Captain Macklin: His Memoirs Part 18

Lowell shrugged his shoulders and frowned.

"Mr. Graham--" he began, "is Mr. Graham." He added: "Captain Miller is not taking orders from civilians, and he depends on his own sources for information. I am here because he sent me to 'Go, look, see,' and report. I have been wiring him ever since you started from the coast, and since you became president. Your censor has very kindly allowed me to use our cipher."

I laughed, and said: "We court investigation."

"Pardon me, sir," Lowell answered, earnestly, addressing himself to Laguerre, "but I should think you would. Why," he exclaimed, "every merchant in the city has told me he considers his interests have never been so secure as since you became president. It is only the Isthmian Line that wants the protection of our ship. The foreign merchants are not afraid. I hate it!" he cried, "I hate to think that a billionaire, with a pull at Washington, can turn our Jackies into Janissaries.

Protect American interests!" he exclaimed, indignantly, "protect American sharpers! The Isthmian Line has no more right to the protection of our Navy than have the debtors in Ludlow Street Jail."

Laguerre sat for a long time without replying, and then rose and bowed to Lowell with great courtesy.

"I must be returning," he said. "I thank you, sir, for your good opinion. At my earliest convenience I shall pay my respects to your commanding officer. At ten o'clock," he continued turning to me, "I am to have my talk with Mr. Fiske. I have not the least doubt but that he will see the justice of our claim against his company, and before evening I am sure I shall be able to announce throughout the republic that I have his guaranty for the money. Mr. Fiske is an able, upright business man, as well as a gentleman, and he will not see this country robbed."

He shook hands with us and we escorted him to his horse.

I always like to remember him as I saw him then, in that gorgeous uniform, riding away under the great palms of the Plaza, with the tropical sunshine touching his white hair, and flashing upon the sabres of the body-guard, and the people running from every side of the square to cheer him.

Two hours later, when I had finished my "paper" work and was setting forth on my daily round, Miller came galloping up to the barracks and flung himself out of the saddle. He nodded to Lowell, and pulled me roughly to one side.

"The talk with Fiske," he whispered, "ended in the deuce of a row. Fiske behaved like a mule. He told Laguerre that the original charter of the company had been tampered with, and that the one Laguerre submitted to him was a fake copy. And he ended by asking Laguerre to name his price to leave them alone."

"And Laguerre?"

"Well, what do you suppose," Miller returned, scornfully. "The General just looked at him, and then picked up a pen, and began to write, and said to the orderly, 'Show him out.'

"'What's that?' Fiske said. And Laguerre answered: 'Merely a figure of speech; what I really meant was "Put him out," or "throw him out!" You are an offensive and foolish old man. I, the President of this country, received you and conferred with you as one gentleman with another, and you tried to insult me. You are either extremely ignorant, or extremely dishonest, and I shall treat with you no longer. Instead, I shall at once seize every piece of property belonging to your company, and hold it until you pay your debts. Now you go, and congratulate yourself that when you tried to insult me, you did so when you were under my roof, at my invitation.' Then Laguerre wired the commandantes at all the seaports to seize the warehouses and officers of the Isthmian Line, and even its ships, and to occupy the buildings with troops. He means business,"

Miller cried, jubilantly. "This time it's a fight to a finish."

Lowell had already sent for his horse, and altogether we started at a gallop for the palace. At the office of the Isthmian Line we were halted by a crowd so great that it blocked the street. The doors of the building were barred, and two sentries were standing guard in front of it. A proclamation on the wall announced that, by order of the President, the entire plant of the Isthmian Line had been confiscated, and that unless within two weeks the company paid its debts to the government, the government would sell the property of the company until it had obtained the money due it.

At the entrance to the palace the sergeant in charge of the native guard, who was one of our men, told us that two ships of the Isthmian Line had been caught in port; one at Cortez on her way to Aspinwall, and one at Truxillo, bound north. The pa.s.sengers had been landed, and were to remain on sh.o.r.e as guests of the government until they could be transferred to another line.

Lowell's face as he heard this was very grave, and he shook his head.

"A perfectly just reprisal, if you ask me," he said, "but what one lonely ensign tells you in confidence, and what Fiske will tell the State Department at Washington, is a very different matter. It's a good thing," he exclaimed, with a laugh, "that the Raleigh's on the wrong side of the Isthmus. If we were in the Caribbean, they might order us to make you give back those ships. As it is, we can't get marines here from the Pacific under three days. So I'd better start them at once," he added, suddenly. "Good-by, I must wire the Captain."

"Don't let the United States Navy do anything reckless," I said. "I'm not so sure you could take those ships, and I'm not so sure your marines can get here in three days, either, or that they ever could get here."

Lowell gave a shout of derision.

"What," he cried, "you'd fight against your country's flag?"

I told him he must not forget that at West Point they had decided I was not good enough to fight for my country's flag.

"We've three ships of our own now," I added, with a grin. "How would you like to be Rear Admiral of the naval forces of Honduras?"

Lowell caught up his reins in mock terror.

"What!" he cried. "You'd dare to bribe an American officer? And with such a fat bribe, too?" he exclaimed. "A Rear-Admiral at my age! That's dangerously near my price. I'm afraid to listen to you. Good-by." He waved his hand and started down the street. "Good-by, Satan," he called back to me, and I laughed, and he rode away.

That was the end of the laughter, of the jests, of the play-acting.

After that it was grim, grim, bitter and miserable. We dogs had had our day. We soldiers of either fortune had tasted our cup of triumph, and though it was only a taste, it had flown to our brains like heavy wine, and the headaches and the heartaches followed fast. For some it was more than a heartache; to them it brought the deep, drugged sleep of Nirvana.

The storm broke at the moment I turned from Lowell on the steps of the palace, and it did not cease, for even one brief breathing s.p.a.ce, until we were cast forth, and scattered, and beaten.

As Lowell left me, General Laguerre, with Aiken at his side, came hurrying down the hall of the palace. The President was walking with his head bowed, listening to Aiken, who was whispering and gesticulating vehemently. I had never seen him so greatly excited. When he caught sight of me he ran forward.

"Here he is," he cried. "Have you heard from Heinze?" he demanded. "Has he asked you to send him a native regiment to Pecachua?"

"Yes," I answered, "he wanted natives to dig trenches. I sent five hundred at eight this morning."

Aiken clenched his fingers. It was like the quick, desperate clutch of a drowning man.

"I'm right," he cried. He turned upon Laguerre. "Macklin has sent them.

By this time our men are prisoners."

Laguerre glanced sharply at the native guard drawn up at attention on either side of us. "Hush," he said. He ran past us down the steps, and halting when he reached the street, turned and looked up at the great bulk of El Pecachua that rose in the fierce sunlight, calm and inscrutable, against the white, glaring ma.s.ses of the clouds.

"What is it?" I whispered.

"Heinze!" Aiken answered, savagely. "Heinze has sold them Pecachua."

I cried out, but again Laguerre commanded silence. "You do not know that," he said; but his voice trembled, and his face was drawn in lines of deep concern.

"I warned you!" Aiken cried, roughly. "I warned you yesterday; I told you to send Macklin to Pecachua."

He turned on me and held me by the sleeve, but like Laguerre he still continued to look fearfully toward the mountain.

"They came to me last night, Graham came to me," he whispered. "He offered me ten thousand dollars gold, and I did not take it." In his wonder at his own integrity, in spite of the excitement which shook him, Aiken's face for an instant lit with a weak, gratified smile. "I pretended to consider it," he went on, "and sent another of my men to Pecachua. He came back an hour ago. He tells me Graham offered Heinze twenty thousand dollars to buy off himself and the other officers and the men. But Heinze was afraid of the others, and so he planned to ask Laguerre for a native regiment, to pretend that he wanted them to work on the trenches. And then, when our men were lying about, suspecting nothing, the natives should fall on them and tie them, or shoot them, and then turn the guns on the city. And he _has_ sent for the n.i.g.g.ars!"

Aiken cried. "And there's not one of them that wouldn't sell you out.

They're there now!" he cried, shaking his hand at the mountain. "I warned you! I warned you!"

Incredible as it seemed, difficult as it was to believe such baseness, I felt convinced that Aiken spoke the truth. The thought sickened me, but I stepped over to Laguerre and saluted.

"I can a.s.semble the men in half an hour," I said. "We can reach the base of the rock an hour later."

"But if it should not be true," Laguerre protested. "The insult to Heinze--"

"Heinze!" Aiken shouted, and broke into a volley of curses. But the oaths died in his throat. We heard a whirr of galloping hoofs; a man's voice shrieking to his horse; the sounds of many people running, and one of my scouts swept into the street, and raced toward us. He fell off at our feet, and the pony rolled upon its head, its flanks heaving horribly and the blood spurting from its nostrils.

"Garcia and Alvarez!" the man panted. "They're making for the city.

They tried to fool us. They left their tents up, and fires burning, and started at night, but I smelt 'em the moment they struck the trail. We fellows have been on their flanks since sun-up, picking 'em off at long range, but we can't hold them. They'll be here in two hours."

"Now, will you believe me?" Aiken shouted. "That's their plot. They're working together. They mean to trap us on every side. Ah!" he cried.

"Look!"

I knew the thing at which he wished me to look. His voice and my dread told me at what his arm was pointing.

I raised my eyes fearfully to El Pecachua. From its green crest a puff of smoke was swelling into a white cloud, the cloud was split with a flash of flame, and the dull echo of the report drifted toward us on the hot, motionless air. At the same instant our flag on the crest of Pecachua, the flag with the five-pointed, blood-red star, came twitching down; and a sh.e.l.l screeched and broke above us.