Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison Part 11

I went out once or twice to the bank and police headquarters, hanging about for a few minutes to see if there was anything suspicious, but there was nothing, and each time I hastened back to Mac.

Our presence cheered him up, and he could not brook our absence. At last the long day drew to an end and the shadows, to our intense relief, began to darken in our little room, where we were holding our watch. The tropic night closes quickly in. Soon the city was shrouded in darkness, and we sallied out to the beach at the head of the bay to find relief in movement. The time pa.s.sed quicker then, and at last we sat down on some wreckage there and watched the tropic night as it revealed its wealth of stars, and sitting there we began to philosophize, moralizing upon the destiny of man and his relations to things seen and unseen, upon spiritual force; most of all upon divine justice, which in the end evens up all things. But like so many other philosophers who write the style of the G.o.ds and make a pish at fortune, we failed to make a personal application of our philosophy.

Near by there was a boat stand from which we had resolved to embark for the steamer about two miles away. The night was lovely as a dream, and we knew that midnight would find a large number of pa.s.sengers on deck, many of whom would pa.s.s the night there. Forward was all the bustle and confusion inseparable from receiving and stowing cargo.

At 9 o'clock I left them to go and get the remainder of the gold not yet on board--some four thousand pounds. The street cars pa.s.sed near by, and within half an hour I returned with the gold in a bag swung from my shoulder by a heavy strap. I also had with me a woman's wrap and a silk shawl. We sat for an hour longer, and then securing a boat with two negro rowers, we pulled for the ship. Three or four small boats were fastened to the companion ladder, and our arrival attracted no attention. Two officials in uniform--probably custom officers--stood at the companion way. It was an anxious moment, but we slipped through the dimly lighted cabins and pa.s.sages, and were soon safely in the stateroom. Bidding both good-bye, and promising to be on board again at 8 in the morning, I went ash.o.r.e and straight to bed, and soon was dreaming of starlit seas, of tropic woods and Summer bowers, white and sweet with May blossoms. My health then, as now, was perfect, and I awoke fresh and hopeful. After breakfasting on a dish of prawns and another of soft-sh.e.l.led crabs, I was off across the bay. Soon after 8 I knocked softly at the stateroom door, was admitted and presented the lunch I had brought. They gave me a warm greeting, but neither had slept. The room had been hot and stuffy, and the noise of stowing cargo had helped to banish sleep. Both were unnerved somewhat, but I had just come off sh.o.r.e confident and cheerful, and my confidence and spirits proved infectious.

I knew by sight the chief of police and those just under him. I also knew Braga, the bank manager, by sight. They, of course, did not know me, and I could, unsuspected, be a looker-on in Vienna. Soon the pa.s.sengers, their friends and many idle visitors came off in boatloads, while I, of course, scrutinized every boatload as it came up the side of the ship.

At 9.30 I saw a boat coming, which, when half a mile away, I recognized as containing the chief of police and several of his subordinates; ten minutes after Braga and one of the bank officials came, the only pa.s.sengers in their boat, and at once joined the police on the after deck and stood with them waiting and watching the boats as they arrived.

In the mean time babel reigned around the ship. About three score boats surrounded her, the owners selling to the pa.s.sengers everything from oranges to monkeys, snakes and parrots.

I determined to conceal from George and Mac that Braga and the police were on the ship, and about every twenty minutes I would slip down and report "All's well;" but soon after 10 o'clock the enemy were joined by the ticket agent from sh.o.r.e, and I could see they were contemplating some movement. Slipping down to the cabin, I said: "Boys, everything is all right; keep perfectly cool. Braga and the police are pulling to the ship and may search it; if so, it will take half an hour to get here. I will keep everything in my eye and give you ample notice." I then returned on deck and stood among the officials. They conversed in Portuguese, which was Greek to me; soon the agent dived below and reappeared with the manifest of the pa.s.sengers, and an enormous heap of pa.s.sports. After some conversation they sent the pa.s.sports back; then, headed by the agent and purser, manifest in hand, they began to verify the list and scrutinize the pa.s.sengers in the staterooms. Once more I hurried below and reported.

Mac was naturally very dignified, but divesting himself of coat, vest and dignity at the same time, he planted himself under the berth. Very close and very hot quarters he found it, and we put the bags of oranges in front, disposing of them so as to make it appear as if they filled the whole s.p.a.ce, when in reality they were a mere screen.

Then we opened the door to the fullest extent. We had taken off our coats--it being frightfully hot--and with a bottle of claret and a bowl of ice standing on the little washstand and two gla.s.ses all in full view, we awaited the arrival of our friends, the enemy.

Our door was flat against the part.i.tion, giving a full sweep of the room to the eye of the pa.s.serby, and George and I waited confidently for the inspection we knew was inevitable. I sat on the foot of the lower berth, smoking and swinging my feet. George sat on a folding camp-stool, with his face toward the door, but not obstructing the view. Soon the procession arrived, with the ticket agent in front. When he saw George he at once recognized him as the Mr. Wilson who had bought the ticket, and he simply said: "How do you do, Mr. Wilson?" and pa.s.sed on without looking in the room. Braga and the police followed, casually glanced at us two, and were gone. I put on my coat and followed the procession, and at 11.30 they went up on the after deck, evidently satisfied that their man was not on the ship, and contented themselves with watching new arrivals. I flew down, gave them the good news that the search was over, and poor Mac, half-roasted, came from behind the bags of oranges.

Declaring he was roasted alive and dying of thirst, he finished the bottle of iced claret.

Ten minutes before 12 the bell was rung and all people for sh.o.r.e were warned to leave. Soon we heard the pleasant sound of the steam winch lifting the anchor, and at noon precisely, to our relief, the screw began to revolve at quarter speed, and the Ebro to respond by forging slowly ahead. All boats fell off but ours and the police boat. At last, after giving a good look up and down the bay, Braga and the police entered the boats, and, casting off, soon were left behind. Once more and for the last time I flew down to the cabin. They saw the good news in my face; then, shaking Mac's hand in hearty farewell, we ran to the upper deck, down the ladder into our boat, and a moment later the big ship, putting on full steam, left us astern, we ordering the boatman to pull hard after the ship. Mac soon appeared on the after deck, and waved his handkerchief to us in farewell. We gave him three cheers, and, excited and happy, with our long anxiety over, we returned to the sh.o.r.e.

With Mac sailing northward ho! with Wilson's pa.s.sport and ticket in his pocket, and all our money save two thousand pounds in his trunk, our buccaneering expedition on the Spanish Main was over and all but a failure when comparing the 10,000 we had captured with our magnificent expectations.

Here was a gigantic and well-conceived scheme which had almost collapsed through trifles, which, to an honest enterprise would have been light as air, but which to us and to our plans were of crushing force, built up, as all schemes of wrong doing are, on foundations of sand.

To conclude very briefly the narrative of this expedition, I will here add that the day after Mac's departure, altering his pa.s.sport to fit George's description, we sailed on the Chimborazo south to Montevideo.

Upon our arrival we, with all other pa.s.sengers for the town, were promptly put in quarantine for ten days in a vile little island called in irony the Isle of Flowers; but the mails were fumigated and sent through, as were two additional mails arriving from Europe and Rio. When our quarantine was over we were permitted to enter the city. We found that some advice or rumor had reached there, and we feared to venture our letters of credit for money. So, destroying all doc.u.ments save our pa.s.sports, we paid a visit to Buenos Ayres, and then we embarked on a French steamer for Ma.r.s.eilles, arriving there without any particular adventure, and the next day had a happy meeting with Mac in Paris.

CHAPTER XVIII.

LITTLE FISHES WRIGGLING THROUGH GREEN WAVES.

Once more together and our adventures since we separated related, the question arose: What next?

We determined to abandon our dangerous business, for we had capital sufficient to start in an honest career, and resolved to do so. For a long time our attention had been turned to Colorado, and we had frequently talked over a project of going to some growing city there, starting a bank and building a wheat elevator and stockyards. Fifty thousand dollars would start our bank, and $10,000, with some credit, the elevator and yards. This sum we had, with an additional $10,000 to pay our way until profit came in from our investments. Here was another great and honorable scheme--one easily carried out had we only gone on with it. What a success we might have made, particularly so when considered in the light of the development of Colorado since 1872 and our energy and knowledge of business.

In Paris we all stopped at the Hotel Meurice, Rue Rivoli, and spent much time sightseeing. We were particularly interested in viewing the battlefields around Paris--so interested, in fact, that we read up the whole history of the mighty struggle with Germany, which ended in throwing France into the dust. We, like most of the world here, got our ideas of the war and the battles from the current news of the day, as published in the newspapers, and we had a general idea that the Frenchmen had not made much of a fight. That conclusion could only be arrived at by a superficial knowledge such as had been ours.

Investigation upon the spot and a study of impartial authorities soon opened our eyes to the fact that France only succ.u.mbed after a mighty and most heroic struggle. The first few weeks of the war saw her entire regular army captive, and transported prisoners across the Rhine. That army had made a brave but unfortunate fight. Badly commanded, with the transport and subsistence utterly demoralized, they were no match for the mighty hosts that Germany poured across the Rhine. Perfectly equipped, matchless in discipline since the palmy days of Rome, commanded by the foremost military intellects of the age, they met the French, overmatching them at every point of contact; enveloping their columns with ma.s.ses of infantry, or sweeping them with murderous storms of shot and sh.e.l.l, or launching a magnificent cavalry at them, against which French valor--ill directed as it was--proved futile, and that splendid array of 480,000 men had to ground their arms, surrender their colors, and, to their own unspeakable shame and humiliation, become captive to their foes, leaving their beloved France defenseless. But the loss of their army, no more than their thronging foes, dismayed France.

The heart of the nation was stirred, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic, from the Channel to the blue Mediterranean, France rose as one man. They saw the entire military force of Germany encamped on their soil, and in their undisciplined valor, hurled themselves against it, and gave to their astounded foes an exhibition of t.i.tanic force and determined valor whose story, when known, will become the admiration of all generations of men.

It was against the decree of Heaven that France should win in the struggle, but she fell only to rise the higher for the fall. The year 1871 saw France in the dust, with the armies of her foe encamped over more than half her soil, with robber-like demands for huge sums of gold ere the modern Goths would march home again. To-day she stands the marvel of the world. Twice the France of 1870, with the busy hum of industry through all her borders, an overflowing treasury, a contented people and an army and many which are the awe of Europe. To-day the enemy that flung her to earth twenty-four years ago, seeks safety from her attack in defensive alliances with all the nations of the Continent.

We resolved to see Europe before returning to America, so the next few weeks were spent in a pleasure jaunt.

In the course of it we visited Vienna, remaining there some time and bringing away many and pleasant memories of that music-loving old city on the Danube. We finally all returned to Wiesbaden together and visited the Casino, watching the play and players with an interest that never flagged. Here we saw such vast sums of money ever changing hands that we almost insensibly began to think the thousands we had were as nothing, and when divided up, the sum coming to each seemed almost beggarly.

Gradually we began to speculate as to the desirability of doubling our capital once or twice at least, before we threw up our hands and gave up the game. I need hardly tell the reader that what at first was a philosophical speculation, an airy theory of a possibility, rapidly crystallized into steadfast purpose and determinate resolve, and soon our brains were working, and readily brought forth a new scheme. For was not there the Bank of England, with uncounted millions in her vaults, and was not I, as Frederick Albert Warren, a customer of the bank, and as such were not the vaults of the bank at our disposition?

We rated our powers high and fondly thought that, speaking in a general way, honesty was the best policy, yet in our case there was an exception to the rule. We felt and acknowledged we were doing wrong, but since the wrong (apparently) profited us, we would do wrong that good might come thereby.

Finally we resolved to go on with our postponed a.s.sault upon the money bags of the Bank of England, at the same time evolving a plan that seemed to promise unbounded wealth and complete immunity for us all.

So we packed our baggage, bade farewell to Wiesbaden, and one early June morning in 1872 saw us all once more in smoky London, resolved to rouse that Old Lady called the Bank of England from her century-long slumber spent in dreaming of her impregnability.

In Frankfort there are several firms, Fischer by name, all bankers, and as soon as we determined to return to London, Mac wrote a letter in French to the Bank of England and signed it H. V. Fischer, which, of course, would leave the manager to suppose his correspondent was one of the Fischer bankers. In the letter he said his distinguished customer, Mr. F. A. Warren, had written him from St Petersburg, requesting him to transfer to his account in the Bank of England the small balance remaining to his credit on his (Fischer's) books, therefore he had the honor to inclose bills on London for 13,500, payable to the order of the manager, said sum to be placed to the credit of Mr. F. A. Warren.

I took this letter to Frankfort, and, having purchased bills of exchange on London to the amount named, inclosed them and mailed the letter. A day or so after I received a letter at Frankfort from the manager of the bank, acknowledging the receipts of the drafts, and announcing that the proceeds of the same had duly been placed to the credit of F. A. Warren.

So I had over $67,000 to my credit, and had now been a depositor for five months.

George took up his residence at a private house in the west end of London, while Mac and I went to the Grosvenor Hotel.

This hotel was one of the very few then in England which were allowed by the aristocrats of London society to be what they called highly respectable, that is, exclusive, and, therefore, a fit dwelling place for their dainty selves. In Dublin there is one of these highly respectable hostels, the Gresham, on Sackville street. This hotel was a type of all of the sort I mention. I once stopped at the Gresham for a week and became one of the "n.o.bility and gentry" that frequent these hotels. The waiters all wore full-dress suits, faultless in cut and fit, and the chief event in their daily existence, the serving of the table d'hote, wore white kid gloves. The bewildering changes of varied colored dishes (I mean crockery ware), was something to make one stare. Course number one brought on a soup dish of pale violet color, quite a work of art, but its contents was a watery compound with an artistic name.

Course number two consisted of a unique plate, light green in color, with little fishes wriggling through green waves, but bearing on it a small insipid portion of a genuine inhabitant of the deep; and so on, course followed course, each on a different colored plate. If the dinner was intended for an exhibition of crockery, each one of the seven I had there was a success, but, however gratifying to the eye the dinners might be, they were lamentable failures so far as stomach and appet.i.te were concerned; but when I came to pay my bill I found the white kid gloves and the fancy china again; they were all in it, and many more things as well. The bill was more than a foot long, filled with such items as soap, sixpence; one envelope, one penny; one sheet note paper, one penny; bath, two shillings; extra towels and soap for same, sixpence, and so on through the line.

We found the Grosvenor another Gresham. However, as we wanted to stop at a swell hotel, we concluded--so long as we were there--to remain; but after a few days we found the cuisine "highly respectable;" that is, for dinner one could get roast--either beef or mutton. As for vegetables, we were strictly limited to turnips, cauliflowers, cabbage and potatoes, and, for dessert, the famous apple tart of England, more deadly even than our mince pie.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SOME NATIVES I MET IN TAWNY, SPAIN.--Page 290.]

The proprietor of a certain popular restaurant in New York has a fad for hanging elaborately got-up Scripture texts--exhortations mostly--around the walls of his restaurant. Interspersed with these are advertis.e.m.e.nts of his eatables--also exhortations--such as, "Try our buckwheat cakes, 10 cents;" "Try our doughnuts and coffee;" between the two exhortations, a third bidding one flee from the wrath to come; but the most fetching of all are two companion cards. On the one is the legend, "Try our hot mince pie;" on the other is displayed the apropos warning, "Prepare to meet thy G.o.d."

So we resolved to sleep at the Grosvenor, but to avoid the apple tart.

We soon discovered a good restaurant near by, where we dined, and, as I am on the subject of dining, I will finish this chapter with a little narrative, the moral of which I will leave my readers to find: We were now settled down in London, prepared to devote all our attention to that Old Lady--The B. of E.--and, in accordance with a habit of ours, we began to look for some safe place--hotel, cafe or restaurant--where we could meet, run in at any time for consultation, or to write notes.

Three things were requisite--nearness to the money centre of the city, a room where we could be secluded from people coming and going, and a proprietor clever enough not to be inquisitive, with a genius for minding his own business. A man who has a genius for that thing always carries it in his face, just as his opposite--the busybody--carries the traces of his restless inquisitiveness in the face and manner.

That same day we discovered, in a small street leading off Finsbury, a shop with a sign over the door bearing the legend: "Licensed to sell spirits and caterer." It had canned and potted meats, along with bottles of wine, in the window, but was evidently fast going to seed. We pushed our way in and found a bright, fresh-looking young Englishman, evidently a countryman, but intelligent and civil, much like a gamekeeper. We knew at once we had our place and man.

After some weeks we observed, now and then, a couple of sharp-looking customers hanging about the place.

We feared being watched, and began to think it time to change, so suddenly ceased calling at mine host's snuggery and took up new quarters in a private house not far away. About two months later I happened to be near and called. He received me warmly, and told me we had saved him from bankruptcy. He had been a gamekeeper on a n.o.bleman's estate, and his wife had been a housemaid there. They married against the wishes of their master, but they had five hundred pounds, and, coming to London, started business on that. Custom was poor, and soon they were at the end of their rope, when, happily for them, we came along and spent money enough in his place to set him on his feet again.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BANK OF ENGLAND BULLION VAULTS.]

CHAPTER XIX.

WITH NO REGRETS, WITH NO TORTURING REMORSE.

Although I had the very respectable balance of $67,000 at the bank, I had not as yet, since my arrival in London, paid it a visit. This was in pursuance of our plans. So far I had only done business with the supernumeraries, and none of the people at the top had ever even heard of me. But we determined that they should not long remain in ignorance of the great American contractor, F. A. Warren.

Three months had elapsed since our departure from London on our piratical tour to the Spanish Main. In all nearly five months had elapsed since Green had introduced me to the Old Lady whose impregnable vaults we had now at last determined to loot. That in itself was a favorable circ.u.mstance, as it would give me a chance to flourish in a grandly indefinite way to the effect that I had "for some time" been a customer of the bank, and none of the officials would probably take the trouble to ascertain how very brief, in fact, my acquaintance had been.