Солдаты фортуны, 13 глава-окончание

Soldiers of Fortune, by Richard Harding Davis
13. глава
Президентский вагон путешествия был двойным усаженным усердием
покрытый тяжелыми капотами и местами на коробке для двух мужчин. Только
один из извозчиков, того же человека, который вел государственный вагон
из обзора, остался в конюшнях. Поскольку он знал дороги к
Лос Носы, Клей заказал ему до сиденья водителя и Маквиллиэмса
поднятый в место около него после первого хранения трех винтовок
под одеждой коленей.

Надежда, которую потянули открытый кожаные шторы вагона и найденной Мадам
Альварес, где мужчины положили ее на подушки, слабые и
истеричный. Девочка закралась около нее и подъема ее в ее руках,
положивший голова пожилой женщины на ее плечо, и успокоенный и
успокоенный ее нежностью и сочувствием.

Глина остановилась его ногой в стремени и посмотрела с тревогой на
Лэнгам, который уже был на седле.

«Нет ли никакой возможный способ вытащить Хоуп из этого и назад к
Пальмы?» он спросил.

«Нет, слишком поздно. Это - единственный путь теперь». Надежда открылась
кожаные шторы и наблюдение покачали головой нетерпеливо на Clay.
«Я не пошел бы теперь, если бы было иначе», сказала она. «Я не мог
оставьте ее как это."

«Вы задерживаете игру, Клея», кричал Лэнгам, предостерегающе, когда он придерживался
его шпоры в сторону его пони.

Люди в усердии покачнулись вперед, поскольку лошади чувствовали удар плетью
из кнута и напряженный против ремня безопасности и затем погруженный вперед в
галоп на их долгой гонке к морю. Поскольку они ускорились через
сады, конюшни и деревья скрыли их от вида тех, которые в
дворец и торф, на который водитель повернул лошадей
для большей безопасности, ослабленной звук их полета.

Они нашли ворота ботанических садов уже открытыми, и Клей,
на улице снаружи, подзывая их на. Не ожидая
другие эти два эскорта скакали вперед на первую взаимную улицу,
посмотревший вверх и вниз по его длине, и затем, в очевидном беспокойстве, в какой
они видели на расстоянии, показал водителя жестом к большей скорости, и
пересечение улицы сигнализировало, чтобы он следовал за ними. В следующем углу
Глина бросила себя от его пони и броска уздечки Лэнгаму,
бежал вперед на взаимную улицу пешком, и после быстрого взгляда
указанный вниз его длина далеко от сердца города к
горы.

Водитель повернулся, поскольку Клей направил его, и когда человек нашел что его
лицо было справедливо установлено к цели, он стегал своих лошадей опрометчиво
по узкой улице, так, чтобы ропот толпы позади них
стал ощутимо более слабым в каждом, прыгают вперед.

Шум быстрых копыт принес женщинам и детям к
прегражденные окна зданий, но никакие мужчины ступили в дорогу к остановке
их прогресс и они немногие они встретили управление в направлении
дворец спешил выходить из их пути и стоял с их спинами
прижатый к стенам узкого проезда, заботящегося о них
с удивлением.

Даже те, кто подозревал их поручение, были беспомощны, чтобы задержать их, для
раньше, чем они могли поднять оглушительный шум или сформулировать план
действие, вагон прошел и исчезал на расстоянии,
раскачивание с колеса на колесо как судно в буре. Два мужчины, которые были так
смелый, чтобы начать следовать, остановленный резко, когда они видели
эскорты тянут узду и поворот на их седлах, как будто ждать их
прибытие.

Ум глины был порван с сомнениями, и его нервы были оттянуты тугие как
струны скрипки. Личная опасность подбодрила его, но это
шанс вреда другим, которые были беспомощны, за исключением него, подавленный
его дух с беспокойством. Он испытал в своем собственном уме весь
нервные страхи перед вором, который видит чиновника в каждом мимолетном гражданине,
и в один момент он попросил водителя двинуться более осмотрительно, и
поэтому предотвратите подозрение, и следующее убедило его в более отчаянные взрывы
из скорости. В его воображении каждая взаимная улица угрожала засаде, и как
он ехал не спеша теперь, прежде и теперь позади вагона, он желал что он
было множество мужчин, которые могли охватить его полностью и скрыть его.

Но твердые улицы скоро уступили дорогу, чтобы открыть места и низкие каюты грязи,
где удар копыт лошадей на сожженной на солнце дороге, и где
жители сидели лениво перед дверью в меркнущем свете, без
знание изменений, что день вызвал в городе, и с
только любопытный интерес момента к закрытому вагону и мрачное,
иностранцы с белым лицом, которые охраняли его.

Глина превратила его пони в бег в стороне Лэнгама. Его лицо было бледно
и оттянутый.

Поскольку опасность непосредственного преследования и захвата выросла меньше, вагон
замедлил его темп, и в течение нескольких минут эскорты скакали на
вместе рядом в тишине. Но та же мысль была в уме
из каждого, и когда Лэнгам говорил, это было, как будто он продолжал

где он имел, но просто прерванный.

The President's travelling carriage was a double-seated diligence
covered with heavy hoods and with places on the box for two men. Only
one of the coachmen, the same man who had driven the State carriage
from the review, had remained at the stables.  As he knew the roads to
Los Bocos, Clay ordered him up to the driver's seat, and MacWilliams
climbed into the place beside him after first storing three rifles
under the lap-robe.

Hope pulled open the leather curtains of the carriage and found Madame
Alvarez where the men had laid her upon the cushions, weak and
hysterical.  The girl crept in beside her, and lifting her in her arms,
rested the older woman's head against her shoulder, and soothed and
comforted her with tenderness and sympathy.

Clay stopped with his foot in the stirrup and looked up anxiously at
Langham who was already in the saddle.

"Is there no possible way of getting Hope out of this and back to the
Palms?" he asked.

"No, it's too late.  This is the only way now."  Hope opened the
leather curtains and looking out shook her head impatiently at Clay.
"I wouldn't go now if there were another way," she said.  "I couldn't
leave her like this."

"You're delaying the game, Clay," cried Langham, warningly, as he stuck
his spurs into his pony's side.

The people in the diligence lurched forward as the horses felt the lash
of the whip and strained against the harness, and then plunged ahead at
a gallop on their long race to the sea.  As they sped through the
gardens, the stables and the trees hid them from the sight of those in
the palace, and the turf, upon which the driver had turned the horses
for greater safety, deadened the sound of their flight.

They found the gates of the botanical gardens already opened, and Clay,
in the street outside, beckoning them on.  Without waiting for the
others the two outriders galloped ahead to the first cross street,
looked up and down its length, and then, in evident concern at what
they saw in the distance, motioned the driver to greater speed, and
crossing the street signalled him to follow them.  At the next corner
Clay flung himself off his pony, and throwing the bridle to Langham,
ran ahead into the cross street on foot, and after a quick glance
pointed down its length away from the heart of the city to the
mountains.

The driver turned as Clay directed him, and when the man found that his
face was fairly set toward the goal he lashed his horses recklessly
through the narrow street, so that the murmur of the mob behind them
grew perceptibly fainter at each leap forward.

The noise of the galloping hoofs brought women and children to the
barred windows of the houses, but no men stepped into the road to stop
their progress, and those few they met running in the direction of the
palace hastened to get out of their way, and stood with their backs
pressed against the walls of the narrow thoroughfare looking after them
with wonder.

Even those who suspected their errand were helpless to detain them, for
sooner than they could raise the hue and cry or formulate a plan of
action, the carriage had passed and was disappearing in the distance,
rocking from wheel to wheel like a ship in a gale.  Two men who were so
bold as to start to follow, stopped abruptly when they saw the
outriders draw rein and turn in their saddles as though to await their
coming.

Clay's mind was torn with doubts, and his nerves were drawn taut like
the strings of a violin.  Personal danger exhilarated him, but this
chance of harm to others who were helpless, except for him, depressed
his spirit with anxiety.  He experienced in his own mind all the
nervous fears of a thief who sees an officer in every passing citizen,
and at one moment he warned the driver to move more circumspectly, and
so avert suspicion, and the next urged him into more desperate bursts
of speed.  In his fancy every cross street threatened an ambush, and as
he cantered now before and now behind the carriage, he wished that he
was a multitude of men who could encompass it entirely and hide it.

But the solid streets soon gave way to open places, and low mud cabins,
where the horses' hoofs beat on a sun-baked road, and where the
inhabitants sat lazily before the door in the fading light, with no
knowledge of the changes that the day had wrought in the city, and with
only a moment's curious interest in the hooded carriage, and the grim,
white-faced foreigners who guarded it.

Clay turned his pony into a trot at Langham's side.  His face was pale
and drawn.

As the danger of immediate pursuit and capture grew less, the carriage
had slackened its pace, and for some minutes the outriders galloped on
together side by side in silence.  But the same thought was in the mind
of each, and when Langham spoke it was as though he were continuing
where he had but just been interrupted.

He laid his hand gently on Clay's arm.  He did not turn his face toward
him, and his eyes were still peering into the shadows before them.
"Tell me?" he asked.

"He was coming up the stairs," Clay answered.  He spoke in so low a
voice that Langham had to lean from his saddle to hear him. "They were
close behind; but when they saw her they stopped and refused to go
farther.  I called to him to come away, but he would not understand.
They killed him before he really understood what they meant to do.  He
was dead almost before I reached him.  He died in my arms."  There was
a long pause.  "I wonder if he knows that?" Clay said.

Langham sat erect in the saddle again and drew a short breath. "I wish
he could have known how he helped me," he whispered, "how much just
knowing him helped me."

Clay bowed his head to the boy as though he were thanking him. "His was
the gentlest soul I ever knew," he said.

"That's what I wanted to say," Langham answered.  "We will let that be
his epitaph," and touching his spur to his horse he galloped on ahead
and left Clay riding alone.

Langham had proceeded for nearly a mile when he saw the forest opening
before them, and at the sight he gave a shout of relief, but almost at
the same instant he pulled his pony back on his haunches and whirling
him about, sprang back to the carriage with a cry of warning.

"There are soldiers ahead of us," he cried.  "Did you know it?" he
demanded of the driver.  "Did you lie to me?  Turn back."

"He can't turn back," MacWilliams answered.  "They have seen us.  They
are only the custom officers at the city limits.  They know nothing.
Go on."  He reached forward and catching the reins dragged the horses
down into a walk.  Then he handed the reins back to the driver with a
shake of the head.

"If you know these roads as well as you say you do, you want to keep us
out of the way of soldiers," he said.  "If we fall into a trap you'll
be the first man shot on either side."

A sentry strolled lazily out into the road dragging his gun after him
by the bayonet, and raised his hand for them to halt.  His captain
followed him from the post-house throwing away a cigarette as he came,
and saluted MacWilliams on the box and bowed to the two riders in the
background.  In his right hand he held one of the long iron rods with
which the collectors of the city's taxes were wont to pierce the
bundles and packs, and even the carriage cushions of those who entered
the city limits from the coast, and who might be suspected of smuggling.

"Whose carriage is this, and where is it going?" he asked.

As the speed of the diligence slackened, Hope put her head out of the
curtains, and as she surveyed the soldier with apparent surprise, she
turned to her brother.

"What does this mean?" she asked.  "What are we waiting for?"

"We are going to the Hacienda of Senor Palacio," MacWilliams said, in
answer to the officer.  "The driver thinks that this is the road, but I
say we should have taken the one to the right."

"No, this is the road to Senor Palacio's plantation," the officer
answered, "but you cannot leave the city without a pass signed by
General Mendoza.  That is the order we received this morning.  Have you
such a pass?"

"Certainly not," Clay answered, warmly.  "This is the carriage of an
American, the president of the mines.  His daughters are inside and on
their way to visit the residence of Senor Palacio.  They are
foreigners--Americans.  We are all foreigners, and we have a perfect
right to leave the city when we choose.  You can only stop us when we
enter it."

The officer looked uncertainly from Clay to Hope and up at the driver
on the box.  His eyes fell upon the heavy brass mountings of the
harness.  They bore the arms of Olancho.  He wheeled sharply and called
to his men inside the post-house, and they stepped out from the veranda
and spread themselves leisurely across the road.

"Ride him down, Clay," Langham muttered, in a whisper.  The officer did
not understand the words, but he saw Clay gather the reins tighter in
his hands and he stepped back quickly to the safety of the porch, and
from that ground of vantage smiled pleasantly.

"Pardon," he said, "there is no need for blows when one is rich enough
to pay.  A little something for myself and a drink for my brave
fellows, and you can go where you please."

"Damned brigands," growled Langham, savagely.

"Not at all," Clay answered.  "He is an officer and a gentleman.  I
have no money with me," he said, in Spanish, addressing the officer,
"but between caballeros a word of honor is sufficient.  I shall be
returning this way to-morrow morning, and I will bring a few hundred
sols from Senor Palacio for you and your men; but if we are followed
you will get nothing, and you must have forgotten in the mean time that
you have seen us pass."

There was a murmur inside the carriage, and Hope's face disappeared
from between the curtains to reappear again almost immediately.  She
beckoned to the officer with her hand, and the men saw that she held
between her thumb and little finger a diamond ring of size and
brilliancy.  She moved it so that it flashed in the light of the guard
lantern above the post-house.

"My sister tells me you shall be given this tomorrow morning," Hope
said, "if we are not followed."

The man's eyes laughed with pleasure.  He swept his sombrero to the
ground.

"I am your servant, Senorita," he said.  "Gentlemen," he cried, gayly,
turning to Clay, "if you wish it, I will accompany you with my men.
Yes, I will leave word that I have gone in the sudden pursuit of
smugglers; or I will remain here as you wish, and send those who may
follow back again."

"You are most gracious, sir," said Clay.  "It is always a pleasure to
meet with a gentleman and a philosopher.  We prefer to travel without
an escort, and remember, you have seen nothing and heard nothing."  He
leaned from the saddle, and touched the officer on the breast.  "That
ring is worth a king's ransom."

"Or a president's," muttered the man, smiling.  "Let the American
ladies pass," he commanded.

The soldiers scattered as the whip fell, and the horses once more
leaped forward, and as the carriage entered the forest, Clay looked
back and saw the officer exhaling the smoke of a fresh cigarette, with
the satisfaction of one who enjoys a clean conscience and a sense of
duty well performed.

The road through the forest was narrow and uneven, and as the horses
fell into a trot the men on horseback closed up together behind the
carriage.

"Do you think that road-agent will keep his word?" Langham asked.

"Yes; he has nothing to win by telling the truth," Clay answered.  "He
can say he saw a party of foreigners, Americans, driving in the
direction of Palacio's coffee plantation.  That lets him out, and in
the morning he knows he can levy on us for the gate money.  I am not so
much afraid of being overtaken as I am that King may make a mistake and
not get to Bocos on time.  We ought to reach there, if the carriage
holds together, by eleven. King should be there by eight o'clock, and
the yacht ought to make the run to Truxillo in three hours.  But we
shall not be able to get back to the city before five to-morrow
morning.  I suppose your family will be wild about Hope.  We didn't
know where she was when we sent the groom back to King."

"Do you think that driver is taking us the right way?" Langham asked,
after a pause.

"He'd better.  He knows it well enough.  He was through the last
revolution, and carried messages from Los Bocos to the city on foot for
two months.  He has covered every trail on the way, and if he goes
wrong he knows what will happen to him."

"And Los Bocos--it is a village, isn't it, and the landing must be in
sight of the Custom-house?"

"The village lies some distance back from the shore, and the only house
on the beach is the Custom-house itself; but every one will be asleep
by the time we get there, and it will take us only a minute to hand her
into the launch.  If there should be a guard there, King will have
fixed them one way or another by the time we arrive.  Anyhow, there is
no need of looking for trouble that far ahead.  There is enough to
worry about in between.  We haven't got there yet."

The moon rose grandly a few minutes later, and flooded the forest with
light so that the open places were as clear as day.  It threw strange
shadows across the trail, and turned the rocks and fallen trees into
figures of men crouching or standing upright with uplifted arms.  They
were so like to them that Clay and Langham flung their carbines to
their shoulders again and again, and pointed them at some black object
that turned as they advanced into wood or stone.  From the forest they
came to little streams and broad shallow rivers where the rocks in the
fording places churned the water into white masses of foam, and the
horses kicked up showers of spray as they made their way, slipping and
stumbling, against the current.  It was a silent pilgrimage, and never
for a moment did the strain slacken or the men draw rein.  Sometimes,
as they hurried across a broad tableland, or skirted the edge of a
precipice and looked down hundreds of feet below at the shining waters
they had just forded, or up at the rocky points of the mountains before
them, the beauty of the night overcame them and made them forget the
significance of their journey.

They were not always alone, for they passed at intervals through
sleeping villages of mud huts with thatched roofs, where the dogs ran
yelping out to bark at them, and where the pine-knots, blazing on the
clay ovens, burned cheerily in the moonlight.  In the low lands where
the fever lay, the mist rose above the level of their heads and
enshrouded them in a curtain of fog, and the dew fell heavily,
penetrating their clothing and chilling their heated bodies so that the
sweating horses moved in a lather of steam.

They had settled down into a steady gallop now, and ten or fifteen
miles had been left behind them.

"We are making excellent time," said Clay.  "The village of San Lorenzo
should lie beyond that ridge."  He drove up beside the driver and
pointed with his whip.  "Is not that San Lorenzo?" he asked.

"Yes, senor," the man answered, "but I mean to drive around it by the
old wagon trail.  It is a large town, and people may be awake.  You
will be able to see it from the top of the next hill."

The cavalcade stopped at the summit of the ridge and the men looked
down into the silent village.  It was like the others they had passed,
with a few houses built round a square of grass that could hardly be
recognized as a plaza, except for the church on its one side, and the
huge wooden cross planted in its centre. From the top of the hill they
could see that the greater number of the houses were in darkness, but
in a large building of two stories lights were shining from every
window.

"That is the comandancia," said the driver, shaking his head.  "They
are still awake.  It is a telegraph station."

"Great Scott!" exclaimed MacWilliams.  "We forgot the telegraph.  They
may have sent word to head us off already."

"Nine o'clock is not so very late," said Clay.  "It may mean nothing."

"We had better make sure, though," MacWilliams answered, jumping to the
ground.  "Lend me your pony, Ted, and take my place.  I'll run in there
and dust around and see what's up. I'll join you on the other side of
the town after you get back to the main road."

"Wait a minute," said Clay.  "What do you mean to do?"

"I can't tell till I get there, but I'll try to find out how much they
know.  Don't you be afraid.  I'll run fast enough if there's any sign
of trouble.  And if you come across a telegraph wire, cut it.  The
message may not have gone over yet."

The two women in the carriage had parted the flaps of the hoods and
were trying to hear what was being said, but could not understand, and
Langham explained to them that they were about to make a slight detour
to avoid San Lorenzo while MacWilliams was going into it to
reconnoitre.  He asked if they were comfortable, and assured them that
the greater part of the ride was over, and that there was a good road
from San Lorenzo to the sea.

MacWilliams rode down into the village along the main trail, and threw
his reins over a post in front of the comandancia.  He mounted boldly
to the second floor of the building and stopped at the head of the
stairs, in front of an open door.  There were three men in the room
before him, one an elderly man, whom he rightly guessed was the
comandante, and two younger men who were standing behind a railing and
bending over a telegraph instrument on a table.  As he stamped into the
room, they looked up and stared at him in surprise; their faces showed
that he had interrupted them at a moment of unusual interest.

MacWilliams saluted the three men civilly, and, according to the native
custom, apologized for appearing before them in his spurs.

He had been riding from Los Bocos to the capital, he said, and his
horse had gone lame.  Could they tell him if there was any one in the
village from whom he could hire a mule, as he must push on to the
capital that night?

The comandante surveyed him for a moment, as though still disturbed by
the interruption, and then shook his head impatiently.  "You can hire a
mule from one Pulido Paul, at the corner of the plaza," he said.  And
as MacWilliams still stood uncertainly, he added, "You say you have
come from Los Bocos.  Did you meet any one on your way?"

The two younger men looked up at him anxiously, but before he could
answer, the instrument began to tick out the signal, and they turned
their eyes to it again, and one of them began to take its message down
on paper.

The instrument spoke to MacWilliams also, for he was used to sending
telegrams daily from the office to the mines, and could make it talk
for him in either English or Spanish.  So, in his effort to hear what
it might say, he stammered and glanced at it involuntarily, and the
comandante, without suspecting his reason for doing so, turned also and
peered over the shoulder of the man who was receiving the message.
Except for the clicking of the instrument, the room was absolutely
still; the three men bent silently over the table, while MacWilliams
stood gazing at the ceiling and turning his hat in his hands.  The
message MacWilliams read from the instrument was this:  "They are
reported to have left the city by the south, so they are going to Para,
or San Pedro, or to Los Bocos.  She must be stopped--take an armed
force and guard the roads.  If necessary, kill her.  She has in the
carriage or hidden on her person, drafts for five million sols.  You
will be held responsible for every one of them.  Repeat this message to
show you understand, and relay it to Los Bocos.  If you fail--"

MacWilliams could not wait to hear more; he gave a curt nod to the men
and started toward the stairs.  "Wait," the comandante called after him.

MacWilliams paused with one hand on top of the banisters balancing
himself in readiness for instant flight.

"You have not answered me.  Did you meet with any one on your ride here
from Los Bocos?"

"I met several men on foot, and the mail carrier passed me a league out
from the coast, and oh, yes, I met a carriage at the cross roads, and
the driver asked me the way of San Pedro Sula."

"A carriage?--yes--and what did you tell him?"

"I told him he was on the road to Los Bocos, and he turned back and--"

"You are sure he turned back?"

"Certainly, sir.  I rode behind him for some distance.  He turned
finally to the right into the trail to San Pedro Sula."

The man flung himself across the railing.

"Quick," he commanded, "telegraph to Morales, Comandante San Pedro
Sula--"

He had turned his back on MacWilliams, and as the younger man bent over
the instrument, MacWilliams stepped softly down the stairs, and
mounting his pony rode slowly off in the direction of the capital.  As
soon as he had reached the outskirts of the town, he turned and
galloped round it and then rode fast with his head in air, glancing up
at the telegraph wire that sagged from tree-trunk to tree-trunk along
the trail.  At a point where he thought he could dismount in safety and
tear down the wire, he came across it dangling from the branches and he
gave a shout of relief.  He caught the loose end and dragged it free
from its support, and then laying it across a rock pounded the blade of
his knife upon it with a stone, until he had hacked off a piece some
fifty feet in length.  Taking this in his hand he mounted again and
rode off with it, dragging the wire in the road behind him.  He held it
up as he rejoined Clay, and laughed triumphantly.  "They'll have some
trouble splicing that circuit," he said, "you only half did the work.
What wouldn't we give to know all this little piece of copper knows,
eh?"

"Do you mean you think they have telegraphed to Los Bocos already?"

"I know that they were telegraphing to San Pedro Sula as I left and to
all the coast towns.  But whether you cut this down before or after is
what I should like to know."

"We shall probably learn that later," said Clay, grimly.

The last three miles of the journey lay over a hard, smooth road, wide
enough to allow the carriage and its escort to ride abreast.

It was in such contrast to the tortuous paths they had just followed,
that the horses gained a fresh impetus and galloped forward as freely
as though the race had but just begun.

Madame Alvarez stopped the carriage at one place and asked the men to
lower the hood at the back that she might feel the fresh air and see
about her, and when this had been done, the women seated themselves
with their backs to the horses where they could look out at the moonlit
road as it unrolled behind them.

Hope felt selfishly and wickedly happy.  The excitement had kept her
spirits at the highest point, and the knowledge that Clay was guarding
and protecting her was in itself a pleasure.  She leaned back on the
cushions and put her arm around the older woman's waist, and listened
to the light beat of his pony's hoofs outside, now running ahead, now
scrambling and slipping up some steep place, and again coming to a halt
as Langham or MacWilliams called, "Look to the right, behind those
trees," or "Ahead there!  Don't you see what I mean, something
crouching?"

She did not know when the false alarms would turn into a genuine
attack, but she was confident that when the time came he would take
care of her, and she welcomed the danger because it brought that solace
with it.

Madame Alvarez sat at her side, rigid, silent, and beyond the help of
comfort.  She tortured herself with thoughts of the ambitions she had
held, and which had been so cruelly mocked that very morning; of the
chivalric love that had been hers, of the life even that had been hers,
and which had been given up for her so tragically.  When she spoke at
all, it was to murmur her sorrow that Hope had exposed herself to
danger on her poor account, and that her life, as far as she loved it,
was at an end.  Only once after the men had parted the curtains and
asked concerning her comfort with grave solicitude did she give way to
tears.

"Why are they so good to me?" she moaned.  "Why are you so good to me?
I am a wicked, vain woman, I have brought a nation to war and I have
killed the only man I ever trusted."

Hope touched her gently with her hand and felt guiltily how selfish she
herself must be not to feel the woman's grief, but she could not.  She
only saw in it a contrast to her own happiness, a black background
before which the figure of Clay and his solicitude for her shone out,
the only fact in the world that was of value.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the carriage coming to a halt, and a
significant movement upon the part of the men.  MacWilliams had
descended from the box-seat and stepping into the carriage took the
place the women had just left.

He had a carbine in his hand, and after he was seated Langham handed
him another which he laid across his knees.

"They thought I was too conspicuous on the box to do any good there,"
he explained in a confidential whisper.  "In case there is any firing
now, you ladies want to get down on your knees here at my feet, and
hide your heads in the cushions.  We are entering Los Bocos."

Langham and Clay were riding far in advance, scouting to the right and
left, and the carriage moved noiselessly behind them through the empty
streets.  There was no light in any of the windows, and not even a dog
barked, or a cock crowed.  The women sat erect, listening for the first
signal of an attack, each holding the other's hand and looking at
MacWilliams, who sat with his thumb on the trigger of his carbine,
glancing to the right and left and breathing quickly.  His eyes
twinkled, like those of a little fox terrier.  The men dropped back,
and drew up on a level with the carriage.

"We are all right, so far," Clay whispered.  "The beach slopes down
from the other side of that line of trees.  What is the matter with
you?" he demanded, suddenly, looking up at the driver, "are you afraid?"

"No," the man answered, hurriedly, his voice shaking; "it's the cold."

Langham had galloped on ahead and as he passed through the trees and
came out upon the beach, he saw a broad stretch of moonlit water and
the lights from the yacht shining from a point a quarter of a mile off
shore.  Among the rocks on the edge of the beach was the "Vesta's"
longboat and her crew seated in it or standing about on the beach.  The
carriage had stopped under the protecting shadow of the trees, and he
raced back toward it.

"The yacht is here," he cried.  "The long-boat is waiting and there is
not a sign of light about the Custom-house.  Come on," he cried.  "We
have beaten them after all."

A sailor, who had been acting as lookout on the rocks, sprang to his
full height, and shouted to the group around the long-boat, and King
came up the beach toward them running heavily through the deep sand.

Madame Alvarez stepped down from the carriage, and as Hope handed her
her jewel case in silence, the men draped her cloak about her
shoulders.  She put out her hand to them, and as Clay took it in his,
she bent her head quickly and kissed his hand.  "You were his friend,"
she murmured.

She held Hope in her arms for an instant, and kissed her, and then gave
her hand in turn to Langham and to MacWilliams.

"I do not know whether I shall ever see you again," she said, looking
slowly from one to the other, "but I will pray for you every day, and
God will reward you for saving a worthless life."

As she finished speaking King came up to the group, followed by three
of his men.

"Is Hope with you, is she safe?" he asked.

"Yes, she is with me," Madame Alvarez answered.

"Thank God," King exclaimed, breathlessly.  "Then we will start at
once, Madame.  Where is she?  She must come with us!"

"Of course," Clay-assented, eagerly, "she will be much safer on the
yacht."

But Hope protested.  "I must get back to father," she said. "The yacht
will not arrive until late to-morrow, and the carriage can take me to
him five hours earlier.  The family have worried too long about me as
it is, and, besides, I will not leave Ted.  I am going back as I came."

"It is most unsafe," King urged.

"On the contrary, it is perfectly safe now," Hope answered. "It was not
one of us they wanted."

"You may be right," King said.  "They don't know what has happened to
you, and perhaps after all it would be better if you went back the
quicker way."  He gave his arm to Madame Alvarez and walked with her
toward the shore.  As the men surrounded her on every side and moved
away, Clay glanced back at Hope and saw her standing upright in the
carriage looking after them.

"We will be with you in a minute," he called, as though in apology for
leaving her for even that brief space.  And then the shadow of the
trees shut her and the carriage from his sight. His footsteps made no
sound in the soft sand, and except for the whispering of the palms and
the sleepy wash of the waves as they ran up the pebbly beach and sank
again, the place was as peaceful and silent as a deserted island,
though the moon made it as light as day.

The long-boat had been drawn up with her stern to the shore, and the
men were already in their places, some standing waiting for the order
to shove off, and others seated balancing their oars.

King had arranged to fire a rocket when the launch left the shore, in
order that the captain of the yacht might run in closer to pick them
up.  As he hurried down the beach, he called to his boatswain to give
the signal, and the man answered that he understood and stooped to
light a match.  King had jumped into the stern and lifted Madame
Alvarez after him, leaving her late escort standing with uncovered
heads on the beach behind her, when the rocket shot up into the calm
white air, with a roar and a rush and a sudden flash of color.  At the
same instant, as though in answer to its challenge, the woods back of
them burst into an irregular line of flame, a volley of rifle shots
shattered the silence, and a score of bullets splashed in the water and
on the rocks about them.

The boatswain in the bow of the long-boat tossed up his arms and
pitched forward between the thwarts.

"Give way," he shouted as he fell.

"Pull," Clay yelled, "pull, all of you."

He threw himself against the stern of the boat, and Langham and
MacWilliams clutched its sides, and with their shoulders against it and
their bodies half sunk in the water, shoved it off, free of the shore.

The shots continued fiercely, and two of the crew cried out and fell
back upon the oars of the men behind them.

Madame Alvarez sprang to her feet and stood swaying unsteadily as the
boat leaped forward.

"Take me back.  Stop, I command you," she cried, "I will not leave
those men.  Do you hear?"

King caught her by the waist and dragged her down, but she struggled to
free herself.  "I will not leave them to be murdered," she cried.  "You
cowards, put me back."

"Hold her, King," Clay shouted.  "We're all right.  They're not firing
at us."

His voice was drowned in the noise of the oars beating in the rowlocks,
and the reports of the rifles.  The boat disappeared in a mist of spray
and moonlight, and Clay turned and faced about him.  Langham and
MacWilliams were crouching behind a rock and firing at the flashes in
the woods.

"You can't stay there," Clay cried.  "We must get back to Hope."

He ran forward, dodging from side to side and firing as he ran. He
heard shots from the water, and looking back saw that the men in the
longboat had ceased rowing, and were returning the fire from the shore.

"Come back, Hope is all right," her brother called to him.  "I haven't
seen a shot within a hundred yards of her yet, they're firing from the
Custom-house and below.  I think Mac's hit."

"I'm not," MacWilliams's voice answered from behind a rock, "but I'd
like to see something to shoot at."

A hot tremor of rage swept over Clay at the thought of a possibly fatal
termination to the night's adventure.  He groaned at the mockery of
having found his life only to lose it now, when it was more precious to
him than it had ever been, and to lose it in a silly brawl with
semi-savages.  He cursed himself impotently and rebelliously for a
senseless fool.

"Keep back, can't you?" he heard Langham calling to him from the shore.
"You're only drawing the fire toward Hope.  She's got away by now.  She
had both the horses."

Langham and MacWilliams started forward to Clay's side, but the instant
they left the shadow of the rock, the bullets threw up the sand at
their feet and they stopped irresolutely.  The moon showed the three
men outlined against the white sand of the beach as clearly as though a
searchlight had been turned upon them, even while its shadows sheltered
and protected their assailants. At their backs the open sea cut off
retreat, and the line of fire in front held them in check.  They were
as helpless as chessmen upon a board.

"I'm not going to stand still to be shot at," cried MacWilliams.
"Let's hide or let's run.  This isn't doing anybody any good."  But no
one moved.  They could hear the singing of the bullets as they passed
them whining in the air like a banjo-string that is being tightened,
and they knew they were in equal danger from those who were firing from
the boat.

"They're shooting better," said MacWilliams.  "They'll reach us in a
minute."

"They've reached me already, I think," Langham answered, with
suppressed satisfaction, "in the shoulder.  It's nothing."  His
unconcern was quite sincere; to a young man who had galloped through
two long halves of a football match on a strained tendon, a scratched
shoulder was not important, except as an unsought honor.

But it was of the most importance to MacWilliams.  He raised his voice
against the men in the woods in impotent fury.  "Come out, you cowards,
where we can see you," he cried.  "Come out where I can shoot your
black heads off."

Clay had fired the last cartridge in his rifle, and throwing it away
drew his revolver.

"We must either swim or hide," he said.  "Put your heads down and run."

But as he spoke, they saw the carriage plunging out of the shadow of
the woods and the horses galloping toward them down the beach.
MacWilliams gave a cheer of welcome.  "Hurrah!" he shouted, "it's Jose'
coming for us.  He's a good man.  Well done, Jose'!" he called.

"That's not Jose'," Langham cried, doubtfully, peering through the
moonlight.  "Good God!  It's Hope," he exclaimed. He waved his hands
frantically above his head.  "Go back, Hope," he cried, "go back!"

But the carriage did not swerve on its way toward them.  They all saw
her now distinctly.  She was on the driver's box and alone, leaning
forward and lashing the horses' backs with the whip and reins, and
bending over to avoid the bullets that passed above her head.  As she
came down upon them, she stood up, her woman's figure outlined clearly
in the riding habit she still wore. "Jump in when I turn," she cried.
"I'm going to turn slowly, run and jump in."

She bent forward again and pulled the horses to the right, and as they
obeyed her, plunging and tugging at their bits, as though they knew the
danger they were in, the men threw themselves at the carriage.  Clay
caught the hood at the back, swung himself up, and scrambled over the
cushions and up to the box seat.  He dropped down behind Hope, and
reaching his arms around her took the reins in one hand, and with the
other forced her down to her knees upon the footboard, so that, as she
knelt, his arms and body protected her from the bullets sent after
them.  Langham followed Clay, and tumbled into the carriage over the
hood at the back, but MacWilliams endeavored to vault in from the step,
and missing his footing fell under the hind wheel, so that the weight
of the carriage passed over him, and his head was buried for an instant
in the sand.  But he was on his feet again before they had noticed that
he was down, and as he jumped for the hood, Langham caught him by the
collar of his coat and dragged him into the seat, panting and gasping,
and rubbing the sand from his mouth and nostrils.  Clay turned the
carriage at a right angle through the heavy sand, and still standing
with Hope crouched at his knees, he raced back to the woods into the
face of the firing, with the boys behind him answering it from each
side of the carriage, so that the horses leaped forward in a frenzy of
terror, and dashing through the woods, passed into the first road that
opened before them.

The road into which they had turned was narrow, but level, and ran
through a forest of banana palms that bent and swayed above them.
Langham and MacWilliams still knelt in the rear seat of the carriage,
watching the road on the chance of possible pursuit.

"Give me some cartridges," said Langham.  "My belt is empty. What road
is this?"

"It is a private road, I should say, through somebody's banana
plantation.  But it must cross the main road somewhere.  It doesn't
matter, we're all right now.  I mean to take it easy." MacWilliams
turned on his back and stretched out his legs on the seat opposite.

"Where do you suppose those men sprang from?  Were they following us
all the time?"

"Perhaps, or else that message got over the wire before we cut it, and
they've been lying in wait for us.  They were probably watching King
and his sailors for the last hour or so, but they didn't want him.
They wanted her and the money.  It was pretty exciting, wasn't it?
How's your shoulder?"

"It's a little stiff, thank you," said Langham.  He stood up and by
peering over the hood could just see the top of Clay's sombrero rising
above it where he sat on the back seat.

"You and Hope all right up there, Clay?" he asked.

The top of the sombrero moved slightly, and Langham took it as a sign
that all was well.  He dropped back into his seat beside MacWilliams,
and they both breathed a long sigh of relief and content.  Langham's
wounded arm was the one nearest MacWilliams, and the latter parted the
torn sleeve and examined the furrow across the shoulder with
unconcealed envy.

"I am afraid it won't leave a scar," he said, sympathetically.

"Won't it?" asked Langham, in some concern.

The horses had dropped into a walk, and the beauty of the moonlit night
put its spell upon the two boys, and the rustling of the great leaves
above their heads stilled and quieted them so that they unconsciously
spoke in whispers.

Clay had not moved since the horses turned of their own accord into the
valley of the palms.  He no longer feared pursuit nor any interruption
to their further progress.  His only sensation was one of utter
thankfulness that they were all well out of it, and that Hope had been
the one who had helped them in their trouble, and his dearest thought
was that, whether she wished or not, he owed his safety, and possibly
his life, to her.

She still crouched between his knees upon the broad footboard, with her
hands clasped in front of her, and looking ahead into the vista of soft
mysterious lights and dark shadows that the moon cast upon the road.
Neither of them spoke, and as the silence continued unbroken, it took a
weightier significance, and at each added second of time became more
full of meaning.

The horses had dropped into a tired walk, and drew them smoothly over
the white road; from behind the hood came broken snatches of the boys'
talk, and above their heads the heavy leaves of the palms bent and
bowed as though in benediction.  A warm breeze from the land filled the
air with the odor of ripening fruit and pungent smells, and the silence
seemed to envelop them and mark them as the only living creatures awake
in the brilliant tropical night.

Hope sank slowly back, and as she did so, her shoulder touched for an
instant against Clay's knee; she straightened herself and made a
movement as though to rise.  Her nearness to him and something in her
attitude at his feet held Clay in a spell.  He bent forward and laid
his hand fearfully upon her shoulder, and the touch seemed to stop the
blood in his veins and hushed the words upon his lips.  Hope raised her
head slowly as though with a great effort, and looked into his eyes.
It seemed to him that he had been looking into those same eyes for
centuries, as though he had always known them, and the soul that looked
out of them into his.  He bent his head lower, and stretching out his
arms drew her to him, and the eyes did not waver.  He raised her and
held her close against his breast.  Her eyes faltered and closed.

"Hope," he whispered, "Hope."  He stooped lower and kissed her, and his
lips told her what they could not speak--and they were quite alone.



XIV

An hour later Langham rose with a protesting sigh and shook the hood
violently.

"I say!" he called.  "Are you asleep up there.  We'll never get home at
this rate.  Doesn't Hope want to come back here and go to sleep?"

The carriage stopped, and the boys tumbled out and walked around in
front of it.  Hope sat smiling on the box-seat.  She was apparently far
from sleepy, and she was quite contented where she was, she told him.

"Do you know we haven't had anything to eat since yesterday at
breakfast?" asked Langham.  "MacWilliams and I are fainting. We move
that we stop at the next shack we come to, and waken the people up and
make them give us some supper."

Hope looked aside at Clay and laughed softly.  "Supper?" she said.
"They want supper!"

Their suffering did not seem to impress Clay deeply.  He sat snapping
his whip at the palm-trees above him, and smiled happily in an
inconsequent and irritating manner at nothing.

"See here!  Do you know that we are lost?" demanded Langham,
indignantly, "and starving?  Have you any idea at all where you are?"

"I have not," said Clay, cheerfully.  "All I know is that a long time
ago there was a revolution and a woman with jewels, who escaped in an
open boat, and I recollect playing that I was a target and standing up
to be shot at in a bright light.  After that I woke up to the really
important things of life--among which supper is not one."

Langham and MacWilliams looked at each other doubtfully, and Langham
shook his head.

"Get down off that box," he commanded.  "If you and Hope think this is
merely a pleasant moonlight drive, we don't.  You two can sit in the
carriage now, and we'll take a turn at driving, and we'll guarantee to
get you to some place soon."

Clay and Hope descended meekly and seated themselves under the hood,
where they could look out upon the moonlit road as it unrolled behind
them.  But they were no longer to enjoy their former leisurely
progress.  The new whip lashed his horses into a gallop, and the trees
flew past them on either hand.

"Do you remember that chap in the 'Last Ride Together'?" said Clay.

    "I and my mistress, side by side,
        Shall be together--forever ride,
      And so one more day am I deified.
        Who knows--the world may end to-night."

Hope laughed triumphantly, and threw out her arms as though she would
embrace the whole beautiful world that stretched around them.

"Oh, no," she laughed.  "To-night the world has just begun."

The carriage stopped, and there was a confusion of voices on the
box-seat, and then a great barking of dogs, and they beheld MacWilliams
beating and kicking at the door of a hut.  The door opened for an inch,
and there was a long debate in Spanish, and finally the door was closed
again, and a light appeared through the windows.  A few minutes later a
man and woman came out of the hut, shivering and yawning, and made a
fire in the sun-baked oven at the side of the house.  Hope and Clay
remained seated in the carriage, and watched the flames springing up
from the oily fagots, and the boys moving about with flaring torches of
pine, pulling down bundles of fodder for the horses from the roof of
the kitchen, while two sleepy girls disappeared toward a mountain
stream, one carrying a jar on her shoulder, and the other lighting the
way with a torch.  Hope sat with her chin on her hand, watching the
black figures passing between them and the fire, and standing above it
with its light on their faces, shading their eyes from the heat with
one hand, and stirring something in a smoking caldron with the other.
Hope felt an overflowing sense of gratitude to these simple strangers
for the trouble they were taking.  She felt how good every one was, and
how wonderfully kind and generous was the world that she lived in.

Her brother came over to the carriage and bowed with mock courtesy.

"I trust, now that we have done all the work," he said, "that your
excellencies will condescend to share our frugal fare, or must we bring
it to you here?"

The clay oven stood in the middle of a hut of laced twigs, through
which the smoke drifted freely.  There was a row of wooden benches
around it, and they all seated themselves and ate ravenously of rice
and fried plantains, while the woman patted and tossed tortillas
between her hands, eyeing her guests curiously.  Her glance fell upon
Langham's shoulder, and rested there for so long that Hope followed the
direction of her eyes. She leaped to her feet with a cry of fear and
reproach, and ran toward her brother.

"Ted!" she cried, "you are hurt! you are wounded, and you never told
me!  What is it?  Is it very bad?" Clay crossed the floor in a stride,
his face full of concern.

"Leave me alone!" cried the stern brother, backing away and warding
them off with the coffeepot.  "It's only scratched. You'll spill the
coffee."

But at the sight of the blood Hope had turned very white, and throwing
her arms around her brother's neck, hid her eyes on his other shoulder
and began to cry.

"I am so selfish," she sobbed.  "I have been so happy and you were
suffering all the time."

Her brother stared at the others in dismay.  "What nonsense," he said,
patting her on the shoulder.  "You're a bit tired, and you need rest.
That's what you need.  The idea of my sister going off in hysterics
after behaving like such a sport--and before these young ladies, too.
Aren't you ashamed?"

"I should think they'd be ashamed," said MacWilliams, severely, as he
continued placidly with his supper.  "They haven't got enough clothes
on."

Langham looked over Hope's shoulder at Clay and nodded significantly.
"She's been on a good deal of a strain," he explained apologetically,
"and no wonder; it's been rather an unusual night for her."

Hope raised her head and smiled at him through her tears.  Then she
turned and moved toward Clay.  She brushed her eyes with the back of
her hand and laughed.  "It has been an unusual night," she said.
"Shall I tell him?" she asked.

Clay straightened himself unconsciously, and stepped beside her and
took her hand; MacWilliams quickly lowered to the bench the dish from
which he was eating, and stood up, too.  The people of the house stared
at the group in the firelight with puzzled interest, at the beautiful
young girl, and at the tall, sunburned young man at her side.  Langham
looked from his sister to Clay and back again, and laughed uneasily.

"Langham, I have been very bold," said Clay.  "I have asked your sister
to marry me--and she has said that she would."

Langham flushed as red as his sister.  He felt himself at a
disadvantage in the presence of a love as great and strong as he knew
this must be.  It made him seem strangely young and inadequate.  He
crossed over to his sister awkwardly and kissed her, and then took
Clay's hand, and the three stood together and looked at one another,
and there was no sign of doubt or question in the face of any one of
them.  They stood so for some little time, smiling and exclaiming
together, and utterly unconscious of anything but their own delight and
happiness.  MacWilliams watched them, his face puckered into odd
wrinkles and his eyes half-closed.  Hope suddenly broke away from the
others and turned toward him with her hands held out.

"Have you nothing to say to me, Mr. MacWilliams?" she asked.

MacWilliams looked doubtfully at Clay, as though from force of habit he
must ask advice from his chief first, and then took the hands that she
held out to him and shook them up and down.  His usual confidence
seemed to have forsaken him, and he stood, shifting from one foot to
the other, smiling and abashed.

"Well, I always said they didn't make them any better than you," he
gasped at last.  "I was always telling him that, wasn't I?"  He nodded
energetically at Clay.  "And that's so; they don't make 'em any better
than you."

He dropped her hands and crossed over to Clay, and stood surveying him
with a smile of wonder and admiration.

"How'd you do it?" he demanded.  "How did you do it?  I suppose you
know," he asked sternly, "that you're not good enough for Miss Hope?
You know that, don't you?"

"Of course I know that," said Clay.

MacWilliams walked toward the door and stood in it for a second,
looking back at them over his shoulder.  "They don't make them any
better than that," he reiterated gravely, and disappeared in the
direction of the horses, shaking his head and muttering his
astonishment and delight.

"Please give me some money," Hope said to Clay.  "All the money you
have," she added, smiling at her presumption of authority over him,
"and you, too, Ted."  The men emptied their pockets, and Hope poured
the mass of silver into the hands of the women, who gazed at it
uncomprehendingly.

"Thank you for your trouble and your good supper," Hope said in
Spanish, "and may no evil come to your house."

The woman and her daughters followed her to the carriage, bowing and
uttering good wishes in the extravagant metaphor of their country; and
as they drove away, Hope waved her hand to them as she sank closer
against Clay's shoulder.

"The world is full of such kind and gentle souls," she said.

In an hour they had regained the main road, and a little later the
stars grew dim and the moonlight faded, and trees and bushes and rocks
began to take substance and to grow into form and outline.  They saw by
the cool, gray light of the morning the familiar hills around the
capital, and at a cry from the boys on the box-seat, they looked ahead
and beheld the harbor of Valencia at their feet, lying as placid and
undisturbed as the water in a bath-tub.  As they turned up the hill
into the road that led to the Palms, they saw the sleeping capital like
a city of the dead below them, its white buildings reddened with the
light of the rising sun.  From three places in different parts of the
city, thick columns of smoke rose lazily to the sky.

"I had forgotten!" said Clay; "they have been having a revolution here.
It seems so long ago."

By five o'clock they had reached the gate of the Palms, and their
appearance startled the sentry on post into a state of undisciplined
joy.  A riderless pony, the one upon which Jose' had made his escape
when the firing began, had crept into the stable an hour previous,
stiff and bruised and weary, and had led the people at the Palms to
fear the worst.

Mr. Langham and his daughter were standing on the veranda as the horses
came galloping up the avenue.  They had been awake all the night, and
the face of each was white and drawn with anxiety and loss of sleep.
Mr. Langham caught Hope in his arms and held her face close to his in
silence.

"Where have you been?" he said at last.  "Why did you treat me like
this?  You knew how I would suffer."

"I could not help it," Hope cried.  "I had to go with Madame Alvarez."

Her sister had suffered as acutely as had Mr. Langham himself, as long
as she was in ignorance of Hope's whereabouts.  But now that she saw
Hope in the flesh again, she felt a reaction against her for the
anxiety and distress she had caused them.

"My dear Hope," she said, "is every one to be sacrificed for Madame
Alvarez?  What possible use could you be to her at such a time?  It was
not the time nor the place for a young girl.  You were only another
responsibility for the men."

"Clay seemed willing to accept the responsibility," said Langham,
without a smile.  "And, besides," he added, "if Hope had not been with
us we might never have reached home alive."

But it was only after much earnest protest and many explanations that
Mr. Langham was pacified, and felt assured that his son's wound was not
dangerous, and that his daughter was quite safe.

Miss Langham and himself, he said, had passed a trying night. There had
been much firing in the city, and continual uproar. The houses of
several of the friends of Alvarez had been burned and sacked.  Alvarez
himself had been shot as soon as he had entered the yard of the
military prison.  It was then given out that he had committed suicide.
Mendoza had not dared to kill Rojas, because of the feeling of the
people toward him, and had even shown him to the mob from behind the
bars of one of the windows in order to satisfy them that he was still
living.  The British Minister had sent to the Palace for the body of
Captain Stuart, and had had it escorted to the Legation, from whence it
would be sent to England.  This, as far as Mr. Langham had heard, was
the news of the night just over.

"Two native officers called here for you about midnight, Clay," he
continued, "and they are still waiting for you below at your office.
They came from Rojas's troops, who are encamped on the hills at the
other side of the city.  They wanted you to join them with the men from
the mines.  I told them I did not know when you would return, and they
said they would wait.  If you could have been here last night, it is
possible that we might have done something, but now that it is all
over, I am glad that you saved that woman instead.  I should have
liked, though, to have struck one blow at them.  But we cannot hope to
win against assassins.  The death of young Stuart has hurt me terribly,
and the murder of Alvarez, coming on top of it, has made me wish I had
never heard of nor seen Olancho.  I have decided to go away at once, on
the next steamer, and I will take my daughters with me, and Ted, too.
The State Department at Washington can fight with Mendoza for the
mines.  You made a good stand, but they made a better one, and they
have beaten us.  Mendoza's coup d'etat has passed into history, and the
revolution is at an end."

On his arrival Clay had at once asked for a cigar, and while Mr.
Langham was speaking he had been biting it between his teeth, with the
serious satisfaction of a man who had been twelve hours without one.
He knocked the ashes from it and considered the burning end
thoughtfully.  Then he glanced at Hope as she stood among the group on
the veranda.  She was waiting for his reply and watching him intently.
He seemed to be confident that she would approve of the only course he
saw open to him.

"The revolution is not at an end by any means, Mr. Langham," he said at
last, simply.  "It has just begun."  He turned abruptly and walked away
in the direction of the office, and MacWilliams and Langham stepped off
the veranda and followed him as a matter of course.

The soldiers in the army who were known to be faithful to General Rojas
belonged to the Third and Fourth regiments, and numbered four thousand
on paper, and two thousand by count of heads. When they had seen their
leader taken prisoner, and swept off the parade-ground by Mendoza's
cavalry, they had first attempted to follow in pursuit and recapture
him, but the men on horseback had at once shaken off the men on foot
and left them, panting and breathless, in the dust behind them.  So
they halted uncertainly in the road, and their young officers held
counsel together. They first considered the advisability of attacking
the military prison, but decided against doing so, as it would lead,
they feared, whether it proved successful or not, to the murder of
Rojas.  It was impossible to return to the city where Mendoza's First
and Second regiments greatly outnumbered them.  Having no leader and no
headquarters, the officers marched the men to the hills above the city
and went into camp to await further developments.

Throughout the night they watched the illumination of the city and of
the boats in the harbor below them; they saw the flames bursting from
the homes of the members of Alvarez's Cabinet, and when the morning
broke they beheld the grounds of the Palace swarming with Mendoza's
troops, and the red and white barred flag of the revolution floating
over it.  The news of the assassination of Alvarez and the fact that
Rojas had been spared for fear of the people, had been carried to them
early in the evening, and with this knowledge of their General's safety
hope returned and fresh plans were discussed.  By midnight they had
definitely decided that should Mendoza attempt to dislodge them the
next morning, they would make a stand, but that if the fight went
against them, they would fall back along the mountain roads to the
Valencia mines, where they hoped to persuade the fifteen hundred
soldiers there installed to join forces with them against the new
Dictator.

In order to assure themselves of this help, a messenger was despatched
by a circuitous route to the Palms, to ask the aid of the resident
director, and another was sent to the mines to work upon the feelings
of the soldiers themselves.  The officer who had been sent to the Palms
to petition Clay for the loan of his soldier-workmen, had decided to
remain until Clay returned, and another messenger had been sent after
him from the camp on the same errand.

These two lieutenants greeted Clay with enthusiasm, but he at once
interrupted them, and began plying them with questions as to where
their camp was situated and what roads led from it to the Palms.

"Bring your men at once to this end of our railroad," he said.  "It is
still early, and the revolutionists will sleep late.  They are drugged
with liquor and worn out with excitement, and whatever may have been
their intentions toward you last night, they will be late in putting
them into practice this morning.  I will telegraph Kirkland to come up
at once with all of his soldiers and with his three hundred Irishmen.
Allowing him a half-hour to collect them and to get his flat cars
together, and another half-hour in which to make the run, he should be
here by half-past six--and that's quick mobilization. You ride back now
and march your men here at a double-quick. With your two thousand we
shall have in all three thousand and eight hundred men.  I must have
absolute control over my own troops.  Otherwise I shall act
independently of you and go into the city alone with my workmen."

"That is unnecessary," said one of the lieutenants.  "We have no
officers.  If you do not command us, there is no one else to do it.  We
promise that our men will follow you and give you every obedience.
They have been led by foreigners before, by young Captain Stuart and
Major Fergurson and Colonel Shrevington. They know how highly General
Rojas thinks of you, and they know that you have led Continental armies
in Europe."

"Well, don't tell them I haven't until this is over," said Clay.  "Now,
ride hard, gentlemen, and bring your men here as quickly as possible."

The lieutenants thanked him effusively and galloped away, radiant at
the success of their mission, and Clay entered the office where
MacWilliams was telegraphing his orders to Kirkland.  He seated himself
beside the instrument, and from time to time answered the questions
Kirkland sent back to him over the wire, and in the intervals of
silence thought of Hope.  It was the first time he had gone into action
feeling the touch of a woman's hand upon his sleeve, and he was fearful
lest she might think he had considered her too lightly.

He took a piece of paper from the table and wrote a few lines upon it,
and then rewrote them several times.  The message he finally sent to
her was this:  "I am sure you understand, and that you would not have
me give up beaten now, when what we do to-day may set us right again.
I know better than any one else in the world can know, what I run the
risk of losing, but you would not have that fear stop me from going on
with what we have been struggling for so long.  I cannot come back to
see you before we start, but I know your heart is with me.  With great
love, Robert Clay."

He gave the note to his servant, and the answer was brought to him
almost immediately.  Hope had not rewritten her message: "I love you
because you are the sort of man you are, and had you given up as father
wished you to do, or on my account, you would have been some one else,
and I would have had to begin over again to learn to love you for some
different reasons.  I know that you will come back to me bringing your
sheaves with you.  Nothing can happen to you now.  Hope."

He had never received a line from her before, and he read and reread
this with a sense of such pride and happiness in his face that
MacWilliams smiled covertly and bent his eyes upon his instrument.
Clay went back into his room and kissed the page of paper gently,
flushing like a boy as he did so, and then folding it carefully, he put
it away beneath his jacket.  He glanced about him guiltily, although he
was quite alone, and taking out his watch, pried it open and looked
down into the face of the photograph that had smiled up at him from it
for so many years. He thought how unlike it was to Alice Langham as he
knew her.  He judged that it must have been taken when she was very
young, at the age Hope was then, before the little world she lived in
had crippled and narrowed her and marked her for its own.  He
remembered what she had said to him the first night he had seen her.
"That is the picture of the girl who ceased to exist four years ago,
and whom you have never met."  He wondered if she had ever existed.

"It looks more like Hope than her sister," he mused.  "It looks very
much like Hope."  He decided that he would let it remain where it was
until Hope gave him a better one; and smiling slightly he snapped the
lid fast, as though he were closing a door on the face of Alice Langham
and locking it forever.

Kirkland was in the cab of the locomotive that brought the soldiers
from the mine.  He stopped the first car in front of the freight
station until the workmen had filed out and formed into a double line
on the platform.  Then he moved the train forward the length of that
car, and those in the one following were mustered out in a similar
manner.  As the cars continued to come in, the men at the head of the
double line passed on through the freight station and on up the road to
the city in an unbroken column. There was no confusion, no crowding,
and no haste.

When the last car had been emptied, Clay rode down the line and
appointed a foreman to take charge of each company, stationing his
engineers and the Irish-Americans in the van.  It looked more like a
mob than a regiment.  None of the men were in uniform, and the native
soldiers were barefoot.  But they showed a winning spirit, and stood in
as orderly an array as though they were drawn up in line to receive
their month's wages.  The Americans in front of the column were
humorously disposed, and inclined to consider the whole affair as a
pleasant outing.  They had been placed in front, not because they were
better shots than the natives, but because every South American thinks
that every citizen of the United States is a master either of the rifle
or the revolver, and Clay was counting on this superstition.  His
assistant engineers and foremen hailed him as he rode on up and down
the line with good-natured cheers, and asked him when they were to get
their commissions, and if it were true that they were all captains, or
only colonels, as they were at home.

They had been waiting for a half-hour, when there was the sound of
horses' hoofs on the road, and the even beat of men's feet, and the
advance guard of the Third and Fourth regiments came toward them at a
quickstep.  The men were still in the full-dress uniforms they had worn
at the review the day before, and in comparison with the
soldier-workmen and the Americans in flannel shirts, they presented so
martial a showing that they were welcomed with tumultuous cheers.  Clay
threw them into a double line on one side of the road, down the length
of which his own marched until they had reached the end of it nearest
to the city, when they took up their position in a close formation, and
the native regiments fell in behind them.  Clay selected twenty of the
best shots from among the engineers and sent them on ahead as a
skirmish line.  They were ordered to fall back at once if they saw any
sign of the enemy.  In this order the column of four thousand men
started for the city.

It was a little after seven when they advanced, and the air was mild
and peaceful.  Men and women came crowding to the doors and windows of
the huts as they passed, and stood watching them in silence, not
knowing to which party the small army might belong. In order to
enlighten them, Clay shouted, "Viva Rojas."  And his men took it up,
and the people answered gladly.

They had reached the closely built portion of the city when the
skirmish line came running back to say that it had been met by a
detachment of Mendoza's cavalry, who had galloped away as soon as they
saw them.  There was then no longer any doubt that the fact of their
coming was known at the Palace, and Clay halted his men in a bare plaza
and divided them into three columns.  Three streets ran parallel with
one another from this plaza to the heart of the city, and opened
directly upon the garden of the Palace where Mendoza had fortified
himself.  Clay directed the columns to advance up these streets,
keeping the head of each column in touch with the other two.  At the
word they were to pour down the side streets and rally to each other's
assistance.

As they stood, drawn up on the three sides of the plaza, he rode out
before them and held up his hat for silence.  They were there with arms
in their hands, he said, for two reasons: the greater one, and the one
which he knew actuated the native soldiers, was their desire to
preserve the Constitution of the Republic. According to their own laws,
the Vice-President must succeed when the President's term of office had
expired, or in the event of his death.  President Alvarez had been
assassinated, and the Vice-President, General Rojas, was, in
consequence, his legal successor.  It was their duty, as soldiers of
the Republic, to rescue him from prison, to drive the man who had
usurped his place into exile, and by so doing uphold the laws which
they had themselves laid down.  The second motive, he went on, was a
less worthy and more selfish one.  The Olancho mines, which now gave
work to thousands and brought millions of dollars into the country,
were coveted by Mendoza, who would, if he could, convert them into a
monopoly of his government.  If he remained in power all foreigners
would be driven out of the country, and the soldiers would be forced to
work in the mines without payment. Their condition would be little
better than that of the slaves in the salt mines of Siberia.  Not only
would they no longer be paid for their labor, but the people as a whole
would cease to receive that share of the earnings of the mines which
had hitherto been theirs.

"Under President Rojas you will have liberty, justice, and prosperity,"
Clay cried.  "Under Mendoza you will be ruled by martial law.  He will
rob and overtax you, and you will live through a reign of terror.
Between them--which will you choose?"

The native soldiers answered by cries of "Rojas," and breaking ranks
rushed across the plaza toward him, crowding around his horse and
shouting, "Long live Rojas," "Long live the Constitution," "Death to
Mendoza."  The Americans stood as they were and gave three cheers for
the Government.

They were still cheering and shouting as they advanced upon the Palace,
and the noise of their coming drove the people indoors, so that they
marched through deserted streets and between closed doors and sightless
windows.  No one opposed them, and no one encouraged them.  But they
could now see the facade of the Palace and the flag of the
Revolutionists hanging from the mast in front of it.

Three blocks distant from the Palace they came upon the buildings of
the United States and English Legations, where the flags of the two
countries had been hung out over the narrow thoroughfare.

The windows and the roofs of each legation were crowded with women and
children who had sought refuge there, and the column halted as Weimer,
the Consul, and Sir Julian Pindar, the English Minister, came out,
bare-headed, into the street and beckoned to Clay to stop.

"As our Minister was not here," Weimer said, "I telegraphed to Truxillo
for the man-of-war there.  She started some time ago, and we have just
heard that she is entering the lower harbor. She should have her
blue-jackets on shore in twenty minutes.  Sir Julian and I think you
ought to wait for them."

The English Minister put a detaining hand on Clay's bridle.  "If you
attack Mendoza at the Palace with this mob," he remonstrated, "rioting
and lawlessness generally will break out all over the city.  I ask you
to keep them back until we get your sailors to police the streets and
protect property."

Clay glanced over his shoulder at the engineers and the Irish workmen
standing in solemn array behind him.  "Oh, you can hardly call this a
mob," he said.  "They look a little rough and ready, but I will answer
for them.  The two other columns that are coming up the streets
parallel to this are Government troops and properly engaged in driving
a usurper out of the Government building.  The best thing you can do is
to get down to the wharf and send the marines and blue-jackets where
you think they will do the most good.  I can't wait for them.  And they
can't come too soon."

The grounds of the Palace occupied two entire blocks; the Botanical
Gardens were in the rear, and in front a series of low terraces ran
down from its veranda to the high iron fence which separated the
grounds from the chief thoroughfare of the city.

Clay sent word to the left and right wing of his little army to make a
detour one street distant from the Palace grounds and form in the
street in the rear of the Botanical Gardens.  When they heard the
firing of his men from the front they were to force their way through
the gates at the back and attack the Palace in the rear.

"Mendoza has the place completely barricaded," Weimer warned him, "and
he has three field pieces covering each of these streets.  You and your
men are directly in line of one of them now.  He is only waiting for
you to get a little nearer before he lets loose."

From where he sat Clay could count the bars of the iron fence in front
of the grounds.  But the boards that backed them prevented his forming
any idea of the strength or the distribution of Mendoza's forces.  He
drew his staff of amateur officers to one side and explained the
situation to them.

"The Theatre National and the Club Union," he said, "face the Palace
from the opposite corners of this street.  You must get into them and
barricade the windows and throw up some sort of shelter for yourselves
along the edge of the roofs and drive the men behind that fence back to
the Palace.  Clear them away from the cannon first, and keep them away
from it.  I will be waiting in the street below.  When you have driven
them back, we will charge the gates and have it out with them in the
gardens.  The Third and Fourth regiments ought to take them in the rear
about the same time.  You will continue to pick them off from the roof."

The two supporting columns had already started on their roundabout way
to the rear of the Palace.  Clay gathered up his reins, and telling his
men to keep close to the walls, started forward, his soldiers following
on the sidewalks and leaving the middle of the street clear.  As they
reached a point a hundred yards below the Palace, a part of the wooden
shield behind the fence was thrown down, there was a puff of white
smoke and a report, and a cannon-ball struck the roof of a house which
they were passing and sent the tiles clattering about their heads.  But
the men in the lead had already reached the stage-door of the theatre
and were opposite one of the doors to the club.  They drove these in
with the butts of their rifles, and raced up the stairs of each of the
deserted buildings until they reached the roof.  Langham was swept by a
weight of men across a stage, and jumped among the music racks in the
orchestra.  He caught a glimpse of the early morning sun shining on the
tawdry hangings of the boxes and the exaggerated perspective of the
scenery.  He ran through corridors between two great statues of Comedy
and Tragedy, and up a marble stair case to a lobby in which he saw the
white faces about him multiplied in long mirrors, and so out to an iron
balcony from which he looked down, panting and breathless, upon the
Palace Gardens, swarming with soldiers and white with smoke.  Men
poured through the windows of the club opposite, dragging sofas and
chairs out to the balcony and upon the flat roof.  The men near him
were tearing down the yellow silk curtains in the lobby and draping
them along the railing of the balcony to better conceal their movements
from the enemy below.  Bullets spattered the stucco about their heads,
and panes of glass broke suddenly and fell in glittering particles upon
their shoulders.  The firing had already begun from the roofs near
them.  Beyond the club and the theatre and far along the street on each
side of the Palace the merchants were slamming the iron shutters of
their shops, and men and women were running for refuge up the high
steps of the church of Santa Maria. Others were gathered in black
masses on the balconies and roofs of the more distant houses, where
they stood outlined against the soft blue sky in gigantic silhouette.
Their shouts of encouragement and anger carried clearly in the morning
air, and spurred on the gladiators below to greater effort.  In the
Palace Gardens a line of Mendoza's men fought from behind the first
barricade, while others dragged tables and bedding and chairs across
the green terraces and tumbled them down to those below, who seized
them and formed them into a second line of defence.

Two of the assistant engineers were kneeling at Langham's feet with the
barrels of their rifles resting on the railing of the balcony.  Their
eyes had been trained for years to judge distances and to measure
space, and they glanced along the sights of their rifles as though they
were looking through the lens of a transit, and at each report their
faces grew more earnest and their lips pressed tighter together.  One
of them lowered his gun to light a cigarette, and Langham handed him
his match-box, with a certain feeling of repugnance.

"Better get under cover, Mr. Langham," the man said, kindly. "There's
no use our keeping your mines for you if you're not alive to enjoy
them.  Take a shot at that crew around the gun."

"I don't like this long range business," Langham answered.  "I am going
down to join Clay.  I don't like the idea of hitting a man when he
isn't looking at you."

The engineer gave an incredulous laugh.

"If he isn't looking at you, he's aiming at the man next to you. 'Live
and let Live' doesn't apply at present."

As Langham reached Clay's side triumphant shouts arose from the
roof-tops, and the men posted there stood up and showed themselves
above the barricades and called to Clay that the cannon were deserted.

Kirkland had come prepared for the barricade, and, running across the
street, fastened a dynamite cartridge to each gate post and lit the
fuses.  The soldiers scattered before him as he came leaping back, and
in an instant later there was a racking roar, and the gates were
pitched out of their sockets and thrown forward, and those in the
street swept across them and surrounded the cannon.

Langham caught it by the throat as though it were human, and did not
feel the hot metal burning the palms of his hands as he choked it and
pointed its muzzle toward the Palace, while the others dragged at the
spokes of the wheel.  It was fighting at close range now, close enough
to suit even Langham.  He found himself in the front rank of it without
knowing exactly how he got there.  Every man on both sides was playing
his own hand, and seemed to know exactly what to do.  He felt neglected
and very much alone, and was somewhat anxious lest his valor might be
wasted through his not knowing how to put it to account.  He saw the
enemy in changing groups of scowling men, who seemed to eye him for an
instant down the length of a gun-barrel and then disappear behind a
puff of smoke.  He kept thinking that war made men take strange
liberties with their fellow-men, and it struck him as being most absurd
that strangers should stand up and try to kill one another, men who had
so little in common that they did not even know one another's names.
The soldiers who were fighting on his own side were equally unknown to
him, and he looked in vain for Clay.  He saw MacWilliams for a moment
through the smoke, jabbing at a jammed cartridge with his pen-knife,
and hacking the lead away to make it slip.  He was remonstrating with
the gun and swearing at it exactly as though it were human, and as
Langham ran toward him he threw it away and caught up another from the
ground.  Kneeling beside the wounded man who had dropped it and picking
the cartridges from his belt, he assured him cheerfully that he was not
so badly hurt as he thought.

"You all right?" Langham asked.

"I'm all right.  I'm trying to get a little laddie hiding behind that
blue silk sofa over there.  He's taken an unnatural dislike to me, and
he's nearly got me three times.  I'm knocking horse-hair out of his
rampart, though."

The men of Stuart's body-guard were fighting outside of the breastworks
and mattresses.  They were using their swords as though they were
machetes, and the Irishmen were swinging their guns around their
shoulders like sledge-hammers, and beating their foes over the head and
breast.  The guns at his own side sounded close at Langham's ear, and
deafened him, and those of the enemy exploded so near to his face that
he was kept continually winking and dodging, as though he were being
taken by a flashlight photograph.  When he fired he aimed where the
mass was thickest, so that he might not see what his bullet did, but he
remembered afterward that he always reloaded with the most anxious
swiftness in order that he might not be killed before he had had
another shot, and that the idea of being killed was of no concern to
him except on that account.  Then the scene before him changed, and
apparently hundreds of Mendoza's soldiers poured out from the Palace
and swept down upon him, cheering as they came, and he felt himself
falling back naturally and as a matter of course, as he would have
stepped out of the way of a locomotive, or a runaway horse, or any
other unreasoning thing.  His shoulders pushed against a mass of
shouting, sweating men, who in turn pressed back upon others, until the
mass reached the iron fence and could move no farther.  He heard Clay's
voice shouting to them, and saw him run forward, shooting rapidly as he
ran, and he followed him, even though his reason told him it was a
useless thing to do, and then there came a great shout from the rear of
the Palace, and more soldiers, dressed exactly like the others, rushed
through the great doors and swarmed around the two wings of the
building, and he recognized them as Rojas's men and knew that the fight
was over.

He saw a tall man with a negro's face spring out of the first mass of
soldiers and shout to them to follow him.  Clay gave a yell of welcome
and ran at him, calling upon him in Spanish to surrender.  The negro
stopped and stood at bay, glaring at Clay and at the circle of soldiers
closing in around him.  He raised his revolver and pointed it steadily.
It was as though the man knew he had only a moment to live, and meant
to do that one thing well in the short time left him.

Clay sprang to one side and ran toward him, dodging to the right and
left, but Mendoza followed his movements carefully with his revolver.

It lasted but an instant.  Then the Spaniard threw his arm suddenly
across his face, drove the heel of his boot into the turf, and spinning
about on it fell forward.

"If he was shot where his sash crosses his heart, I know the man who
did it," Langham heard a voice say at his elbow, and turning saw
MacWilliams wetting his fingers at his lips and touching them gingerly
to the heated barrel of his Winchester.

The death of Mendoza left his followers without a leader and without a
cause.  They threw their muskets on the ground and held their hands
above their heads, shrieking for mercy.  Clay and his officers answered
them instantly by running from one group to another, knocking up the
barrels of the rifles and calling hoarsely to the men on the roofs to
cease firing, and as they were obeyed the noise of the last few random
shots was drowned in tumultuous cheering and shouts of exultation,
that, starting in the gardens, were caught up by those in the streets
and passed on quickly as a line of flame along the swaying housetops.

The native officers sprang upon Clay and embraced him after their
fashion, hailing him as the Liberator of Olancho, as the Preserver of
the Constitution, and their brother patriot.  Then one of them climbed
to the top of a gilt and marble table and proclaimed him military
President.

"You'll proclaim yourself an idiot, if you don't get down from there,"
Clay said, laughing.  "I thank you for permitting me to serve with you,
gentlemen.  I shall have great pleasure in telling our President how
well you acquitted yourself in this row--battle, I mean.  And now I
would suggest that you store the prisoners' weapons in the Palace and
put a guard over them, and then conduct the men themselves to the
military prison, where you can release General Rojas and escort him
back to the city in a triumphal procession.  You'd like that, wouldn't
you?"

But the natives protested that that honor was for him alone. Clay
declined it, pleading that he must look after his wounded.

"I can hardly believe there are any dead," he said to Kirkland.

"For, if it takes two thousand bullets to kill a man in European
warfare, it must require about two hundred thousand to kill a man in
South America."

He told Kirkland to march his men back to the mines and to see that
there were no stragglers.  "If they want to celebrate, let them
celebrate when they get to the mines, but not here.  They have made a
good record to-day and I won't have it spoiled by rioting.  They shall
have their reward later.  Between Rojas and Mr. Langham they should all
be rich men."

The cheering from the housetops since the firing ceased had changed
suddenly into hand-clappings, and the cries, though still
undistinguishable, were of a different sound.  Clay saw that the
Americans on the balconies of the club and of the theatre had thrown
themselves far over the railings and were all looking in the same
direction and waving their hats and cheering loudly, and he heard above
the shouts of the people the regular tramp of men's feet marching in
step, and the rattle of a machine gun as it bumped and shook over the
rough stones.  He gave a shout of pleasure, and Kirkland and the two
boys ran with him up the slope, crowding each other to get a better
view.  The mob parted at the Palace gates, and they saw two lines of
blue-jackets, spread out like the sticks of a fan, dragging the gun
between them, the middies in their tight-buttoned tunics and gaiters,
and behind them more blue-jackets with bare, bronzed throats, and with
the swagger and roll of the sea in their legs and shoulders.  An
American flag floated above the white helmets of the marines.  Its
presence and the sense of pride which the sight of these men from home
awoke in them made the fight just over seem mean and petty, and they
took off their hats and cheered with the others.

A first lieutenant, who felt his importance and also a sense of
disappointment at having arrived too late to see the fighting, left his
men at the gate of the Palace, and advanced up the terrace, stopping to
ask for information as he came.  Each group to which he addressed
himself pointed to Clay.  The sight of his own flag had reminded Clay
that the banner of Mendoza still hung from the mast beside which he was
standing, and as the officer approached he was busily engaged in
untwisting its halyards and pulling it down.

The lieutenant saluted him doubtfully.

"Can you tell me who is in command here?" he asked.  He spoke somewhat
sharply, for Clay was not a military looking personage, covered as he
was with dust and perspiration, and with his sombrero on the back of
his head.

"Our Consul here told us at the landing-place," continued the
lieutenant in an aggrieved tone, "that a General Mendoza was in power,
and that I had better report to him, and then ten minutes later I hear
that he is dead and that a General Rojas is President, but that a man
named Clay has made himself Dictator. My instructions are to recognize
no belligerents, but to report to the Government party.  Now, who is
the Government party?"

Clay brought the red-barred flag down with a jerk, and ripped it free
from the halyards.  Kirkland and the two boys were watching him with
amused smiles.

"I appreciate your difficulty," he said.  "President Alvarez is dead,
and General Mendoza, who tried to make himself Dictator, is also dead,
and the real President, General Rojas, is still in jail.  So at present
I suppose that I represent the Government party, at least I am the man
named Clay.  It hadn't occurred to me before, but, until Rojas is free,
I guess I am the Dictator of Olancho.  Is Madame Alvarez on board your
ship?"

"Yes, she is with us," the officer replied, in some confusion. "Excuse
me--are you the three gentlemen who took her to the yacht?  I am afraid
I spoke rather hastily just now, but you are not in uniform, and the
Government seems to change so quickly down here that a stranger finds
it hard to keep up with it."

Six of the native officers had approached as the lieutenant was
speaking and saluted Clay gravely.  "We have followed your
instructions," one of them said, "and the regiments are ready to march
with the prisoners.  Have you any further orders for us--can we deliver
any messages to General Rojas?"

"Present my congratulations to General Rojas, and best wishes," said
Clay.  "And tell him for me, that it would please me greatly if he
would liberate an American citizen named Burke, who is at present in
the cuartel.  And that I wish him to promote all of you gentlemen one
grade and give each of you the Star of Olancho.  Tell him that in my
opinion you have deserved even higher reward and honor at his hands."

The boy-lieutenants broke out into a chorus of delighted thanks. They
assured Clay that he was most gracious; that he overwhelmed them, and
that it was honor enough for them that they had served under him.  But
Clay laughed, and drove them off with a paternal wave of the hand.

The officer from the man-of-war listened with an uncomfortable sense of
having blundered in his manner toward this powder-splashed young man
who set American citizens at liberty, and created captains by the
half-dozen at a time.

"Are you from the States?" he asked as they moved toward the
man-of-war's men.

"I am, thank God.  Why not?"

"I thought you were, but you saluted like an Englishman."

"I was an officer in the English army once in the Soudan, when they
were short of officers."  Clay shook his head and looked wistfully at
the ranks of the blue-jackets drawn up on either side of them.  The
horses had been brought out and Langham and MacWilliams were waiting
for him to mount.  "I have worn several uniforms since I was a boy,"
said Clay.  "But never that of my own country."

The people were cheering him from every part of the square. Women waved
their hands from balconies and housetops, and men climbed to awnings
and lampposts and shouted his name.  The officers and men of the
landing party took note of him and of this reception out of the corner
of their eyes, and wondered.

"And what had I better do?" asked the commanding officer.

"Oh, I would police the Palace grounds, if I were you, and picket that
street at the right, where there are so many wine shops, and preserve
order generally until Rojas gets here. He won't be more than an hour,
now.  We shall be coming over to pay our respects to your captain
to-morrow.  Glad to have met you."

"Well, I'm glad to have met you," answered the officer, heartily.
"Hold on a minute.  Even if you haven't worn our uniform, you're as
good, and better, than some I've seen that have, and you're a sort of a
commander-in-chief, anyway, and I'm damned if I don't give you a sort
of salute."

Clay laughed like a boy as he swung himself into the saddle.  The
officer stepped back and gave the command; the middies raised their
swords and Clay passed between massed rows of his countrymen with their
muskets held rigidly toward him.  The housetops rocked again at the
sight, and as he rode out into the brilliant sunshine, his eyes were
wet and winking.

The two boys had drawn up at his side, but MacWilliams had turned in
the saddle and was still looking toward the Palace, with his hand
resting on the hindquarters of his pony.

"Look back, Clay," he said.  "Take a last look at it, you'll never see
it after to-day.  Turn again, turn again, Dictator of Olancho."

The men laughed and drew rein as he bade them, and looked back up the
narrow street.  They saw the green and white flag of Olancho creeping
to the top of the mast before the Palace, the blue-jackets driving back
the crowd, the gashes in the walls of the houses, where Mendoza's
cannonballs had dug their way through the stucco, and the silk
curtains, riddled with bullets, flapping from the balconies of the
opera-house.

"You had it all your own way an hour ago," MacWilliams said, mockingly.
"You could have sent Rojas into exile, and made us all Cabinet
Ministers--and you gave it up for a girl.  Now, you're Dictator of
Olancho.  What will you be to-morrow?  To-morrow you will be Andrew
Langham's son-in-law--Benedict, the married man.  Andrew Langham's
son-in-law cannot ask his wife to live in such a hole as this,
so--Goodbye, Mr. Clay.  We have been long together."

Clay and Langham looked curiously at the boy to see if he were in
earnest, but MacWilliams would not meet their eyes.

"There were three of us," he said, "and one got shot, and one got
married, and the third--?  You will grow fat, Clay, and live on Fifth
Avenue and wear a high silk hat, and some day when you're sitting in
your club you'll read a paragraph in a newspaper with a queer Spanish
date-line to it, and this will all come back to you,--this heat, and
the palms, and the fever, and the days when you lived on plantains and
we watched our trestles grow out across the canons, and you'll be
willing to give your hand to sleep in a hammock again, and to feel the
sweat running down your back, and you'll want to chuck your gun up
against your chin and shoot into a line of men, and the policemen won't
let you, and your wife won't let you.  That's what you're giving up.
There it is.  Take a good look at it.  You'll never see it again."



XV

The steamer "Santiago," carrying "passengers, bullion, and coffee," was
headed to pass Porto Rico by midnight, when she would be free of land
until she anchored at the quarantine station of the green hills of
Staten Island.  She had not yet shaken off the contamination of the
earth; a soft inland breeze still tantalized her with odors of tree and
soil, the smell of the fresh coat of paint that had followed her
coaling rose from her sides, and the odor of spilt coffee-grains that
hung around the hatches had yet to be blown away by a jealous ocean
breeze, or washed by a welcoming cross sea.

The captain stopped at the open entrance of the Social Hall. "If any of
you ladies want to take your last look at Olancho you've got to come
now," he said.  "We'll lose the Valencia light in the next quarter
hour."

Miss Langham and King looked up from their novels and smiled, and Miss
Langham shook her head.  "I've taken three final farewells of Olancho
already," she said: "before we went down to dinner, and when the sun
set, and when the moon rose.  I have no more sentiment left to draw on.
Do you want to go?" she asked.

"I'm very comfortable, thank you," King said, and returned to the
consideration of his novel.

But Clay and Hope arose at the captain's suggestion with suspicious
alacrity, and stepped out upon the empty deck, and into the
encompassing darkness, with a little sigh of relief.

Alice Langham looked after them somewhat wistfully and bit the edges of
her book.  She sat for some time with her brows knitted, glancing
occasionally and critically toward King and up with unseeing eyes at
the swinging lamps of the saloon.  He caught her looking at him once
when he raised his eyes as he turned a page, and smiled back at her,
and she nodded pleasantly and bent her head over her reading.  She
assured herself that after all King understood her and she him, and
that if they never rose to certain heights, they never sank below a
high level of mutual esteem, and that perhaps was the best in the end.

King had placed his yacht at the disposal of Madame Alvarez, and she
had sailed to Colon, where she could change to the steamers for Lisbon,
while he accompanied the Langhams and the wedding party to New York.

Clay recognized that the time had now arrived in his life when he could
graduate from the position of manager-director and become the
engineering expert, and that his services in Olancho were no longer
needed.

With Rojas in power Mr. Langham had nothing further to fear from the
Government, and with Kirkland in charge and young Langham returning
after a few months' absence to resume his work, he felt himself free to
enjoy his holiday.

They had taken the first steamer out, and the combined efforts of all
had been necessary to prevail upon MacWilliams to accompany them; and
even now the fact that he was to act as Clay's best man and, as Langham
assured him cheerfully, was to wear a frock coat and see his name in
all the papers, brought on such sudden panics of fear that the
fast-fading coast line filled his soul with regret, and a wilful desire
to jump overboard and swim back.

Clay and Hope stopped at the door of the chief engineer's cabin and
said they had come to pay him a visit.  The chief had but just come
from the depths where the contamination of the earth was most evident
in the condition of his stokers; but his chin was now cleanly shaven,
and his pipe was drawing as well as his engine fires, and he had
wrapped himself in an old P. & O. white duck jacket to show what he had
been before he sank to the level of a coasting steamer.  They admired
the clerk-like neatness of the report he had just finished, and in
return he promised them the fastest run on record, and showed them the
portrait of his wife, and of their tiny cottage on the Isle of Wight,
and his jade idols from Corea, and carved cocoanut gourds from Brazil,
and a picture from the "Graphic" of Lord Salisbury, tacked to the
partition and looking delightedly down between two highly colored
lithographs of Miss Ellen Terry and the Princess May.

Then they called upon the captain, and Clay asked him why captains
always hung so much lace about their beds when they invariably slept on
a red velvet sofa with their boots on, and the captain ordered his
Chinese steward to mix them a queer drink and offered them the choice
of a six months' accumulation of paper novels, and free admittance to
his bridge at all hours. And then they passed on to the door of the
smoking-room and beckoned MacWilliams to come out and join them.  His
manner as he did so bristled with importance, and he drew them eagerly
to the rail.

"I've just been having a chat with Captain Burke," he said, in an
undertone.  "He's been telling Langham and me about a new game that's
better than running railroads.  He says there's a country called
Macedonia that's got a native prince who wants to be free from Turkey,
and the Turks won't let him, and Burke says if we'll each put up a
thousand dollars, he'll guarantee to get the prince free in six months.
He's made an estimate of the cost and submitted it to the Russian
Embassy at Washington, and he says they will help him secretly, and he
knows a man who has just patented a new rifle, and who will supply him
with a thousand of them for the sake of the advertisement.  He says
it's a mountainous country, and all you have to do is to stand on the
passes and roll rocks down on the Turks as they come in.  It sounds
easy, doesn't it?"

"Then you're thinking of turning professional filibuster yourself?"
said Clay.

"Well, I don't know.  It sounds more interesting than engineering.
Burke says I beat him on his last fight, and he'd like to have me with
him in the next one--sort of young-blood-in-the-firm idea--and he
calculates that we can go about setting people free and upsetting
governments for some time to come.  He says there is always something
to fight about if you look for it. And I must say the condition of
those poor Macedonians does appeal to me.  Think of them all alone down
there bullied by that Sultan of Turkey, and wanting to be free and
independent.  That's not right.  You, as an American citizen, ought to
be the last person in the world to throw cold water on an undertaking
like that.  In the name of Liberty now?"

"I don't object; set them free, of course," laughed Clay. "But how long
have you entertained this feeling for the enslaved Macedonians, Mac?"

"Well, I never heard of them until a quarter of an hour ago, but they
oughtn't to suffer through my ignorance."

"Certainly not.  Let me know when you're going to do it, and Hope and I
will run over and look on.  I should like to see you and Burke and the
Prince of Macedonia rolling rocks down on the Turkish Empire."

Hope and Clay passed on up the deck laughing, and MacWilliams looked
after them with a fond and paternal smile.  The lamp in the wheelhouse
threw a broad belt of light across the forward deck as they passed
through it into the darkness of the bow, where the lonely lookout
turned and stared at them suspiciously, and then resumed his stern
watch over the great waters.

They leaned upon the rail and breathed the soft air which the rush of
the steamer threw in their faces, and studied in silence the stars that
lay so low upon the horizon line that they looked like the harbor
lights of a great city.

"Do you see that long line of lamps off our port bow?" asked Clay.

Hope nodded.

"Those are the electric lights along the ocean drive at Long Branch and
up the Rumson Road, and those two stars a little higher up are fixed to
the mast-heads of the Scotland Lightship. And that mass of light that
you think is the Milky Way, is the glare of the New York street lamps
thrown up against the sky."

"Are we so near as that?" said Hope, smiling.  "And what lies over
there?" she asked, pointing to the east.

"Over there is the coast of Africa.  Don't you see the lighthouse on
Cape Bon?  If it wasn't for Gibraltar being in the way, I could show
you the harbor lights of Bizerta, and the terraces of Algiers shining
like a caf; chantant in the night."

"Algiers," sighed Hope, "where you were a soldier of Africa, and rode
across the deserts.  Will you take me there?"

"There, of course, but to Gibraltar first, where we will drive along
the Alameda by moonlight.  I drove there once coming home from a mess
dinner with the Colonel.  The drive lies between broad white
balustrades, and the moon shone down on us between the leaves of the
Spanish bayonet.  It was like an Italian garden.  But he did not see
it, and he would talk to me about the Watkins range finder on the lower
ramparts, and he puffed on a huge cigar.  I tried to imagine I was
there on my honeymoon, but the end of his cigar would light up and I
would see his white mustache and the glow on his red jacket, so I vowed
I would go over that drive again with the proper person.  And we won't
talk of range finders, will we?

"There to the North is Paris; your Paris, and my Paris, with London
only eight hours away.  If you look very closely, you can see the
thousands of hansom cab lamps flashing across the asphalt, and the open
theatres, and the fairy lamps in the gardens back of the houses in
Mayfair, where they are giving dances in your honor, in honor of the
beautiful American bride, whom every one wants to meet.  And you will
wear the finest tiara we can get on Bond Street, but no one will look
at it; they will only look at you.  And I will feel very miserable and
tease you to come home."

Hope put her hand in his, and he held her finger-tips to his lips for
an instant and closed his other hand upon hers.

"And after that?" asked Hope.

"After that we will go to work again, and take long journeys to Mexico
and Peru or wherever they want me, and I will sit in judgment on the
work other chaps have done.  And when we get back to our car at night,
or to the section house, for it will be very rough sometimes,"--Hope
pressed his hand gently in answer,--"I will tell you privately how very
differently your husband would have done it, and you, knowing all about
it, will say that had it been left to me, I would certainly have
accomplished it in a vastly superior manner."

"Well, so you would," said Hope, calmly.

"That's what I said you'd say," laughed Clay.  "Dearest," he begged,
"promise me something.  Promise me that you are going to be very happy."

Hope raised her eyes and looked up at him in silence, and had the man
in the wheelhouse been watching the stars, as he should have been, no
one but the two foolish young people on the bow of the boat would have
known her answer.

The ship's bell sounded eight times, and Hope moved slightly.

"So late as that," she sighed.  "Come.  We must be going back."

A great wave struck the ship's side a friendly slap, and the wind
caught up the spray and tossed it in their eyes, and blew a strand of
her hair loose so that it fell across Clay's face, and they laughed
happily together as she drew it back and he took her hand again to
steady her progress across the slanting deck.

As they passed hand in hand out of the shadow into the light from the
wheelhouse, the lookout in the bow counted the strokes of the bell to
himself, and then turned and shouted back his measured cry to the
bridge above them.  His voice seemed to be a part of the murmuring sea
and the welcoming winds.
"Listen," said Clay.
"Eight bells," the voice sang from the darkness.  "The for'ard light's
shining bright--and all's well."
***
End of Project Gutenberg's Soldiers of Fortune, by Richard Harding Davis.