CHAPTER X
At the Palace, the Americans were separated. Saxon was ushered into a small room, barely furnished. Its one window was barred, and the one door that penetrated its thick wall was locked from the outside. It seemed incredible that under such stimulus his memory should remain torpid. This must be an absolute echo from the past – yet, he could not remember. But Rodman remembered – and evidently the government remembered.
About the same hour, Mr. Partridge called at the “Frances y Ingles,” where he learned that Señor Saxon had gone out. He called again late in the evening. Saxon had not returned.
The following morning, the Hon. Charles Pendleton, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States of America, read Saxon’s letters of introduction. The letters sufficiently established the standing of the artist to assure him his minister’s interest. Partridge was dispatched to the hotel to bring the traveler to the legation. Partridge came back within the hour, greatly perturbed. Having found that Saxon had not returned during the night, and knowing the customs of the country, he had spent a half-hour in investigating by channels known to himself. He learned, at the end of much questioning and cross-questioning, that the señor, together with another gentleman evidently also an Americano del Nordo, had passed the street-door late in the evening, with military escort.
Mr. Partridge hastened to his legation at a rate of speed subversive of all Puerto Frio traditions. In Puerto Frio, haste is held to be an affront to dignity, and dignity is esteemed.
The Hon. Charles Pendleton listened to his subordinate’s report with rising choler.
His diplomacy was of the aggressive type, and his first duty was that of making the protecting pinions of the spread eagle stretch wide enough to reach every one of those entitled to its guardianship.
Saxon and Rodman had the night before entered the frowning walls of the Palace through a narrow door at the side. The American minister now passed hastily between files of presented arms. Inside, he learned that his excellency, el Presidente, had not yet finished his breakfast, but earnestly desired his excellency, el ministro, to share with him an alligator pear and cup of coffee.
In the suave presence of the dictator, the minister’s choler did not cease. Rather, it smoldered while he listened perfunctorily to flattering banalities. He had struck through intermediary stages; had passed over the heads of departments and holders of portfolios, to issue his ultimatum to the chief executive. Yet, in approaching his subject, he matched the other’s suavity with a pleasantness that the dictator distrusted. The dark face of the autocrat became grave until, when Mr. Pendleton reached the issue, it was deeply sympathetic, surprised and attentive.
“I am informed that some one – I can not yet say who – wearing your excellency’s uniform, seized an American citizen of prominence on the streets of Puerto Frio last evening.”
The President was shocked and incredulous.
“Impossible!” he exclaimed with deep distress; then, again: “Impossible!”
From the diplomat’s eloquent sketching of the situation, it might have been gathered that the United States war department stood anxiously watching for such affronts, and that the United States war department would be very petulant when notification of the incident reached it. Mr. Pendleton further assured his excellency, el Presidente, that it would be his immediate care to see that such notification had the right of way over the Panama cable.
“I have information,” began the dictator slowly, “that two men suspected of connection with an insurgent junta have been arrested. As to their nationality, I have received no details. Certainly, no American citizen has been seized with my consent. The affair appears grave, and shall be investigated. Your excellency realizes the necessity of vigilance. The revolutionist forfeits his nationality.” He spread his hands in a vague gesture.
“Mr. Robert Saxon,” retorted the minister, “should hardly be a suspect. The fact that he was not a guest at my legation, and for the time a member of my family, was due only to the accident of my absence from the city on his arrival yesterday.”
With sudden bustle, the machinery of the Palace was set in motion. Of a surety, some one had blundered, and “some one” should be condignly punished!
It was a very irate gentleman, flushed from unwonted exertion in the tropics, who was ushered at last into Saxon’s room. It was a very much puzzled and interested gentleman who stood contemplatively studying the direct eyes of the prisoner a half-hour later.
Saxon had told Mr. Pendleton the entire narrative of his quest of himself, and, as he told it, the older man listened without a question or interruption, standing with his eyes fixed on the teller, twisting an unlighted cigar in his fingers.
“Mr. Saxon, I am here to safeguard the interests of Americans. Our government does not, however, undertake to chaperon filibustering expeditions. It becomes necessary to question you.”
There followed a brief catechism in which the replies seemed to satisfy the questioner. When he came to the incident of his meeting with Rodman, Saxon paused.
“As to Rodman,” he said, “who was arrested with me, I have no knowledge that would be evidence. I know nothing except from the hearsay of his recital.”
Mr. Pendleton raised his hand.
“I am only questioning you as to yourself. This other man, Rodman, will have to prove his innocence. I’m afraid I can’t help him. According to their own admissions, they know nothing against you beyond the fact that you were seen with him last night.”
Saxon came to his feet, bewildered.
“But the previous matter – the embezzlement?” he demanded. “Of course, I had nothing to do with this affair. It was that other for which I was arrested.”
The envoy laughed.
“You punched cows six years ago. You cartooned five years ago, and you have painted landscapes ever since. I presume, if it became necessary, you could prove an alibi for almost seven years?”
Saxon nodded. He fancied he saw the drift of the argument. It was to culminate in the same counsel that Steele had given. He would be advised to allow the time to reach the period when his other self should be legally dead.
Mr. Pendleton paced the floor for a space, then came back and halted before the cot, on the edge of which the prisoner sat.
“I have been at this post only two years, but I am, of course, familiar with the facts of that case.” He paused, then added with irrelevance: “It may be that you bear a somewhat striking resemblance to this particularly disreputable conspirator. Of course, that’s possible, but – ”
“But highly improbable,” admitted Saxon.
“Oh, you are not that man! That can be mathematically demonstrated,” asserted Mr. Pendleton suddenly. “I was only reflecting on the fallibility of circumstantial evidence. I am a lawyer, and once, as district attorney, I convicted a man on such evidence. He’s in the penitentiary now, and it set me wondering if – ”
But Saxon stood dumfounded, vainly trying to speak. His face was white, and he had seized the envoy by the arm with a grip too emphatic for diplomatic etiquette.
“Do you know what you are saying?” he shouted. “I am not that man! How do you know that?”
“I know it,” responded Mr. Pendleton calmly, “because the incident of the firing-squad occurred five years ago – and the embezzlement only four years back.”
Saxon remained staring in wide-eyed amazement. He felt his knees grow suddenly weak, and the blood cascaded through the arteries of his temples. Then, he turned, and, dropping again to the edge of the cot, covered his face with his hands.
“You see,” explained Mr. Pendleton, “there is only one ground upon which any charge against you can be reinstated – an impeachment of your evidence as to how you have put in the past five years. And,” he smilingly summarized, “since the case comes before this court solely on your self-accusation, since you have journeyed some thousands of miles merely to prosecute yourself, I regard your evidence on that point as conclusive.”
Later, the envoy, with his arm through that of the liberated prisoner, walked out past deferential sentries into the Plaza.
“And, now, the blockade being run,” he amiably inquired, “what are your plans?”
“Plans!” exclaimed Saxon scornfully; “plans, sir, is plural. I have only one: to catch the next boat that’s headed north. Why,” he explained, “there is soon going to be an autumn in the Kentucky hills with all the woods a blaze of color.”
The minister’s eyes took on a touch of nostalgia.
“I guess there’s nothing much the matter with the autumn in Indiana, either,” he affirmed.
They walked on together at a slow gait, for the morning sun was already beginning to beat down as if it were focused through a burning-glass.
“And say,” suggested Mr. Pendleton at last, “if you ever get to a certain town in Indiana called Vevay, which is on some of the more complete maps, walk around for me and look at the Davis building. You won’t see much – only a hideous two-story brick, with a metal roof and dusty windows, but my shingle used to hang out there – and it’s in God’s country!”
Before they had reached the legation, Saxon remembered that his plans involved another detail, and with some secrecy he sought the cable office, and wrote a message to Duska. Its composition consumed a half-hour, yet he felt it was not quite the masterpiece the occasion demanded. It read:
“Arrived yesterday. Slept in jail. Out to-day. Am not he.”
The operator, counting off the length with his pencil, glanced up thoughtfully.
“It costs a dollar a word, sir,” he vouchsafed.
But Saxon nodded affluently, for he knew that the City of Rio sailed north that afternoon, and he did not know that her sister ship, the Amazon, with Duska on board, was at this moment nosing its way south through the tepid water – only twenty-four hours away.
As the City of Rio wound up her rusty anchor chains that afternoon, Saxon was jubilantly smoking his pipe by the rail.
In the launch just putting off from the steamer’s side stood the Hon. Mr. Pendleton, waving his hat, and Jimmy Partridge wildly shouting, “Give my regards to Broadway!” The minister’s flag, which had floated over the steamer while the great personage was on board, was just dipping, and Saxon’s hand was still cramped under the homesick pressure of the farewell grips.
Suddenly, the traveler had a feeling of a presence at his elbow, and, turning, was profoundly astonished to behold again the complacent visage of Mr. Rodman.
“You see, I still appear to be among those present,” announced the filibuster, with some breeziness of manner. “It’s true that I stand before you, ‘my sweet young face still haggard with the anguish it has worn,’ but I’m here, which is, after all, the salient feature of the situation. Say, what did you do to them?”
“I?” questioned Saxon. “I did nothing. The minister came and took me out of their Bastile.”
“Well, say, he must have thrown an awful scare into them.” Mr. Rodman thoughtfully stroked his chin with a thin forefinger. “He must have intimidated them unmercifully and brutally. They stampeded into my wing of the Palace, and set me free as though they were afraid I had the yellow-fever. ‘Wide they flung the massive portals’ – all that sort of thing. Now, what puzzles me is, why did they do it? They had the goods on me – almost. However, I’m entirely pleased.” Rodman laughed as he lighted a cigar, and waved his hand with mock sentiment toward the shore. “And I had put the rifles through, too,” he declared, jubilantly. “I’d turned them over to the insurrecto gentleman in good order. Did they clamor for your blood about the $200,000?”
“Rodman,” said Saxon slowly, “I hardly expect you to believe it, but that was a case of mistaken identity. I’m not the man you think. I was never in Puerto Frio before.”
Rodman let the cigar drop from his astonished lips, and caught wildly after it as it fell overboard.
“What?” he demanded, at last. “How’s that?”
“It was a man who looked like me,” elucidated Saxon.
“You are damned right – he looked like you!” Rodman halted, amazed into silence. At last, he said: “Well, you have got the clear nerve! What’s the idea, anyhow. Don’t you trust me?”
The artist laughed.
“I hardly thought you would credit it,” he said. “After all, that doesn’t make much difference. The point is, my dear boy, I know it.”
But Rodman’s debonair smile soon returned. He held up his hand with a gesture of acceptance.
“What difference does it make? A gentleman likes to change his linen – why not his personality? I dare say it’s a very decent impulse.”
For a moment, Saxon looked up with an instinctive resentment for the politely phrased skepticism of the other. Then, his displeasure changed to a smile. He had, for a moment, felt the same doubt when Mr. Pendleton brought his verdict. Rodman had none of the facts, and a glance at the satirical features showed that it would be impossible for this unimaginative adventurer to construe premises to a seemingly impossible conclusion. He was the materialist, and dealt in palpable appearances. After all, what did it matter? He had made his effort, and would, as he had promised Duska, vex his Sphinx with no more questioning. He would go on as Robert Saxon, feeling that he had done his best with conscientious thoroughness. It was, after all, only cutting the Gordian knot in his life. After a moment, he looked up.
“Which way do you go?” he inquired.
The other man shrugged his shoulders.
“I go back to Puerto Frio – after the blow-off.”
“After the blow-off?” Saxon repeated, in interrogation.
“Sure!” Rodman stretched his thin hand shoreward, and dropped his voice. “Take a good look at yon fair city,” he laughed, “for, before you happen back here again, it may have fallen under fire and sword.”
The soldier of fortune spoke with some of the pride that comes to the man who feels he is playing a large game, whether it be a game of construction or destruction, or whether, as is oftener the case, it be both destruction and construction.
The painter obediently looked back at the adobe walls and cross-tipped towers.
“Puerto Frio has been very good to me,” he said, in an enigmatical voice.
But Rodman was thinking too much of his own plans to notice the comment.
“Do you see the mountain at the back of the city?” he suddenly demanded. “That’s San Francisco. Do you see anything queer about it?”
The artist looked at the peak rearing its summit against the hot blue overhead, and saw only a sleeping tropical background for the indolent tropical panorama stretching at its base.
“Well – ” Rodman dropped his voice yet lower – “if you had a pair of field glasses and studied the heights, you could see a few black specks that are just now disused guns. By day after to-morrow, or, at the latest, one day more, each of those specks will be a crater, and the town will be under a shower of solid shot. There’s some class to work that can turn as mild a mannered hill as that into a volcano – no?”
Saxon stood gazing with fascination.
“Meanwhile,” he heard the other comment, “shipboard is good enough for yours truly – because, as you know, shipboard is neutral ground for political offenders – and the next gentleman who occupies the Palace will be a friend who owes me something.”
CHAPTER XI
Saxon denied himself the lure of the deck that evening. Though he would probably be close behind his messages in arriving, he was devoting himself to a full narration embodied in a love-letter.
He bent over the task in the closeness of the dining saloon, with such absorption that he did not rise to investigate even when, with a protracted shrieking of whistles, there came sudden cessation from the jarring throb of screw-shaft and engines. Then, the City of Rio came to a full stop. He vaguely presumed that another important port had been reached, and did not suspect that the vessel lay out of sight of land, and that a second steamer, southbound, had halted on signal, and lay likewise motionless, her lights glittering just off the starboard bow.
When, almost two hours later, he had folded the last of many pages, and gone on deck for a breath before turning in, the engines were once more noisily throbbing, and he saw only the bulk and lights of another vessel pointed down-world under steam.
But, as usual, Rodman, gentleman of multifarious devices, was not letting facts escape him. Indeed, it was at Rodman’s instance that two mail ships, the City of Rio and the Amazon, had marked time for an hour and a half. In the brewing of affairs, Rodman was just now an important personage, and the commanders of these lines were under instructions from their offices to regard his requests as orders, and to obey them with due respect and profound secrecy. The shifting of administrations at Puerto Frio meant certain advantages in the way of concessions to gentlemen in Wall Street whose word, with these steamers, was something more than influential.
Mr. Rodman had been rowed across from the Rio to the Amazon, and he had taken with him the hand-luggage that made his only impedimenta. In Mr. Rodman’s business, it was important to travel light. If he found Señor Miraflores among the passengers of the Amazon, it was his intention to right-about-face, and return south again.
Señor Miraflores had been in the States as the secret and efficient head of that junta which Rodman served. He had very capably directed the shipping of rifles and many sub-rosa details that must be handled beyond the frontier, when it is intended to change governments without the knowledge or consent of armed and intrenched incumbents. The home-coming of Señor Miraflores must of necessity be unostentatious, since his arrival would be the signal for the conversion of the quiet steeps of San Francisco into craters.
Rodman knew that, if the señor were on board the Amazon, his name would not be on the sailing-list, and his august personality would be cloaked in disguise. His point of debarkation would be some secluded coast village where fellow conspirators could hide him. His advent into the capital itself would not be made at all unless made at the head of an invading army, and, if so made, he would remain as minister of foreign affairs in the cabinet of General Vegas, to whom just now, as to himself, the city gates were closed.
But Señor Miraflores had selected a more cautious means of entry than the ship, which might bear travelers who knew him. Rodman spent an hour on the downward steamer. He managed to see the face of every passenger, and even investigated the swarthy visages in the steerage. He asked of some tourists casual questions as to destination, and chatted artlessly, then went over the side again, and was rowed back across the intervening strip of sea. Immediately upon his departure overside, the Amazon proceeded on her course, and five minutes later the City of Rio was also under way.
The next morning, after a late breakfast, Saxon was lounging at the rail amidship. He had ceased looking backward, and all his gaze was for the front. Ahead of him, the white superstructure, the white-duck uniform of the officer pacing the bridge, the whiteness of the holystoned deck, all stood boldly out against the deep cobalt of the gently swelling sea. Saxon was satisfied with life, and, when he saw Rodman sauntering toward him, he looked up with a welcoming nod.
“Hello, Carter – I mean Saxon.” The gun-smuggler corrected his form of address with a laugh.
The breezy American was a changed and improved man. The wrinkled gray flannels had given way to natty white duck. His Panama hat was new and of such quality that it could be rolled and drawn through a ring as large as a half-dollar. He was shaven to an extreme pinkness of face. As Saxon glanced up, his eyes wearing tell-tale recognition of the transformation, the thin man laughed afresh.
“Notice the difference, don’t you?” he genially inquired, rolling a cigarette. “The gray grub is splendidly changed into the snow-white butterfly. I’m a very flossy bug, eh, Saxon?”
The painter admitted the soft self-impeachment with a qualification.
“I begin to think you are a very destructive one.”
“I am,” announced Rodman, calmly. “I could spin you many a yarn of intrigue, but for the fact that, since you began wearing a halo instead of a hat, you have become too sanctified to listen.”
“Inasmuch,” smilingly suggested the painter, “as we might yet be languishing in the cuartel except for the fact that I was able to give so good an account of myself, I don’t see that you have any reasonable quarrel with my halo.”
Rodman raised his brows.
“Oh, I never lost sight of the fact that you had some reason for the saint rôle, and, as you say, I was in on the good results. But, now that you are flitting northward, what’s the idea of keeping your ears stopped?”
“They are open,” declared Mr. Saxon graciously; “you are at liberty to tell me anything you like, but only what you like. I’m not thirsting for criminal confessions.”
“That’s all right, but you – ” Rodman broke off, and his lips twisted into ironical good humor – “no, I apologize – I mean, a fellow who looked remarkably like you used to be so deeply versed in international politics that I think this new adventure would appeal to you. Ever remember hearing of one Señor Miraflores?”
Saxon shook his head, whereupon Rodman laughed with great sophistication. Carter had known Señor Miraflores quite well, and Rodman knew that Carter had known him.
“Very consistent acting,” he approved. “You’re a good comedian. In the Chinese theaters, they put flour on the comedian’s nose to show that he’s not a tragedian, but you don’t need the badge. You’re all right. You know how to get a laugh. But this isn’t dramatic criticism. It’s wars and rumors of wars.”
The adventurer drew a long puff from his cigarette, inhaled it deeply, and stood idly watching the curls of outward-blown smoke hanging in the hot air, before he went on.
“Well, Miraflores has once more been at the helm. Of course, in the lower commissions of the insurrecto organization, we have the usual assortment of foreign officers, odds and ends, but the chief difference between this enterprise and the other one – the one Carter knew about – is the fact that we have some artillery, and that, when we start things going, we can come pretty near battering down the old town.”
Rodman proceeded to sketch the outlines of the conspiracy. It was much the stereotyped arrangement with a few variations. Two regiments in the city barracks, suspected of disloyalty, had been practically disarmed by the President, but these troops had been secretly rearmed with a part of the guns brought in by Rodman, and would be ready to rise at the signal, together with several other disaffected commands – not for the government, but against it.
The mountain of San Francisco is really not a mountain at all, but a foot hill of the mountains. Yet, it looks down on the city of Puerto Frio as Marathon on the sea, and here are guns trained inward as well as outward. These guns can shell the capital into ruins in the space of a few hours; then, they can hurl their projectiles further, and play havoc with the environs. Also, they can guard the city from the approach that lies along the roads from the interior. A commander who holds San Francisco stands at the door of Puerto Frio with a latch-key in his hand. The revolutionists under Vegas had arranged their attack on the basis of unwarned assault. The Dictator had indeed some apprehensions, but they were fears for the future – not for the immediate present. The troops garrisoned on San Francisco, ostensibly the loyal legion of the Dictator’s forces, were in reality watching the outward approaches only as doors through which they were to welcome friends. The guns that were trained and ready to belch fire on signal from Vegas, were the guns trained inward on the city, and, when they opened, the main plaza would resemble nothing so much as the far end of a bowling alley when an expert stands on the foul-line, and the palace of the President would be the kingpin for their gunnery. The insurrecto forces were to enter San Francisco without resistance, and the opening of its crater was to be the signal for hurling through the streets of the city itself those troops that had been secretly armed with the smuggled weapons, completing the confusion and throwing into stampeding panic the demoralized remnants upon which the government depended.
Unless there were a traitor in very exclusive and carefully guarded councils, there would hardly be a miscarriage of the plans.
Saxon stood idly listening to these confidences. Nothing seemed strange to him, and least of all the entire willingness of the conspirator to tell him things that involved life and death for men and governments. He knew that, in spite of all he had said, or could say, to the other man, he was the former ally in crime. He had thought at first that Rodman would ultimately discover some discrepancy in appearance which would undeceive him, but now he realized that the secret of the continued mistake was an almost miraculous resemblance, and the fact that the other man had, in the former affair, met him in person only twice, and that five years ago.
“And so,” went on Rodman in conclusion, “I’m here adrift, waiting for the last act. I thought Miraflores might possibly be on the Amazon last night, and so, while you sat dawdling over letter-paper and pen, little Howard Stanley was up and doing. I went across to the other boat, and made search, but it was another case of nothing transpiring. Miraflores was too foxy to go touring so openly.”
Saxon felt that some comment was expected from him, yet his mind was wandering far afield from the doings of juntas. All these seemed as unreal as scenes from an extravagantly staged musical comedy. What appeared to him most real at that moment was the picture of a slim girl walking, dryad-like, through the hills of her Kentucky homeland, and the thought that he would soon be walking with her.
“It looks gloomy for the city,” he said, abstractedly.
“Say,” went on Rodman, “do you know that the only people on that boat booked for Puerto Frio were three fool American tourists, and that, of the three, two were women? Now, what chance have those folks got to enjoy themselves? Do you think Puerto Frio, say day after to-morrow, will make a hit with them?” The informant laughed softly to himself, but Saxon was still deep in his own thoughts. It suddenly struck him with surprised discovery that the view from the deck was beautiful. And Rodman, also, felt the languid invitation of the sea air, and it made him wish to talk. So, unmindful of a self-absorbed listener, he went on garrulously.
“You know, I felt like quoting to them, ‘Into the jaws of death, into the mouth of hell, sailed the three tourists,’ but that would have been to tip off state secrets. If people will fare forth for adventure, I guess they’ve got to have it.”
“Do you suppose,” asked Saxon perfunctorily, “they’ll be in actual danger?”
“Danger!” repeated the filibuster with sarcasm. “Danger, did you say? Oh, no, of course not. It will be a pink tea! You know that town as well as I do. You know there are two places in it where American visitors can stop – the Frances y Ingles, where you were, and the American Legation. By day after to-morrow, that plaza will be the bull’s-eye for General Vegas’s target-practice. General Vegas has a mountain to rest his target-gun on, and it’s loaded with shell. Oh, no, there won’t be any danger!”
“Wasn’t there some pretext on which you could warn them off?” inquired the painter.
Rodman shook his head.
“You see, I have to be careful in my talk. I might say too much. As it was, I knocked the town to the fellow all I could. But he seemed hell-bent on getting there, and getting there quick. He was a fool Kentuckian, and you can’t head off a bull-headed Kentuckian with subtleties or hints. I’ve met one or two of them before. And there was a girl along who seemed as anxious to get there as he was. That girl was all to the good!”
Saxon leaned suddenly forward.
“A Kentuckian?” he demanded. “Did you hear his name?”
“Sure,” announced Mr. Rodman. “Little Howard Stanley picks up information all along the way. The chap was named George Steele, and – ”
But the speaker broke off in his story, to stand astounded at the conduct of his auditor.
“And the girl!” shouted Saxon. “Her name?”
“Her name,” replied the intriguer, “was Miss Filson.”
Suddenly, the inattention of the other had fallen away, and he had wheeled, his jaw dropping. For an instant, he stood in an attitude of bewildered shock, gripping the support of the rail like a prize-fighter struggling against the groggy blackness of the knock-out blow.
Saxon stood such a length of time as it might have required for the referee to count nine over him, had the support he gripped been that of the prize-ring instead of the steamer’s rail. Then, he stepped forward, and gripped Rodman’s arm with fingers that bit into the flesh.
“Rodman,” he said in a low voice that was almost a whisper, between his labored breathings, “I’ve got to talk to you – alone. There’s not a minute to lose. Come to my stateroom.”