He had not thought of women; until that moment he had never bothered his head about them. He had considered them as a race apart, with ways of their own which, on the whole, he resented. From time to time he had met a girl who had been a jolly good sport: Rosa was rather a good sport; anyhow, they were the exceptions. The rest were in a world of their own, with nerves and standards of their own which he disliked but respected. Now suddenly there stood before him a woman who realised all his dreams of what a woman should be. Yet she was not like any other woman. She was as little like a woman as a humming bird is like a bird. She was a small, perfect, spiritual shape, glowing like a humming bird. He had once heard somebody say that “you only get perfection in small things”; he had thought the man an ass at the time, but remembered it now. This woman was perfect. Her hair was of a most deep, dark brown, very abundant, but caught close to her head by a narrow fillet of gold. This gave her something the look of a boy, enough, perhaps, to establish a sympathy with a boy like Hi. The eyes were darker than the hair. They shone as though the brain behind them were one glow of light. They were not only kind, good eyes, but so very merry. The eyebrows were remarkable. As in most clever faces, the base of her nose, at the brow, was broad, and the space between the eyes not small. The unusual beauty of the eyebrows was their length; they continued the demarcation of the brow to the right and left; they were straight in line over the eyes, and lifted a little at the right and left sides, in a way impossible to describe, though it made the face most vivid and unusual. The nose was straight. The ears, which are seldom beautiful, even in the beautiful, were perfect in her. The cheeks were of a rich colour as though the life within were very intense. The mouth was the great distinction: it was of a faultless beauty. All fun, all thoughtfulness, all generosity, were in those gentle, sensitive, proud curves. She wore white, with a green jacket. Her voice seemed to Hi to be the quality of voice he had always most longed to hear. She spoke English faultlessly.
“So Rosa has put you to cutting out Easter dresses?” she asked.
“Women are always making men slaves,” he said.
“Well, after lunch, you shall be free. Manuel will be here to lunch, Rosa, so if it’s cool enough we might play tennis afterwards. Would you play, Mr. Ridden?”
“I’d love some tennis.”
She picked up some pattern-paper, turned it, folded it, snipped it with scissors, refolded it, snipped it again, and then shook it out as a sort of cape or shawl of lace.
“That is what the negresses wear in San Jacinto,” she said. “They cut the linen and wear it over scarlet; it looks just like lace at a little distance.”
“You are clever,” Hi said, “to cut it all out like that. I wish you’d show me how you did it.”
“Like this,” she said, picking up another piece of paper.
“The English are always wanting to do things,” Rosa said. “They never say, ‘Here’s a perfect day, let’s think about perfection.’ They say, ‘Here, it’s stopped raining, let’s do something.’ ”
“You did your share when you were in England,” he said, “so you needn’t talk.”
“She seems to have been busy this morning,” Carlotta said. “We’ll talk about perfection, if you like.”
“I don’t want to talk, but to listen,” Rosa said. “Suppose you sing.”
Carlotta went to the piano and sang a couple of Spanish songs, one strange, the other grim, both haunting. Hi thought them the most beautiful things he had ever heard, sung by the most marvellous voice. He could not turn his eyes from her face and throat. She was the most exquisite thing he had ever seen. He felt himself to be vile and a boor, and unfit to walk the same planet. He wondered whether he could possibly take the pattern-papers which she had cut, or the scissors she had used. He stared and stared. He knew it to be rude, but could not help it. “My God, she is beautiful,” he thought. “She is lovely, lovely. O God, I wish I could fight for her or do something for her.”
He noticed her hands. They were not the thin, pale, very knuckly bundles of skewers which ladies’ hands usually seemed to him, but perfections of form and marks of capacities. There was a ring on one finger. “There it is,” he thought; “she’s engaged to be married, to this devil Manuel, who isn’t good enough for her. This devil Manuel can kiss her. I’d like to call him out.” Glancing suddenly away from the lovely face he saw Rosa watching him with a certain malice tinged just a little, unselfish as she was, with envy. No one had stared at her in quite that way before she had taken any pains to secure it.
Rosa smiled somewhat bitterly; a gong was beaten to call them to lunch.
“Manuel is late,” Carlotta said; “he said he might be.”
Hi hated Manuel for being late, and for being called “Manuel,” and for being at all. He wanted to shine before her, but could think of nothing to say; he seemed to be spurting orange-juice everywhere. Then he was ashamed that three women, living in this lovely room, should all speak good English, in compliment to himself, while he could hardly say, “Thank you” in Spanish.
IV
“Rosa,my daughter,” Donna Emilia said, “I have had such a strange message from Señora Artigas. Her son, Estifanio, has disappeared.”
“We passed him in the cathedral last night, mother, at about six or half-past, as we left the service.”
“He was at home after that. At nearly midnight two young men, in evening dress, called for him to say that Porfirio Rivera, his great friend, had been hurt in a duel, was dying, and had asked for him. Estifanio did not know the young men; but, of course, he went with them, and he has not returned.”
“If his friend were dying, mother, he would stay with him.”
“But the story was false, my dear. Porfirio called for Estifanio this morning; he had fought no duel, is in perfect health, and has sent no message. Estifanio has disappeared. Imagine his mother’s anxiety.”
Hi saw Rosa and Carlotta look at each other with a glance which he could not interpret. He felt that there was trouble and that he had better say something.
“We had a fellow at school,” he said, “who disappeared one summer holidays. He went out in a boat with another fellow. The boat upset, but they were picked up by a steamer. However, the steamer was carrying the mails and could not stop, so these two fellows had to go all the way to New York before they could send a message home. They’d both been buried, or at least had the burial-service read over them by that time.”
“Estifanio will turn up, in the same way, mother,” Rosa said.
“I trust so,” the old lady said. “Suddenness of death is ever a thing I pray God to spare my friends.”
“Estifanio is a great hunter,” Carlotta said. “He rides out to this ‘drag,’ do you call it? which the English have started. Are you fond of hunting, Mr. Ridden?” He thought her an angel of tact to have changed the conversation a little.
“I love riding,” he said, “but of course, my father only lets me ride the old crocks. Still, sometimes he lets me be his second horseman, and then I have had some wonderful times.”
“Rosa said that you are fond of engines.”
“Yes, I love engines.”
“So do I,” she said. “I’m racing my brother with one. He is having an irrigation canal dug by men, and I am doing a little bit of it with machines; but the nature of the ground doesn’t make it quite a fair match. What engines interest you most?”
“No particular engine,” he said, “but more the nature of engines. I’m always thinking of all sorts of little engines which everybody could have. For instance, a little engine to sweep the floor of a room, or dust walls, or clean big glass panes like the windows of shops. Then, I expect you’ll think it very silly, but don’t you think one could have a little engine on a boat?”
“Oh, the engine on a boat,” Rosa said. “Hi is a lovely character, Carlotta. He would die for me or for you at a moment’s notice; but the engine on a boat is his mad streak. Of course it’s nice to have a mad streak; it shows the oldness of your family; but there it is.”
“Why should there not be an engine on a boat?” Carlotta asked. “What sort of little engine do you mean, Mr. Ridden?”
“Oh, call him Hi, Carlotta,” Rosa said. “This is his home here, remember; call him Hi.”
“I don’t know whether he will let me,” Carlotta said.
“I’ll be frightfully proud if you will,” Hi said, and blushed scarlet, and knew that Rosa watched the blush.
“What sort of engine . . . Hi?” Carlotta asked.
“Thank you,” he said, wondering whether he would ever be able to save her life and in reward be asked to call her Carlotta.
“You see,” he said, “Rosa is always ragging. She worked at this engine when she was in England. You see, we live in a part of England which is mostly rolling grass hills. We call them downs, but they are really a sort of ups. Well, we are a good long way from the Thames; too far to go for a day’s boating. Now I’m not much good at rowing, but I do love messing about in a boat. I mean, being in a boat.”
“I do, too,” Carlotta said; “there is a sort of lake at home. I go out in a boat to watch the flamingoes.”
“We’ve not got any lake, alas,” Hi said, “but there is a little sort of brook, or chalk-stream. It’s got plenty of water always, but it isn’t broad enough for oars. So what I’ve always wanted to do is to make a little engine to go in a boat. I don’t mean a steam-engine, but a hand engine, so that one could have the exercise of rowing. A man would sit on the thwart and turn a crank, or pull it to and fro, and that would turn a paddle-wheel; only I don’t want the paddle-wheel to be at the side, but either in front or let into the boat in a sort of well, so as not to take up room. They all say that it couldn’t go, but I say it must go.”
“Of course it would go,” Carlotta said.
“How could it go?” Rosa asked. “It could no more go than if you were to stand in the boat and pull the boat-rope.”
“You’ve not even got enough mechanical sense, Rosa,” Hi said, “to make you keep quiet when mechanics are being talked. If I’d had an old boat or punt to experiment on, instead of a clothes-basket covered with rick-cloth, I’d have proved that my thing would go.”
“If it would go, why hasn’t it been done? All the English are always messing about in boats.”
“My engine is not for ordinary rivers, but for the brooks at home, or even the canals, where you cannot always row, nor even paddle in comfort.”
“There wasn’t much comfort in your clothes-basket, if I remember rightly,” Rosa said.
“There isn’t much comfort in any good thing.”
“I should have thought religion,” Rosa said.
“You try it and see.”
“Manuel is very late,” Donna Emilia said. “We’re almost at an end here. Do you think that he will come, ’Lotta?”
“Yes, I think I hear him.” A horse came at a quick canter up the drive. Carlotta turned to Hi.
“After my marriage,” she said, “you must come out to stay with us, if you will. There are rivers there not unlike what I should imagine yours to be, and rolling hills of grass.”
“I would love that,” he said. He looked at her, and was at once shot through with anguish to think that she was to be married to a man not good enough for her. “He has frightened her,” he thought, “or got some hold upon her, in the way these beasts do.”
Suddenly he realised that Don Manuel was there, kissing Donna Emilia’s hand; he must have come in like a panther.
“I say,” he thought, “what a man.”
All manly strength, beauty and grace moved in that figure; but the face was the extraordinary thing; it won Hi at once, partly by its power, partly by its resemblance to the bust of the young Napoleon on the landing at the Foliats. The man turned to Hi, with eyes most strange, masterful, unbearable and bright as flames. “This is an extraordinary man,” Hi thought. “Either splendid or very queer, perhaps both.” The extraordinary man greeted him in English; then burst out with:
“Ah, I am glad to see you, Mr. Ridden. Your father sixteen years ago sent me two English hunting saddles, because I rode his stallion, what? And how is your father? And how do you like Santa Barbara? Ah, your father; I was proud of those saddles; no gift have I liked so. You shall come to me at Encinitas and ride and ride. That is the life, what?”
He took Hi’s hands in both his own, in his impulsive way, and looked into his eyes, in a way that was both frightening and winning; it entirely won Hi.
“You’re not a bit like your father,” he said, “not a little bit. Your father likes being top-dog; sometimes bully, sometimes blarney. You want to make things. I know your sort.
“Where are you staying?” he continued. “At the Santiago? That’s a vile hole, the Santiago. Yet all our visitors form their first impressions there. Whereabouts have they put you?”
“On the third floor,” Hi said, “Room 67.”
“Looking out on the back, what? Well, looking out on the front wouldn’t have been much more cheerful. The palace, the Santiago and the cathedral. I’d like to raze them all three and start afresh.
“By the way, about your Santiago. I am a night bird. I pass the back of that hotel at night at two in the morning. You can get in at the back through the cellar-grating. The negro waiters run a gambling hell there; fan-tan, what? They also do a private trade in the hotel liquor. And now forgive me everybody for being so late.”
“You are scandalously late, Manuel,” Rosa said. “You deserve no lunch.”
“I want no lunch,” he said, “but coffee and some bread. I am late, because I have been tracking a crime. Estifanio Artigas was murdered in this city last night.”
“Then it was murder?”
“We were talking of him a moment since.”
“That will be death to the poor mother; her only child.”
“There is more than this,” Carlotta said. “The murder was planned. By whom?”
“The Murder Gang of the Palace. A club of young criminals headed by Don José, the son of our Dictator, Mr. Ridden. They murdered the lad in that tunnel or passage where the windmills used to be. I have been with the murderer. Here’s a copy of his confession, made before Chacon, the notary. I’ve sent copies of it to Chavez and Hermengildo, as well as to your brother, Carlotta. Who could want food after this? Now the Whites move again; we have a cause and a case.
“This Murder Club was founded by Don José at the end of last year as a new excitement; he and eight young men are the members; all very select. They have now murdered five men; one a month is their rule, each in a different way.
“Pablo Hinestrosa was chosen to kill Estifanio. Two of the others came to help him; four were posted, to keep guard during the murder; the other two brought Estifanio to the place.
“I learned all this from Pablo’s own lips this morning.”
“Pablo Hinestrosa was always as weak as water,” Rosa said. “Cruel, too; I remember him putting worms under his rocking horse as a little child.”
“I found Pablo in the street, as I came back from my ride this morning,” Don Manuel continued. “He was crying and quaking; so I brought him to my rooms. Bit by bit, I got the story out of him.”
“One moment, Manuel,” Carlotta said; “this Hinestrosa man, who is plainly of weak intelligence, may have imagined all this.”
“Ah, no, alas,” Don Manuel said, “I have proved it to be true. One decoyed the victim to the carriage, one drove the carriage to the tunnel. Then the decoy led him into the tunnel, where Pablo killed him. Don José helped in the killing. There were the tracks and the body, everything corresponded exactly.
“You will think this next a strange thing:
“Don José is very clever as well as very vicious. He and Spallo took Pablo home after the murder, and, as they saw that he was shaken, they feared that he would betray them.
“Now Pablo feared that they feared this, so he contrived to leave them where he could hear them talking. He heard Don José say: ‘I knew that he would be sentimental. He will confess the whole thing to the first priest he can find. Shall we finish him? It would be rather a neat end to the night.’ It must have been an anxious moment for Pablo, waiting for the answer; but Spallo said, ‘Better not. . . . He’ll be all right after a sleep.’
“After that, Spallo and José went away, but now another strange thing happened. When they had gone (so Pablo says) the ghost of Estifanio’s father came in and sat beside him. He never spoke, but whenever Pablo tried to run from the room, this ghost slid in front of him.”
“What happened then?”
“Pablo said that he ‘burned the ghost away, with matches and texts of Scripture.’ When the ghost was gone he ran into the street; but it was worse there, he said, because Estifanio kept looking through the windows at him.
“I got a doctor to give him an opiate; now he’s asleep in Chacon’s house.”
“God give us mercy,” Donna Emilia said. “Is there to be no measure to the wickedness of this time?”
“When will General Chavez know of this?” Carlotta asked.
“Now. He’ll be in town by six. Congress meets at eight. We will arraign the palace on this question.”
“God help this unhappy land,” Donna Emilia said.
“God is helping this land,” Don Manuel said. “He gives us this sword against the Lopez gang; now we shall end them.”
“I am not so sure, Manuel,” Carlotta said. “There is much shrewdness in the men about Lopez. They would be only too glad to get rid of Don José. This case may rid the land of Don José; but I do not think that Lopez will be involved. His hands may even be strengthened.”
Manuel listened to her with much attention.
“Not as ours are strengthened,” he said. “Chavez and Bazan must stir at this. I have the confession and all the evidence. The Reds suspect nothing. We shall have acoup de théâtrein only five hours. This magazine shall explode under their feet.”
“I wonder,” Carlotta said. “General Chavez may think the time inopportune.”
“Inopportune? When the Reds are declaiming about a White conspiracy?”
“If not inopportune, he may find some other excuse for not acting.”
“He must act upon this.”
“He is a very indolent man.”
“If he will not act, we will find who will. I see three here to start with; no, four, for I am sure that Mr. Ridden will be with us.”
“Rather, if you’ll have me, sir,” Hi said.
“It will begin your stay here well, to help in the downfall of a Dictator.”
“Manuel,” Rosa said, “you are not to drag Hi into our party politics.”
“Manuel,” Carlotta said, “I think that you are going beyond the present issue, which is, to denounce the Murder Club. Lopez has sufficient readiness, and bigness, to banish, or even to prosecute, his son; and then face you in a stronger position than ever.”
“I believe that Lopez is mad,” Manuel said. “To-night, when this begins, I shall declare him to be unfit to govern.”
As he spoke, the major-domo entered with a telegram upon a salver.
“For Don Manuel,” he said.
When Don Manuel had read the telegram, he changed countenance; it was plain that he had received a blow.
“Is it ill news from Encarnacion?” Donna Emilia asked.
“Is your mother worse, Manuel?” Carlotta asked.
“Yes,” he said, “my beloved mother is dangerously ill at Encarnacion. I must go at once.”
“There will be no train to San Jacinto till noon to-morrow.”
“No,” he said, “but I can go by the mountain train at four; and ride from Melchior, it is only sixty-seven miles. If I telegraph for horses, I can be at home by dusk to-morrow night. That will save five hours.”
“You must go at once, if you are to catch the four train,” Carlotta said. “I’ll drive you to the station.”
“We will go, then,” Manuel said. “While they bring the chaise, I’ll order horses; you shall send the telegrams when I am gone.”
* * * * * * *
As Don Manuel made his farewells, he took Hi’s hand in both his own hands. “My greetings to your father,” he said. “Tell him I remember the saddles. I shall expect you presently at my home.”
“You will stay with us, will you not?” Carlotta said.
“I would love to,” Hi said. “I would love it more than anything.”
They all went out of doors to see them start. Carlotta was driving two marvellous little horses, full of fire. Hi looking at her as she sat watching her horses, felt that the only possible happiness on earth would be to live and die for her; since everything about her was beautiful and came not from this world. He saw that all there thought as he thought and felt as he felt about her. “You beautiful and gracious and glorious thing,” he thought. “I wish I could die for you.”
The peones stepped from the horses’ heads, the gates opened, the horses strained to the collars and the marvellous girl was gone. Often, afterwards, he thought of that scene.
“I trust that he may find his mother alive,” Donna Emilia said.
“I must be going, too,” Hi said.
“Going! nonsense,” Rosa said. “You’ve come for the day. You’ve had neither tennis nor a swim. Come in.”
When he had come in, Rosa looked at him with malice.
“Isn’t he handsome, Hi?” she asked.
“Handsome? I should think he is,” Hi said. “He is everything and has everything.”
“No; he hasn’t everything,” Rosa said. “I know several things that he has not. But even if he had everything, he wouldn’t be good enough for her.”
Hi did not answer, for the thought of Manuel having the beautiful Carlotta went through him with a pang.
“He wouldn’t be good enough for her; would he?” Rosa repeated.
“I hope so.”
“No, you don’t,” Rosa said. “You know that he wouldn’t. Confess, Hi, he wouldn’t.”
Hi looked at her with a look of pain.
“Isn’t she wonderful?” she said.
“I understand your being fond of her.”
“Fond of her? People aren’t fond of her. They worship her and would die for her. Wouldn’t you?”
“Yes, I would,” he said, after a pause. “You know I would. And you would, too.”
“I told you not to,” Rosa said. “I gave you fair warning. You’d better put her out of your mind. Besides,” she added with malice, “he’s frightfully jealous.”
“He’ll have some cause, I should say.”
“Well, come on into the garden. I’ll play you tennis.”
“No, be square, Rosa. You don’t really want me. I must clear out.”
“I’ll tell you when to clear out,” she said. “But stay a little. Carlotta will be back in half an hour. Stay to see her. It will be the last time you’ll see her before she marries.”
“I thought you said that they wouldn’t be married till Easter.”
“Not now,” she said. “She’ll go to him by the noon train to-morrow; you will see. I shall have to go with her. She’ll be married by the Bishop to-morrow midnight, so that the mother may see the son married. Then she’ll be with that man all her life.”
“She chose him, out of all the men in the world,” he said. “And I don’t wonder; he’s a fine fellow.”
“A fine fellow? Only a few years ago he was the friend of this Don José of the Murder Gang.”
“I don’t know about that,” Hi said. “He’s a fine fellow now; and she thinks so.”
“She thinks so now, but in a week, in a month . . . with that man all the time.”
“Here’s Pablo, with a message for you,” Hi said.
“There is someone to see you, Señorita,” Pablo said, “Tomás Chacon, the notary from Santa Barbara.”
“Strange,” Rosa said to Hi. “This is the notary whom Manuel left in charge of the murderer. If you will stay by these roses, to watch the humming birds for a moment, I will speak to him.”
* * * * * * *
He watched the humming birds for ten minutes, while Rosa spoke with the man. He did not think of the humming birds; the love of Carlotta was eating him up, in an agony that was yet sweet.
I did but see her passing by,But I shall love her till I die.
I did but see her passing by,But I shall love her till I die.
I did but see her passing by,But I shall love her till I die.
I did but see her passing by,
But I shall love her till I die.
“She will be married to-morrow midnight,” he thought, “and he will have her till she dies. If she could be chained to a rock by a dragon we could prove who loves her best.”
* * * * * * *
When the visitor had gone, Rosa returned to him. “I knew that there would be trouble,” she said. “Chacon has let the murderer escape. The Reds are warned now and all Manuel’s plan will miscarry. He’ll be furious.”
“How did he let him escape?”
“Somebody betrayed it, and the Reds rescued him. I’ve sent Chacon to tell General Chavez; but nothing will be done now that Manuel is away: Chavez is an idler.
“Of course,” she added, “he may act because Manuel is away. These soldiers and politicians are as jealous of each other as prime donne.”
“Surely,” Hi said, “this isn’t a matter for politicians, but for the police? Surely the police will take the murderer?”
“The police?” she said. “Why, Hi, they’re married men, with families, most of them. Do you think they’d risk their pensions by arresting a Red on a White warrant? They’re not philanthropists.”
“What are they, then?”
“Paid partisans.”
“Golly.”
“Well may you say golly. However, that is a little thing, compared with this marriage. I’m used to the police. I’m not used to the thought of that man with . . .”
She had paused at the little fountain, where she gazed down into the basin and let the fingers of one hand open and close in the water.
“But I’m not going to talk in this beastly way,” she said. “Forget what I said, will you?
“Of course, Hi, you’ll come here whenever you like. Mother told me to tell you that a place will be here for you at lunch on every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday; when you can come, we’ll be glad, and when you can’t you needn’t write or send word. You needn’t think it’s decent of us. We’re only too glad. You were all lovely to me at your home, and your father simply saved us from beggary. Besides, it will be a charity to two lorn females.”
“Thank you,” Hi said, “you’re a jolly good friend.”
“There’s my hand on that,” she said. “And when you’re settled out here, we can always put you up. Now would you care to swim? We have a bathing pond here. It was made in the days of our glory, but, being made, it is easy to keep up.”
She led the way through a gap in a rose-hedge to a terrace of white marble, in the midst of which was a swimming pool, full of clear water.
“There you are,” she said, “if ever you want a swim. A plunge now would do us both good; but before we plunge, shall we just walk back to the house, to see if Carlotta has returned?”
“Yes, certainly,” Hi said; “but I haven’t heard her horses.”
“Nor I,” she said. “But she ought to be back. She is the swimmer amongst us. She does all things well, but she swims like a sea-bird.”
They found that Carlotta had not returned.
“She ought to be back by this time,” Rosa said. “But in this country trains are sometimes late in starting, as you will find. Let us walk to the gates, to see if she be on the road.”
They saw no one on the road, save three men with a handcart who were coming slowly from the direction of the city and pausing at intervals to paste handbills on walls and palings. They paused to paste a bill upon a ruinous wall opposite the Piranhas’ gate; Rosa and Hi watched them.
“Bill-stickers,” Hi said. “I did not know that you had them here.”
“Oh, yes,” Rosa said. “We are civilised here; bills, drains and only one wife, just like Europe. But we keep them for great occasions like bull-fights, these bills, I mean.”
“Bull-fights,” Hi said. “Do you still have them?”
“This is the season for them; probably this is an announcement of them.”
“I’d love to see a bull-fight; it must be frightfully exciting. Do let us wait to see what it is.”
The bill-sticker, with a few deft thrusts of his brush, set the poster in its place. It was a yellow poster, printed in blunt black type with a tall red heading:
“Proclamation of the Government.”
“It is only a pronunciamento,” Rosa said; “not bulls after all. Can you read it from here? I cannot see anything without my glasses.”
“Something about religion, as far as I can make it out,” Hi said. “Dios is God, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“That’s what it is, then; all about religion.”
“There are rather a lot of Dioses,” Hi said after a pause; “but then I suppose it’s Lent.”
“Yes,” Rosa said, a little snappily. “In my Church it is the season for Dioses.”
Donna Emilia met them on their way back through the house to the pond. “Carlotta not yet back?” she said. “She has probably driven to one of the stores. Come in, then, to drink maté. Tea here is never good, Highworth; we drink maté amargo, a bitter drink; not unlike your camomile tea, they tell me; we think it refreshing.”
Hi did not find it refreshing, but drank one little silver pipkin for the experience and a second for politeness.
V
“Isanyone coming here this afternoon?” Rosa asked. “No one, so far as I can tell,” her mother answered. “I am not asking people, because I want you to see Carlotta while you can. Besides, it is Lent; one should be quiet in Lent.”
“They are putting placards in the road,” Rosa said. “We could not read them; but they seemed to be about quiet at Easter.”
“I am glad,” Donna Emilia said. “The last exhibition of disorder disgraced our country.”
The old butler entered. “Señora,” he said, “Don Inocencio desires to speak with you, if it be your pleasure.”
“Let him come in,” she answered. “Don Inocencio, Highworth, is one of the Senators of the White party, to which we belong. He was an old friend of my husband’s.”
“Shall I not go?” Hi asked.
“No, stay, it’s very good for you,” Rosa said.
Don Inocencio was a little pale man with a habit of inflating his cheeks; when he did this, he looked more important than at other times. He held a roll of paper in his left hand; he had very nice manners and spoke in English on finding Hi there. He was in a state of some agitation.
“My dear lady,” he said, “I have come all this way, in a great hurry, because of the importance of the occasion. The man has been permitted and permitted till he has presumed and presumed; but now he has outstepped all bounds; he has, if I may say so, without inelegance, burst, like the frog in the fable.”
“Who has burst without inelegance?” Rosa asked. “Do tell us. Could he do it again, publicly?”
“He has done it publicly,” Don Inocencio said, “It cannot be done twice in a civilised country.”
“Who is this?” Donna Emilia asked. “I do not quite understand? Has there been some accident?”
“I thought that at first,” Don Inocencio answered. “I thought at first, this is not genuine; this is a ruse or trick, designed by an enemy. It would be a skilled thrust, though that of a devil, to lead people to suppose that this came from our enemy. Then I thought, no, this thing is too mad to be anything but genuine; no counterfeit would be so crazy.”
“But what is it, Don Inocencio?”
“Have you not read the proclamation?”
“A proclamation; which; what proclamation?”
“There is at present only one, which will be historical. This is it, this scroll. They started to put this upon the walls at the time of the siesta; it is now everywhere; can it be that you have not seen it?”
“No; no, indeed.”
“Then I am a bringer of news. When I read it, I thought, this, if genuine, will be a landmark in our story. I must have copies of this; so must Donna Emilia; therefore I procured copies from the bill-stickers.
“You know that I am a collector of documents, which will go to my nephew; all things, especially documents, if old enough, have romance; this will have much more than romance, being the cause, if I am not much mistaken, of great events in the near future. We live in stirring times, Miss Rosa. You, Mr. Ridden, will see great events, really great events, as the Blanco party reasserts its ideals. Wait, now; for this big document; I will display my wares upon this chair.”
He pulled a chair towards him so that he could spread the paper upon the back: it was a yellow paper, printed in blunt, black type with a tall red heading:
“PROCLAMATION OF THE GOVERNMENT.”
He glanced at the faces of his audience for some expression, which he did not find.
“What,” he said, “no comment?”
“None,” Rosa said. “Mother and I cannot read well without our glasses.”
“And I,” Hi said, “cannot read Spanish very fluently yet. In fact, I can only get as far as ‘Government.’ ”
“Perhaps, Inocencio,” Donna Emilia said, “you will be so kind as to read it for us.”
“Certainly,” he said, “I will read it aloud: only I must warn you, that its contents are not such as are usual, I will not say in a proclamation, but in print of any kind. To begin with, it is, I must warn you, from first to last a print of the last blasphemy of madness.”
The listeners did not answer this, but looked and felt uncomfortable.
“Will you not read, then?” Donna Emilia said at last. Don Inocencio began to read aloud. He bent a little over the paper, so that he might read; he beat time with his left hand, in a pumping stroke, to mark his cadence. He began as follows:—
“This,” he said, “is his preludium or exordium.
PROCLAMATION OF THE GOVERNMENT.Forasmuch as I, Don Lopez de Meruel, King, Emperor and Dictator of Santa Barbara, am convinced of my divinity and of my oneness with God. Know all men, that henceforth, throughout this my heaven of Santa Barbara, I assume the style and name of God, with the titles of Thrice Holy, Thrice Blessed, Thrice Glorious.
PROCLAMATION OF THE GOVERNMENT.
Forasmuch as I, Don Lopez de Meruel, King, Emperor and Dictator of Santa Barbara, am convinced of my divinity and of my oneness with God. Know all men, that henceforth, throughout this my heaven of Santa Barbara, I assume the style and name of God, with the titles of Thrice Holy, Thrice Blessed, Thrice Glorious.
“What do you make of that?” he said, “for a beginning?”
“The man is mad,” Rosa said.
“It is blasphemy unspeakable,” Donna Emilia said. “I tremble lest fire descend on us.”
“This is nothing to what follows,” Don Inocencio said. “I will read on. The rest is incredibly much worse. But the rest, I, for one, rejoice at. It continues thus:
I therefore, thy God, decree, that henceforth my mortals worship and sacrifice to me in all churches, chapels and places of worship whatsoever; that all prayer, praise, worship and adoration, with all hymns, psalms and spiritual ejaculations of whatever kind, be henceforth addressed to me, whether in public or in private, I, thy God Lopez, decree it.Likewise thy God decrees (and in reading this, Donna Emilia, I ask pardon of my Maker) thy God decrees, that all other Gods, saints and suchlike, hitherto worshipped in this my Heaven, such as (here he writes in a way that cannot be quoted) shall be cast aside, their images defaced, their altars denied and their rituals omitted, upon pain of death.Furthermore, thy God decrees that my image be placed in all churches and in all chapels of churches, wheresoever there be an altar; and that instead of the services hitherto used at such places, a service to me only shall be used, with the title the Red Mass to God Lopez, the Thrice Holy.And thy God decrees, that at the mention of thy God, at His passing, at His coming, upon His feast days, as at the passing of His priests and in the presence of His decrees, all My people, without exception, shall cry, Blessed be God Lopez, and shall sign the mark of thy God, a circle and a dot, upon breast and head.Lopez, Thrice Glorious, Thrice Blessed, Thrice Holy.All who infringe This My Decree, in Thought or Word or Deed, shall suffer Death.From My Heaven in Plaza Verde,⊙ LOPEZ GOD LOPEZ. ⊙
I therefore, thy God, decree, that henceforth my mortals worship and sacrifice to me in all churches, chapels and places of worship whatsoever; that all prayer, praise, worship and adoration, with all hymns, psalms and spiritual ejaculations of whatever kind, be henceforth addressed to me, whether in public or in private, I, thy God Lopez, decree it.
Likewise thy God decrees (and in reading this, Donna Emilia, I ask pardon of my Maker) thy God decrees, that all other Gods, saints and suchlike, hitherto worshipped in this my Heaven, such as (here he writes in a way that cannot be quoted) shall be cast aside, their images defaced, their altars denied and their rituals omitted, upon pain of death.
Furthermore, thy God decrees that my image be placed in all churches and in all chapels of churches, wheresoever there be an altar; and that instead of the services hitherto used at such places, a service to me only shall be used, with the title the Red Mass to God Lopez, the Thrice Holy.
And thy God decrees, that at the mention of thy God, at His passing, at His coming, upon His feast days, as at the passing of His priests and in the presence of His decrees, all My people, without exception, shall cry, Blessed be God Lopez, and shall sign the mark of thy God, a circle and a dot, upon breast and head.
Lopez, Thrice Glorious, Thrice Blessed, Thrice Holy.
All who infringe This My Decree, in Thought or Word or Deed, shall suffer Death.
From My Heaven in Plaza Verde,
⊙ LOPEZ GOD LOPEZ. ⊙
“That,” Don Inocencio said, “is our ruler’s proclamation in this year of grace. What do you think of it?”
Rosa went to the paper to read some printing at the foot.
“It is genuine,” she said. “It is printed at the palace press.”
“I believe it to be genuine,” Don Inocencio said.
Donna Emilia crossed herself for the third time: she spoke with some difficulty.
“Did you say, Inocencio, that you rejoice at this proclamation?”
“I do,” he said, “sincerely, Emilia, I do. We have been for far too long apathetic: now this outrage will rouse us from sleep: it may be our salvation as a nation. We ourselves are in some measure responsible for this madness. We have connived at madness in the palace too long: he takes advantage of our supineness to seize us by the throats. Now there can be but one answer.”
“Surely,” Donna Emilia said, “a vengeance of Heaven will fall upon a man like that.”
“Our Caligula will not long survive his decree,” Don Inocencio said. “Our old days of the Blancos will begin again.”
“What will people do?” Hi asked.
“They will do much,” Don Inocencio said. “For a beginning, the priests are already leading their young men to tear down these placards. In the New Town, a priest known to me was gathering the fraternity of his parish as I passed by on my way here. The week will see Don Lopez out of his palace.”
“I wonder,” Rosa said.
“Wonder what, dear?” her mother asked.
“Whether this follows on what Chacon told me half an hour ago. The Hinestrosa creature escaped in some way. The Reds must know by this time that the Whites are planning something. This is their counter-stroke.”
“Let us at least be thankful that General Chavez must be in the city by this time.”
“I think he must be,” Don Inocencio said. “Perhaps it is too early for General Chavez to be here, or indeed to be already on his way, but preparing to be on his way, that, yes, we might declare with confidence. Undoubtedly, he is preparing to be on his way, to, how shall we put it? to draw the sword of outraged religion.”
“Thank God that we may think that,” Donna Emilia said. “We know, that however indolent Luis may be, he is great enough to overcome his indolence when his country calls.”
“I don’t think so, mother,” Rosa said. “I don’t think he is. His country has called ever since the last election. What has he done? He has been at home distilling liqueurs and trying to grow Pommard grapes.”
“And why not?” Don Inocencio said. “Thus the great Roman patriots were employed when their country cried to them. They were on their farms, pruning their vines, or ‘binding faggots,’ as I think Horace puts it, ‘at the bidding of a Sabine grandmother.’ But when their country called, they arose; exchanging, as someone says, the service of the rustic god, whose name I forget, for that of Mars. Besides, Luis Chavez is a soldier. He needs the opportunities of the soldier, attack or defence, rather than those of the debater and intriguer.”
“I do not think that he is a soldier any more than he is a statesman,” Rosa said. “He is a self-indulgent, indolent country gentleman, who loves his garden and his book.”
“I have known Luis Chavez for a great many years, Rosa,” her mother said. “You are not just to him. He is a good man. If he be not hasty, it is because he is wise. He weighs situations before he decides. He asks God’s direction before he acts. I think that we ought all now to pray that he may be directed to act wisely now.”
“Before we do that, mother,” Rosa said, “we really ought to send into the town for Carlotta. She has not yet returned. There is a good deal of noise in the town; listen to that. There may be rioting or shooting.”
“Let me go,” Hi said.
“I thought I heard the horses,” Donna Emilia said.
“There are no horses.”
“There is a noise though,” Hi said. “There is shouting. Someone is shouting and coming along the road.”
Rosa was sitting beside Hi. She clutched his arm as though she wished to crush it. He felt her tremble or thrill like a taut guy suddenly stricken.
“Hi,” she whispered, “is it rioters in the road, mobbing her?”
“No, no,” Hi said, “it sounds like a man crying news.”
“Listen,” Don Inocencio said.
“It is only one voice,” Hi said.
“Yes, it is only one voice.”
“Have you town-criers here?” Hi asked.
“It is a newspaper seller crying some special edition,” Don Inocencio said. Pablo, the major domo appeared, with maté for Don Inocencio.
“Pablo, is this shouter in the road a newspaper seller?” Donna Emilia asked.
“Yes, Señora. He announces some murder.”
“Cause Felipe to procure a copy of the paper for me, will you, Pablo?” Don Inocencio asked.
“I will, Señor.”
When Pablo had gone, Don Inocencio rose, with a look of great importance.
“It is quite clear to me,” he said. “Judgment has overtaken the blasphemer already. Some deliverer has stricken Lopez in the moment of his blasphemy. I knew that our nation did but sleep.”
“I trust that no such thing as that has happened,” Donna Emilia said. “Of all the terrible things, to be flung suddenly into death is the most terrible; and for one to die in the very utterance of blasphemy is what no enemy could wish.”
“One cannot think of him as a blasphemer, mother,” Rosa said, “but as a poor madman. And if some other poor madman has mak’d him siccar, I don’t think one should examine the ways of Providence too critically.”
“It would be like the slaying of the Philistine,” Don Inocencio said. “Another David has arisen.”
“Carlotta has not returned, mother,” Rosa said. “I think Felipe ought to go to enquire what is happening.”
“May I go?” Hi asked.
“She has Manuel with her,” Donna Emilia said. “It may well be that the trains are stopped. In these crises they often put embargo on the trains. Manuel will have taken her to her brother’s at Medinas.”
“Well, won’t you let me go, to make sure for you?” Hi asked.
Pablo entered with the newspaper, which he gave to Don Inocencio. Hi noticed that Pablo looked much shaken and that he said something in a very low voice as he gave the paper. Plainly something terrible had happened. Don Inocencio opened the paper, with a trembling pair of hands; he looked suddenly deflated. Pablo left the room softly closing the door. Don Inocencio turned very white, sat down hurriedly and dropped the paper.
“What is it, Inocencio?” Emilia said.
“Not Carlotta?”
“No, no, no, no,” Inocencio said. “Chavez. General Chavez has been murdered.”
“My God. Luis? But how?”
“It tells little. ‘We grieve to announce the terrible news, that General Luis Chavez was assassinated by a ruffian, at the station of Aguas Dulces, at half-past two this afternoon, while waiting for the train to Santa Barbara, where he was expected to speak in Congress to-night. The murderer has been arrested.’ ”
“My God.”
“And where is Carlotta?” Rosa cried. “She is in the city all this while. Is she, too, in the hands of the Red murderers?”
“God in Heaven forbid, child.”
“There are her horses,” Hi said. “That is the jingle of their silver; they are almost at the door.”
“Let us come down, then, to meet her.”
They found her chaise and horses at the door: Carlotta was not there.
“Were you in time for the Meruel train?” Donna Emilia asked the driver.
“Yes, Señora, in good time,” the man said. “Afterwards, the train being gone, on hearing of rumours, the Señorita drove to Medinas, whence she sends this letter.”
“Thank you,” Donna Emilia said. “You had better stable your horses, then.” As the man drove to the stables. Donna Emilia opened the letter, and dropped the envelope, which Hi picked up (and kept). “She has gone to Miguel’s,” Donna Emilia said. “Miguel is her brother, Highworth. Miguel thinks she had better stay there for the present.”
“Wisely decided,” Don Inocencio said. “And I will now take my leave, since I must go to the Circle, to see Hermengildo before the House to-night. Let me drive you, Mr. Ridden, since I pass your hotel.”
* * * * * * *
While they waited in the drive for the caleche a party of Pitubas, under a negro who wore a green feather in his hat, rode up to them. He saluted Rosa, and presented a warrant. Rosa read it, called Pablo, and gave him some directions. Pablo led the troops to the stables, from which they removed all the horses, including Carlotta’s team. The Senator’s horse, being old, they left. When they had secured these horses, they rode off with them to another White house further down the bay.
“They’re taking the horses,” Rosa explained. “They always begin by taking our horses. That’s the first danger sign.”
“But good heaven,” Hi said. “Why?”
“ ‘Military reasons,’ they say in their warrant; but they really mean, so that the Whites shall not communicate with each other.”
“Will you get them back?”
“No, probably not. You see, they’ve only gone to the White house down the bay; not to those two Red houses. This may make you understand our local politics a little. It shows you Santa Barbara as she is. It isn’t the Paradise it looks, is it?”
“It’s got angels in it,” he said.
“Hi,” she said, “I’m so anxious about her.”
“She is safe at her brother’s, surely?”
“She ought not to have gone there.”
“Why ever not?”
“I don’t know, but she ought not. I knew it when I saw the chaise had not brought her. She has done the wrong thing.”
“I will take a note to her if you like,” Hi said, “and bring her back here, too, if she wishes.”
“She won’t come back here,” Rosa said. “Nor could she, after dark, with these patrols in the streets; but if you will take a letter for me, I shall be grateful. The de Leyvas live outside the West Gate, off the Anselmo Road, in a part called Medinas.”
“Medinas Close is where my old murderer lives,” Hi said.
“There are fearful rookeries close to the palace,” Rosa said. “They are all owned by the de Leyvas.”
She wrote a letter, which she gave to Hi to take.
“If she wants to send any message,” Hi said, “of course, I will bring it back at once.”
“Hi,” she said, “you really are a dear.” She caught him by the neck and kissed his forehead.
“Somewhat rougey,” Hi thought, as he mopped his brow, while he drove with Don Inocencio. “But an awfully good-hearted sort, Rosa.”
* * * * * * *
The drive to the hotel was interesting; Hi had never before seen a city in a state of excitement. The newsboys were crying special editions; parties of men and boys were marching to drums and fifes under Red banners; certain shops, which did not display Red colours, were having their windows broken. On the water-front a guardia warned Don Inocencio and his driver that the Martial Law was proclaimed, and that all carriages were to be off the streets by eight o’clock. “Bad, bad,” Don Inocencio muttered. “I know not which of us will escape such nets.” He left Hi at his hotel.
Here Hi found two envelopes waiting for him. The first contained a printed card from Roger Weycock, asking him to attend a special meeting of the English in Santa Barbara, at the Club, at seven o’clock that evening; the second contained a similar card, with a few words written in pencil by Allan Winter: “Don’t go to this. Keep clear of politics here.—A. W.” The cards had been hurriedly printed, probably as soon as the proclamation had appeared, the ink on them was still moist.
“Winter was right,” Hi thought. “Weycock is in with the Reds, trying to turn English opinion that way, He’s organising this meeting for that end. But Winter’s right; we ought to keep clear of politics here; I won’t go. But all the same, I am jolly well a White in this business, and I’ll help the Whites all I can. By George, I suppose those devils, the Reds, could arrest me for carrying letters.”
* * * * * * *
The sun was setting when he drove off in a caleche for the de Leyva house at Medinas. On his way, he saw scenes between parties of Reds and Whites which made him wonder at the strength of the feelings between them. “Killing Chavez and claiming to be God did not rouse this,” he thought. “This hate has been simmering for years; this is only the boiling over.”
At the West Gate, a Red patrol was stopping the traffic for examination before permitting it to pass; its officer turned back a carriage which had been trundling in front of Hi for some minutes. He then came forward to question Hi, found that he was English and allowed him to proceed. He did this, as Hi thought, grudgingly, in a way which made him wonder, whether the English were as much loved as his father had always said.
Beyond the gate, the Anselmo road was a narrow street from which narrow courts opened. Street and courts swarmed with people, all talking at the tops of their voices, but above all the talking the harsh bellow of public orators in praise of violence sounded. The place stank of mice, sweat, fried fish and damp washing. Hi called to the driver: “Is this Medinas?”
“Medinas, si,” the driver said.
Little boys clambered on to the caleche, asking for “Frencha penny. Ingles penny.” A fat, pale-faced young man hopped on to the step and poised there while he made his proposals.
“You want to see the sights?” he said. “I be your guide. I show you very funny sights. I show you not the usual sort of thing. You like a nice cock-fight, no? You like a quail-fight, no? See now, I take you to a special thing, not many knows about, a good dog-fight. There now, only three dollar. Well, I take you to a special thing to-night; something you never see, perhaps ever again. No? Well, you go to dam prayer-meeting, see? dam prayer-meeting.”
He swung off to seek for a client elsewhere. The caleche passed from the narrows into a broader space, went under an old archway of withering red and yellow plaster and came out into an avenue of palms lit by electric light. Turning from this through an ilex grove it stopped at the de Leyva palace.
Hi was admitted into a great cool hall built of white Otorin marble. All round it and against its columns were the stands of the de Leyva armour, some of which had marched in the Conquest. Carlotta joined him almost at once; he gave her the letter.
“I thought that perhaps you would bring a letter,” she said. “I suppose Rosa wants me to go back to her? My brother is against that.”
“I hope,” Hi said, “I do hope that Don Manuel will not be attacked by these Reds.”
“He is far away by this time.”
Hi felt that he had said a tactless thing, even to suggest that Don Manuel might be attacked, so he added:
“I should pity the man who attacked Don Manuel.”
“It is nice of you to say that, Hi,” she said.
“Did he see the proclamation, or hear of the murder, before he started?” Hi asked.
“No. Rosa tells me that his captive, the Hinestrosa, has been rescued.”
“Yes.”
“What do you think of my country?”
“It’s produced you and Don Manuel and Donna Emilia,” he said. “I think it’s a marvellous country.”
“It may be marvellous, if it turn now.”
“It will turn,” he said. “No nation will stand that proclamation.”
“If a nation be only mad enough, it will stand anything,” she said.
“I hope,” Hi said, “that Don Manuel will find his mother better, when he gets there.”
“I fear that there is little hope of that,” she said. “A telegram came here . . . he can hardly see his mother alive again.”
“I am sorry to hear that.”
“Others are not so sorry,” she said, in a strange voice. He looked at her with a rush of understanding that she was standing alone, through her love of Don Manuel.
“Oh, but they must be,” he said.
“Sorry?” she said. “Alas, they are thanking God that my lover is out of the way at this time. You do not know the Whites: how broken we are into cliques. My brother, a great man in so many ways, dreads and hates my lover: he thinks him too dangerous: he wants Bazan to lead the party. If Manuel were here now, Bazan would not stand for five minutes. Then, I suppose, my brother would challenge Manuel to a duel. So, if I bring Manuel back, I break with all I have loved in the past.”
“But you will bring him back,” Hi said.
She looked at him in a way which he never forgot; but she did not answer.
“Let me go and bring him back for you,” Hi pleaded. “Of course, I’m only a boy, but I’ll go like a shot. I’ll take any message you like. Do let me. I’ll never be anything again all my life, probably, except just a planter. But just this once let me ride for you. I only saw you for the first time this morning; but you don’t know what you are to me . . . in my life, I mean . . . you I mean, just there being such a person. Of course, you’re sick of men saying this to you. Miss de Leyva, will you let me go?”
“Carlotta will not let you go,” she said, “I’m sure Miss de Leyva won’t. But I cannot bring Manuel here, against my brother’s prayers, even if I would, from his mother’s death-bed. But there is one thing which I wish you would do for me: take a note from me to Rosa.”
“Of course, I’ll gladly take a note,” he said, “and bring back an answer.”
“There will be no answer. You will just have time to leave the note and get back to your hotel before the streets are cleared.”
While she wrote the note, Hi thought of a suggestion.
“I say,” he said. “Quite apart from calling Don Manuel here, there is some point in letting him know the news and telling him not to come. Couldn’t you let me do that for you?”
“You’re very determined, Hi,” she said. “But you must stay in Santa Barbara and keep out of our politics.”
“But why? You will have to send someone.”
“I will not send you, Hi.”
“Why not? Have you anybody better?”
“There could not be anybody better, nor as good; but this is not a thing I could let you attempt. Do you know, that if the Reds were to find you doing this you might be expelled the country, or even shot.”
“For taking a message?”
“That counts as spying in time of war.”
“Who would know that I was taking a message? I should just be an English tourist. That settles it. I’ll go off and get a horse and start at once and find him and tell him.”
“No, no,” she said. “It is impossible.”
“Because I’m a boy and don’t know Spanish?”
“No, no, indeed,” she said, “but because we want you to settle here. Become a citizen later, if you wish, but, until then, you must avoid our troubles. Now here is my note to Rosa, if you will deliver it.”
It was very dim in the hall away from the tapers on the writing table. There were amphoræ full of sweet-smelling shrubs. He could see her face and hands against the darkness of the leaves: her head seemed crowned by white flowers. She switched on some lights so that the hall seemed suddenly full of armed men.
“Will you give me a sprig of those flowers?” he asked.
“Willingly.” She broke a spray for him.
“What is the flower?”
“Hermosita.”
“May I ever see you again?”
“Of course. Come to-morrow to lunch: you must meet my brother.”
“Oh, thank you. I’ll bring back an answer from Rosa, if she sends one. Anything that I can ever do for you will always be absolute happiness; you know that, don’t you?”
“Thank you, Hi.”
She gave him her hand, in the foreign fashion, to kiss: he was grateful for this. A clock chimed for half-past seven. “You must go,” she said, “you haven’t much time.”
* * * * * * *
His caleche jolted him back through Medinas, which was now lit for the night from its many windows. He saw it as a darting of children and a slinking of men, amid a noise of babies squalling, men singing and women screaming. A gas-lamp at a corner of a lane lit the words on a wooden direction post, To Medinas Close; he could just see a lit space surrounded by decaying old black houses, seven or nine storeys high. “So that is where ’Zeke lives,” he thought. “I’ll go to see the old man as I come back to-morrow.”
There was delay in getting through the gates, in spite of his pleading that he was English. He delivered his letter to Rosa, learned that there was to be no answer, and then drove off (his driver in a hurry) to reach the hotel before eight o’clock. On coming to the gate on his way back, he had some trouble with the guard. Unfortunately it was not the guard which had passed him through ten minutes before. The sergeant of this guard was a mulatto (with an Irish accent), who was very rude and smelt of aniseed.
“You damned English,” he said. “What’s stopping ye staying in your homes? I suppose ye’re ate up by your lice, and think ye can scrape them off on us. Well, get through and be damned to ye and obey the proclamation another time.”
The hotel people opened their doors grudgingly to him. They gave him a tasteless supper in the ill-lit, frowsy dining-room, from which all the life had gone; everybody seemed to have gone to bed. He hurried through the meal and then went up to his bedroom.