the cathedral," gasped the señora. "We'll be safe there!"
From behind them came shouts, then a rifle-shot. A moment later the fugitives ran past the turn in thecalleand for the moment were screened from rifle fire. They had hardly turned when thegriffegirl came pattering behind them. She was winged with terror for her mistress.
"Oh, Heart of Pity! They are firing! Run! Run!"
The maid's excitement really hurried them on faster than the shots had done; but the señora already was panting with the exhaustion of the gently bred.
"I—I—how far do we have to run?" she gasped.
"On, on, señora! Merciful Mary!"
"But—but I can't! I—I—"
"Let's carry her!" panted Strawbridge, at the end of his resources, but he knew he could not do it. The run was telling on his own strength.
They were half-way down thecallenow, spurring on the last of the señora's endurance. They were running between solidly built walls. Behind them the soldiers were shouting commands to halt! The Spanish girl began to sob.
"I—I'll have to stop, I—can't—go—any—"
At that moment Strawbridge glimpsed a little gap in thewall of houses, the slit-like mouth of a tinycalle. He gasped to the señora:
"Run into that! Here, to the left! Jump in as we pass. Get to the cathedral the best you can!Chicaand I will run on!"
The Spanish girl used up the last of her strength to forge ahead of the other two, who ran close to the wall behind her, screening her movements in the gloom. The next moment she disappeared in the narrow opening.
Strawbridge and thegriffegirl ran on alone. When the whole party, pursued and pursuers, were well past the hiding-place of the Spanish woman, the girl whispered in a fairly controlled breath, "Let's run off and leave them, señor!"
"Can you?" puffed the drummer, surprised.
"Seguramente, señor!" There was even a hint of the light-hearted in her voice.
By this time Strawbridge had driven his heart action up to running tempo. He was now good for twenty or thirty minutes of hard running. He answered thegriffegirl by increasing his pace. She kept even with him, apparently without exertion. Even in the midst of his anxiety about the señora, the drummer sensed the freedom and resilience of the girl's movements.
Nothing but pride drove Strawbridge to keep even with her. He spurted at top speed. His long legs spanned the cobblestones at a furious clip. The girl twinkled along at his side with the effortlessness of a squirrel. She must have enjoyed running; she made little sounds of pleasure. When the soldiers rounded the corner and saw their quarry far down thecalle, there came a hurricane of distant oaths and shouts, then the sharp crackling of high-powered rifles and a whistling about their ears.
Thegriffegirl had the breath to giggle hysterically, "They—can't—run—or—shoot!"
But the next moment she gave a little cry. With an extra spurt of speed she veered to Strawbridge, clutched his hand, trying to pull him along, then pressed it sharply against her bosom and blubbered, "Adios, mi amo!They—my mistress...." Then, abruptly and shockingly, she fell headlong on the cobblestones, out of a dead run. Like some wild animal, she had dashed twenty or thirty yards carrying a shot through her heart
Strawbridge stooped for a moment over the body of the girl, and with a stab of pain realized that she was dead. He lifted her head and shoulders, with an idea of carrying her body to some decent place, but another fusillade of shots rattled behind him. He dropped her on the cobblestones and dashed ahead, bending low to avoid the bullets as much as he might. He had not run twenty yards when he came out on the open plaza. If thegriffegirl could have gone twenty yards farther....
He turned sharply to the right along the shop fronts, and tried to lose himself among the bacchanalían crowd. He began threading his way as quickly as he could toward the cathedral.
The murder of the servant-girl filled him with terrible apprehensions for the señora. She was alone in this half-mad city. He began reproaching himself for ever having left her. A hundred misfortunes could befall an unaccompanied woman on Spanish-American streets after nightfall. Some of her pursuers could easily have followed the girl up the narrowcalle. They might be carrying her back to Saturnino at this moment.... A chill sweat broke out on Strawbridge's face. He shoved along through the dancing crowd, past the bonfire, toward the church.
The leaping flames of the fire cast waves of illumination across the plaza and against the cathedral, causing its massive façade to glow and fade in the darkness. From the momentStrawbridge could make out the three dark archways of the triple entrance, he began looking for the woman. He hurried along, peering ahead, hitting his fist against his palm, twisting his fingers. His rapid walk changed into a trot. He forgot that his great height rendered him conspicuous as he shoved along through these low-statured Venezuelans. Once he looked back and he saw a sinister thing. A squad of soldiers were plunging through the singers of liberty, like a plow. They left a furrow in the human mass behind them which required twenty or thirty seconds to refill with revelers. Then from another direction a second body of soldiers pushed their way; these two bodies were converging on the cathedral.
The sight of these squads whipped the drummer into headlong flight again. His apprehension increased as he came to the cathedral. His back crawled with dread of a crashing impact. One little fact comforted his harassed brain: if the two squads were focusing on the cathedral, Dolores must have escaped. If he were killed, Father Benicio would protect her.
At the very moment he thought of the priest, he saw him. The cleric's black-robed figure stood at the entrance of the middle door as if on guard. When Strawbridge reached the piazza in front of the church, he slackened his pace to something a little more respectful.
"Father—Father," he panted, when he was close enough, "is Dolores in the church? Has she come? For Christ's sake, man, tell me!"
The priest waved him sharply inside, then walked quickly to the smaller of the three portals, apparently to shut it. He seemed to have been waiting for the American's arrival. What he did next, the American did not know; he was already hurrying down the aisle toward the chapel of the Last Supper.
Strawbridge knew that Dolores was in this chapel. He turned into the entrance. He could see nothing except the slender dark figure against a glow of gold. The girl turned athis footstep, gave a little cry, and lifted herself to the arms of her lover. The big American bent over her, unable to see for his own tears. He kissed her ears, her chin, with her nun's bonnet in his face. He lifted a clumsy hand to remove it. His shaking fingers felt the coils of her hair, the curve of her neck. He was half sobbing.
"Oh, I ought never to have left you! Poor angel! Did they hurt you!"
With fluttering fingers she got the bonnet off, and it fell down before the altar. They stood pressing their mouths together, clinging to each other with convulsive gusts of strength. They gasped and murmured inarticulate sounds out of the corners of their lips. They had been so terrified for each other, and now their nerves swung back in a crescent and inarticulate transport.
Strawbridge spoke first:
"I saw some soldiers coming this way. I think we'd better go."
The girl lifted her face from his breast to look at him.
"Leave the cathedral!"
"Why, yes, Beautiful! I tell you the soldiers chased me in here. They must be outside. God knows how long we've been standing here!"
She loosed herself and straightened.
"But, my own heaven, this is our sanctuary. We are safe here."
It had never occurred to the drummer to allow the cathedral to be the haven of his flight.
"But listen, beloved: we're not safe anywhere. You thought you were safe in the convent, but—"
"But,mi adoración, you know that not evenhewould violate the chapel of our merciful Lady." She looked at him, amazed.
"But he will! I know he will. Here, let's go!" He took her arm and swung her gently about so that she was at his side with one of his arms about her waist.
"But,mi carino!" she cried, "don't you know if he should dare come in here, our holy Lady would cast him out of this cathedral;Cá!She would call down fire from heaven upon his head!" The girl made a sharp gesture from the image on the altar to some imaginary victim before it.
Such a passion of belief startled the drummer. He had never before sensed this fire in the girl. But his apprehension was rising constantly. He heard a murmur from the front of the cathedral. He made her listen; he began urging her more strongly than ever that they fly while they could. She put a hand over his mouth.
"But listen,carissimo!" she insisted passionately. "Our loving Lady brought us together in her chapel; shall we not trust her to the end? Can we wound her feelings by deserting her now?" She touched her breast and forehead and looked at the image. "Oh,mi corazon, I prayed and prayed to her for this great happiness! I wrote a letter to my dear Lady and placed it here on her altar so my prayer would go up to her like an incense. And now I have you!" She put her arms around him again and gazed into his face with rapt and tender eyes. "Let us stay here!"
The fact that Dolores had written the letter which he had contemplated writing, moved Strawbridge with a profound intimacy and sweetness. It gave him another of his rare glimpses of the eternity in which his little life momentarily moved. Perhaps supernal powers were indeed ranged back of these altars, with their protecting arms about him and this sweet lady. The thought of such guardianship wrapped the drummer in its glory. It elevated his passion for the Spanish girl; it lifted it from the earth, and set it up in heaven, like a star. He was almost minded to rest his fatewith the Virgin, but his mystical mood was broken by the gathering turmoil at the cathedral entrance. The sounds reached the chapel softened and sweetened by arches and domes, but they were sinister. They whipped the American's thoughts from any supernatural help and set him back sharply on his pagan self-reliance. He took the girl's arm again.
"Look here, Dolores," he hurried as the sounds swelled in intensity, "we'll have to go. She—" he nodded at the altar—"she's done enough—all I want. She's got us together. Now we ought to help ourselves!" Strawbridge's voice admitted of no discussion. He was almost dragging the girl away.
The noise at the entrance was resounding as if the cathedral were a bass viol. Dolores moved instinctively back to her protectress, but Strawbridge hurried her along.
As they ran up the aisle, Strawbridge thought swiftly of possible avenues of escape. He remembered the underground tunnels in the crypt, but the idea of flying through a hole in the ground was repellent to him. He would take the night and the stars.
Even while he was planning, he hurried to the side door of the cathedral which let out into the garden. As he fumbled at the bolts with his good hand, came two heavy, drum-like reports from the front of the cathedral. This seemed to loose pandemonium in the church.
The drummer leaped with the girl into the dark garden, and went running down the hedge. They had not gone a hundred feet before they heard men rush out at the side door behind them. Bending low in the shadow, Strawbridge ran at full tilt. His good arm took the strain of the señora's stumblings. In his necessity he upheld her, he almost carried her. He crashed on through the garden. His impact burst open the little postern gate toward the palace. As heran, he silently cursed his pursuers with every blasphemy he could think of. He could hear the Spanish girl whispering rapid prayers.
He rushed across to the piazza behind the palace. He swung Dolores upon it and leaped up after her. The west side of the piazza was blocked by the palace kitchen. In the cooking-stove a handful of red coals glowered at him. Their pursuers had now filled the thoroughfare between the garden and the palace. Suddenly he saw two or three forms leap upon the platform. The drummer ran to the river side of the piazza. The girl clutched his arm.
"Oh,carissimo! we are not going down there!"
"Yes, yes! there's nowhere else to go!"
They stepped upon the steep, dark slope that dropped away to the river. Instantly they were sliding and slipping down, helter-skelter. They went through rotting flesh, bones, decaying vegetables, stenches and smells such as are found nowhere on earth save outside a Latin-American kitchen. They balanced, they caught each other, they fell on their hands and knees. The fetor of the stuff high on the bank changed to the dull smell of dried leavings farther down. Suddenly, from far above them, came the flashes of rifles. As usual with riflemen on a height, the soldiers overshot. A moment later, the fugitives reached the dank smell that marked the river's edge. Not forty yards down the river, Strawbridge saw the glimmer of a white object. He went running toward it, lifting the girl on his arm. The scoured canoe took form out of the night. The drummer swung Dolores bodily over the garboard, then heaved at the prow and began backing it out into the dark, swift river. When it was well afloat, he leaped and landed on his belly across its nose. He wriggled inside, groped for the paddle, straightened up, and began working furiously with his good hand and his elbow, away from the rifle fire.
When he was well away, he looked back. Flashes from the rifles were still visible, but they seemed to be moving rapidly up the river bank. With the rifles drifted the black bulk of the palace, the stately spire of the cathedral, the somber outline of La Fortuna. All moved evenly and swiftly into the west; they dwindled in size and definition until presently they melted into the night. At last all the fugitives could discern were the red reflections of the bonfire against the clouds.
Around the canoe boiled the rapids of the Rio Negro. They were in the midst of the thunder that brooded for miles over cities and villages and llanos. The air was full of flying spray and the peculiar smell of fresh water in great disturbance. The canoe was flung skyward, dropped. It came to sharp pauses, leaped forward, and pirouetted on prow and stern. Strawbridge lay flat on his back in the fish-boat, to keep the center of gravity as low as possible. The stars overhead appeared to him a whirling vortex of fiery points. He gripped the señora's hands in his good palm. He could feel her moving her rosary through her fingers. As they shot through the black thunder, the Spanish girl was praying to the Virgin of Canalejos. Dolores believed the Virgin was guiding the canoe down the perilous channel. Strawbridge's nerves were at tension, but he was not afraid. He believed in his luck.
The distance from Canalejos to San Geronimo is much greater following the meanders of the Rio Negro than the direct route across the llanos. When dawn whitened over the river, on the morning after the flight of the drummer and the Spanish girl, Strawbridge expected hourly to see the campaniles of San Geronimo appear above the horizon. It was his plan, when he came in sight of the city, to wait until night before he attempted to pass in the canoe. He reasoned that Saturnino would telegraph to San Geronimo and order their arrest and imprisonment.
So, as the two fugitives floated down the great muddy flood, they peered through the beating sunshine and the dancing glare from the water, in order to see and be warned by the first glimpse of the distant city. But such a fulgor lay over the water that toward the middle of the morning they were hardly able to see the reeds that marched down to the riverside, or the green parrots that passed over the canoe in great flocks and filled the sky with a harsh screaming.
The river stretched on, mile after mile, a vast moving plane that banished the shores to level lines almost at the horizon. At last Strawbridge came to paddle close to one shore, in order that their tiny canoe might not be utterly lost amid such an immensity. As they clung closely to the left or easterly bank they passed, in the afternoon, what appeared to be the mouth of a small tributary river. Along its banks were a scattering of deserted huts, stakes with rusting chains fastened to them, a stockade of reeds daubed with mud, two or three adobe ovens such as the peons use. Strawbridgelooked curiously at the abandoned site, and presently he realized that he was passing one of the branches that would have formed a part of General Fombombo's great system of canals. The work lay abandoned in a furnace of heat; the conscripted "reds" were gone. The only evidences of life were the crocodiles which had taken possession of the waterway and sunned themselves along its sandy rim.
As the man and the woman floated past they looked at the intake and the empty camp until it grew small in the distance and at last melted into the dancing horizon. What the Spanish girl thought as she looked at this ruinous fragment of her husband's great dream, Strawbridge did not know, nor did he dare to ask.
This long reach of water, wrought by the fettered "reds," somehow made Strawbridge, as he floated past it in his little canoe, feel small and uncertain of himself. It brought to his mind keenly the general, his restless planning; working, gathering gold, attacking cities, conscripting labor for vast projects; and now he was gone and this mighty fragment of his work was a harbor for reptiles. Seen from this perspective, the fact that the dictator had abandoned Dolores, who did not love him, for peon girls who did, no longer appeared the high crime which the American had held most harshly against him. It occurred to Strawbridge that there must have been sides to the general which he had missed, or but dimly apprehended.
The drummer's thoughts swung away from the general, to the long line of dictators who had arisen and oppressed Rio Negro. Each tyrant no sooner gained power than immediately he fell into some madness peculiar to himself.
Strawbridge wondered why this was so. Heretofore he had thought such tyranny and oppression arose out of sheer wickedness, but now, looking back on the life of the general, he doubted this judgment. The trend of Fombombo's planshad always been toward some great good for his state. But his efforts, it seemed to Strawbridge, were unbusinesslike. He made a gesture toward projects far beyond his resources. His effort to outstrip his physical resources forced him to conscript the "reds." It was his sensitiveness to any criticism of his unbusinesslike policy that caused him to imprison every critic of his methods. Lack of business acumen was the basic weakness which led to the dictator's tyrannies and to his final downfall.
As Strawbridge sat in the canoe, brooding over it, a strange thought came to him that perhaps all righteousness of conduct was at last resolvable to dollars and cents.
He mused over this curious theory. Gumersindo had told him some of the history of Spain, and all the time the negro editor was relating the expulsion of the Moors and the Jews from the peninsula, the drummer kept thinking not of any abstract injustice of the banishment but of the extraordinarily bad business methods the Spanish monarch used. Likewise, he could not help thinking that while the Spanish Inquisition struck a fine attitude before Heaven, it cut a very poor figure on Exchange.
And now he thought that just as Spain had suffered from lack of business, Venezuela, her colony, had inherited the same curse. The Venezuelans placed religion before business, they placed family pride before business, they placed pleasure before business. It seemed to him that they placed the smallest before the greatest.
Heretofore, when Strawbridge's Venezuelan friends had twitted the American with possessing "monetary morals," the drummer was wounded and inclined to take offense at the qualification. Now, as he thought about it more steadily, it dawned on him that the ability to sift conduct down to its money value was about the only universal standard of righteousness that the world would ever know. This curiousconclusion settled many interrogations in the drummer's mind, and brought to him a kind of peace.
Strawbridge felt a man's impulse to share his thoughts with the señora. He glanced up at her, with his theory on the tip of his tongue, but she seemed absorbed in her own musings. As he looked at her through the glare of sunshine, his instinct warned him that he would better not attempt it. It was very precious to him, but it would not be very precious to her. Indeed, as he looked at her, he began to realize that she would never understand it; that she was born on the wrong side of the world ever to understand just these thoughts.
She looked very dear and lovable.
The fugitives did not reach San Geronimo until the third night following their flight. They approached the city in the darkness, as they had planned, but to their surprise and dismay, they saw hundreds of lights moving over the face of the water. From afar off these lights looked like a field of fireflies, but presently they developed into native torches, such as the Orinoco Indians use in hunting alligators at night.
The man and the woman were terrified, and in whispers discussed what course they could pursue. Dolores suggested that they go ashore on the other side of the river and walk down past the town. This was impossible because the city lay in the junction of the Rio Negro and the Orinoco. They would be caught in this V-shaped Mesopotamia, with nowhere to walk except back up the Orinoco. Moreover, any walking at all in such a pestilential country would mean a painful and lingering death for Dolores. Nor was the drummer in any degree a woodsman. He always lost his direction in the open.
It seemed to Strawbridge that their only possible hope was to reach one of the searching canoes and bribe the owner intorunning them through the blockade. He knew a report of his imaginary wealth had been spread among the peons, and now he hoped by wide promises to slip through Coronel Saturnino's fleet.
He veered his canoe in the darkness and began paddling slowly toward one of the lights. It seemed an ironic thing that freedom, the right to a home and to Dolores should lie just a quarter of a mile beyond those patrolling torches. To accomplish his object, he had scarcely a gambler's chance. Saturnino, sitting in his study in San Geronimo, had worked out every possible combination which Strawbridge could attempt. Now this diapering of lights moving against the darkness was one of his checks.
In the midst of his thoughts, Strawbridge became aware that half a dozen or more lights were bearing down on his canoe. The drummer, in dismay, stopped paddling. He had thought to steal silently up to one of the canoes, unseen by the others, and quietly make his compact with the canoeist to assist him through the blockade. Now, with dozens of boats bearing down on him from every direction, bribery was impossible. He sat staring at the gathering torches, with a profound sinking of the heart. By no possibility could he, a one-handed man, race away from the Indians.
The Spanish girl moved to him.
"Oh, dear Tomas!" she whispered, "are we going to be lost, after all!"
Her helplessness moved the drummer.
"I suppose talking to him, pleading with him, begging him for the love of humanity to let you go—"
Dolores gave his hand a pressure.
"No, we must not despair. I know the sweet Virgin will save us. She would not do so much and then let us be lost." The girl lifted her white face toward the stars and began murmuring her prayers.
The drummer looked at her with a profound pity and tenderness. He knew it would indeed require a miracle to save her now. He swiftly considered what he could do. There was only one thing. He could follow her to Canalejos, and then, when Saturnino had taken her into the palace and wearied of her ... then....
The drummer wondered whether he himself could keep so long and humiliating a vigil. It seemed to him that he could; indeed, it seemed the only thing possible for him to do. Ever again to make a gesture of deserting her was an impossible thing for Thomas Strawbridge. Among all the women in the world she alone was for him; she was a very part of himself.
He put his arms around her.
"Listen, Dolores," he whispered solemnly: "no matter what comes, as long as I have life I will follow you; no matter what happens, I will wait for you." He kissed her gently on the cheek and pressed her face to his. "I will not forsake you, Dolores...."
Amid his murmuring came a shout across the water:
"Hola, Señor Americano!Is thatSeñor Americano! Canastos, hombre!you are wanted!"
Strawbridge stood up in the canoe.
"Ho, yes!" he shouted loudly. "Come ahead! I am the American!"
Canoes were gathering now from every direction, and their lights began to illuminate his own boat; still, he could see little of the gathering flotilla, for each torch was set in front of a tin reflector and flung all its light forward. From the dimly seen figures came a voice, saying:
"An order from Canalejos, señor. We are to detain you andla señora!"
"Yes, I had supposed so."
A pause, then the voice said:
"We have been watching for you day and night, señor."
The American wearied instantly of this polite Spanish circumlocution.
"Oh, well! Now that you've got us what are you going to do with us?"
"If you will accompany me to my ship, señor! Perhaps you recognize me: we had a very pleasant afternoon together once. I am Captain Vargas of theConcepcion Inmaculada." He twisted the light about in his boat and exhibited not a canoe but himself and a number of peon oarsmen, in a jolly-boat.
Strawbridge looked at his good-natured face. That he should have fallen in with this captain who would have been so easily bribed, amid a crowd where such bribing was impossible, was the last touch of ironic fortune. It filled him with such bitterness that he ran his tongue about his mouth as if the flavor were on his palate.
"Yes, I remember you very well. So you are still here?"
"That is true, but I sail at once. I am in the Rio Negran navy now, both me and myConcepcion Inmaculada. I am a captain. I am a captain in the insurgent navy."
It was true. Captain Vargas wore a blue coat trimmed with much gold braid. Coronel Saturnino had caught him through his vanity.
A rope had been tossed over the prow of the canoe, and now the whole fleet of small boats approached the lights of a schooner that lay in the harbor of San Geronimo. This was the old schoonerConcepcion Inmaculada, now the solitary ship in the insurgent navy. Beyond the black rigging of the ship, Strawbridge could see the silhouettes of the long row of palms which stood on the waterfront. The schooner lay exactly where the drummer had seen her after the battle of San Geronimo.
The small boats pulled up alongside, and the captain andthe captives went on board. The old tub evidently had been laded during the interim, for now she smelled strongly of balata and tonka-beans.
Captain Vargas led the way briskly across decks and down the little hatchway into the cabin. Two oil lamps lighted this place and when the captain stepped into it the gold braid on his new uniform shone more brightly than ever. He went over to the ship's chest, opened it, and drew out an envelop.
"I have a writ here for you, Señor Strawbridge," he explained politely. "It was very necessary to intercept you; that is why all San Geronimo turned out to be sure you were brought in."
"Yes. You seemed enthusiastic."
Captain Vargas smiled politely. He was a little more polite, a little stiffer, and not quite so friendly now that he was in a uniform.
"Now, if the señora will have that chair.... She must be weary." He drew about a chair and assisted her to it, with elaborate courtesy.
Vargas then bowed again and handed the envelop to the drummer. It was a government official envelop with a large seal. The American opened it, moistened his lips, then held it under the light of an oil lamp and read:
Señor Tomas Strawbridge,Late of Canalejos, Rio Negro.Excellentissimo Señor:You are hereby instructed to proceed immediately to Rio de Janeiro with theConcepcion Inmaculada, taking full command of her cargo of balata and tonka-beans, also of the gold coin and specie on board, as set forth in the ship's manifest. Deliver this cargo to the consignee in Rio Janeiro, and with the proceeds therefor purchase the arms and ammunition as heretofore set out in a contract entered into by the government of Rio Negro of the first part and the Orion Arms Corporation of the second part. This former contract is hereby fully validated by the newly establishedgovernment of Rio Negro. I have the honor to be,al mas excellentissimo señor, su muy humilde servidor,Delgoa,Minister of War.
Señor Tomas Strawbridge,Late of Canalejos, Rio Negro.
Excellentissimo Señor:
You are hereby instructed to proceed immediately to Rio de Janeiro with theConcepcion Inmaculada, taking full command of her cargo of balata and tonka-beans, also of the gold coin and specie on board, as set forth in the ship's manifest. Deliver this cargo to the consignee in Rio Janeiro, and with the proceeds therefor purchase the arms and ammunition as heretofore set out in a contract entered into by the government of Rio Negro of the first part and the Orion Arms Corporation of the second part. This former contract is hereby fully validated by the newly establishedgovernment of Rio Negro. I have the honor to be,al mas excellentissimo señor, su muy humilde servidor,
Delgoa,Minister of War.
This surprising letter had a postscript written in a different, and, indeed, in an almost illegible hand. Its extraordinarily bad Spanish baffled the drummer for several minutes, but at length he made out:
My devotedcamarado: You left Canalejos to attend to some other detail of your gigantic plans, just in the moment of local victory. However, I saw my opportunity and seized it. The moment Coronel Saturnino shot down good Father Benicio at the door of the cathedral, when the father was trying to protect the Señora Fombombo, that moment I knew Coronel Saturnino had gone too far. I knew the saints would overthrow such a blasphemous murderer. I raised the banner of revolt against him. All the peons and half his own army turned against him at once. I had no difficulty in capturing him. He is now lodged in La Fortuna, in its vilest cell. He eats nothing but maggoty bread, and drinks the river water that seeps into his dungeon. I have him soundly thrashed three times a day.Also, I have placed in prison all the palace guards and all the old government officials and their sympathizers. Be assured none of them will ever get out, except in sacks. I am determined that in Rio Negro shall reign liberty, equality, and fraternity. That is why all aristocrats shall stay in La Fortuna.All the rooms in the palace are occupied, but Madruja is very ill.I have also recaptured a large number of "reds" and have set them to digging the foundation of a magnificent bull-ring.Juan Lubito, El Libertador,First Constitutional President of theFree and Independent Republic of Rio Negro.
My devotedcamarado: You left Canalejos to attend to some other detail of your gigantic plans, just in the moment of local victory. However, I saw my opportunity and seized it. The moment Coronel Saturnino shot down good Father Benicio at the door of the cathedral, when the father was trying to protect the Señora Fombombo, that moment I knew Coronel Saturnino had gone too far. I knew the saints would overthrow such a blasphemous murderer. I raised the banner of revolt against him. All the peons and half his own army turned against him at once. I had no difficulty in capturing him. He is now lodged in La Fortuna, in its vilest cell. He eats nothing but maggoty bread, and drinks the river water that seeps into his dungeon. I have him soundly thrashed three times a day.
Also, I have placed in prison all the palace guards and all the old government officials and their sympathizers. Be assured none of them will ever get out, except in sacks. I am determined that in Rio Negro shall reign liberty, equality, and fraternity. That is why all aristocrats shall stay in La Fortuna.
All the rooms in the palace are occupied, but Madruja is very ill.
I have also recaptured a large number of "reds" and have set them to digging the foundation of a magnificent bull-ring.
Juan Lubito, El Libertador,First Constitutional President of theFree and Independent Republic of Rio Negro.