A Republic Without a President and Other Stories Part 25

I think he has suffered enough."

The President smiled benignly.

"Mr. Secretary," he said, turning to the head of the navy, "shall we accept the yacht? I think the Treasury will find room for the gold. Can the navy find room for Colonel Odminton's atonement?"

The eyes of the Secretary of the Navy glistened.

"With that vessel fixed into a torpedo boat, we can whip the world! I shall put the youngster as middy aboard of her; he understands her better than any one else. With your permission, Mr. President, the boy is enrolled, and his commission will be made out at once."

The Secretary bowed deferentially.

"Do you wish to enter the United States navy?" The great head of the nation bent to the lad as he would have to his own son.

"Oh, sir! But my father," cried Rupert, broken by pride and shame and filial love.

"You will bear the pardon to-morrow," said the President kindly.

"I would rather go now. I think he needs it," whispered Rupert timidly.

Then the boy, keyed so high, fell and was borne away.

Who does not love the Everglades when he knows them? The adorer of the warm woods had rather put his arm about a palmetto, and his cheek against its rough surface, than be softly met by the tenderest of women.

Oh, the witchery of the moss-waving Everglades!

"Father! Father!"

A longing treble cut the languorous air.

The hidden hut behind the hidden bay was empty.

The boy and the officer searched hastily and fearfully.

"He is in the woods. Oh, you know--come!"

Behind the terror-stricken son the officer plunged into the thicket.

Gloomy shades surrounded him. Warm breaths and new odors caressed him.

Almost lifted out of the body by these new sensations, he followed with speeding feet.

"Help! Quick!" The shrill voice recalled him. Before the officer knew it, he was upon a figure kneeling beside a body under a great tree.

"Father! _Father!_ He has forgiven you. It is all right!"

But the pleading voice of the lad faltered into an awful silence. The soldier put his hand upon the penitent's head. It was warm. The dead man's arms were outstretched upon the great tree. His body was upon the huge roots. His lips were as if he had but just kissed the bark.

Did his sin at the last restrain him, that he dared not to touch the soil of America, and fondle it as his own?

He had died unpardoned: it was to be, that he should be tortured to the end. But as to when he died, they could not tell--for his strong limbs were set; the swarming Southern ants had not desecrated him, and the moaning tree seemed to be explaining that she had kept him warm upon her lap.

He was buried beneath the sod to which, with the home-sickness of the true Southerner, he had crawled back to die. They laid the pardon in his folded hands.

The officer walked out of the Everglades, with bared head. He could not understand his own emotion. But the weeping lad followed slowly. He heard a cadence above the grave. Rupert understood it. It was the dirge of the Live Oak.

THE END.