The Coast of Adventure Part 51

The backs of the leading files obstructed his view, but now that they were moving down a narrow lane the air throbbed with the sound of their advance. Rifle slings rattled, feet fell with a rapid beat, and now and then an order broke through the jingle of steel. Then a shot rang out and the men began to run, two or three falling out here and there, with the intention, Cliffe supposed, of occupying friendly houses. A little later, the advance guard swung out into a wider street, and a group of men began tearing up the pavement; it had been loosened beforehand, and the stones came up easily. Another group were throwing furniture out of the houses. They worked frantically, though they were fired at, and Cliffe could hear the bullets splash upon the stones.

For the most part, the men were wiry peons, some toiling half naked, but there were a number who looked like prosperous citizens. The light, however, was dim and they were hard to distinguish as they flitted to and fro with their loads or plied the shovel. A barricade was rising fast, but the alarm had spread. Detached shouts and a confused uproar rolled across the town, the call of bugles joined in, and the sharp clang of the rifles grew more frequent. Cliffe could see no smoke, but he imagined that the roofs farther on were occupied by the troops Gomez was no doubt hurrying into action.

The attack had obviously been well timed and arranged with the cooperation of revolutionaries in the town, but while the rebels had gained an entrance, they seemed unable to follow up their success, and it remained to be seen if they could hold their ground until reenforcements arrived. Finding no opportunity for doing anything useful, Cliffe sat down on the pavement and lighted a cigarette. He did not feel the nervousness he had expected, but he was tired and hungry.

It was four o'clock on the previous afternoon when he shared the officers' frugal dinner, and he had eaten nothing since. There was no use in speculating about what was likely to happen in the next few hours, but he meant to have a reckoning with Gomez if he came through alive.

Then, as he watched the blurred figures swarming like ants about the barricade, he broke into a dry smile, for the situation had an ironically humorous side. He had thought himself a sober, business man; and now he was helping a horde of frenzied rebels to overthrow the government he had supported with large sums of money. This was a novelty in the way of finance. Moreover, it was strange that he should derive a quiet satisfaction from the touch of the rifle balanced across his knees. He was better used to the scatter-gun, and did not altogether understand the sights, but he was determined to shoot as well as he could.

An opportunity was soon offered him. Some one gave an order, and after some pushing and jostling he squeezed himself between the legs of a table on the top of the barricade. A ragged desperado, who scowled furiously and used what seemed to be violently abusive language, had contested the position with him, and it struck Cliffe as remarkable that he should have taken so much trouble to secure a post where he might get shot. He was there, however, and thought he could make pretty good shooting up to a couple hundred yards.

He had got comfortably settled, with his left elbow braced against a ledge to support the rifle, when a body of men in white uniform appeared at the other end of the street. An officer with sword drawn marched at their head, but they did not seem anxious to press forward, or to be moving in very regular order. The distances were uneven, and some of the men straggled toward the side of the street, where it was darker close to the walls. Cliffe sympathized with them, although he felt steadier than he had thought possible.

A rifle flashed on a roof and others answered from the barricade, but only a thin streak of gray vapor that vanished almost immediately marked the firing. It looked as if the rebels had obtained good powder. After a few moments Cliffe heard a shrill humming close above his head, and there was a crash as a man behind him fell backward. Then he felt his rifle jump and jar his shoulder, though he was not otherwise conscious that he had fired. He must have pulled the trigger by instinct, but he did not try to ascertain the result of his shot. He had not come to that yet.

There was a sharp patter on the front of the barricade and splinters sprang from the table legs. Some one near Cliffe cried out, and the patter went on. Raising his head cautiously, he saw that a number of soldiers were firing from the roofs, while the rest ran steadily up the street. They must be stopped. Dropping his chin upon the stock, he stiffened his arms and held his breath as he squeezed the trigger.

After this, he was too busy to retain a clear impression of what happened. His rifle jumped and jarred until it got hot, his shoulder felt sore, and he found he must pull round his cartridge-belt because the nearer clips were empty. He did not know how the fight was going; the separate advancing figures he gazed at through the notch of the rear sight monopolized his attention, but there was thin smoke and dust about, and he could not see them well. It seemed curious that they had not reached the barricade, and he felt angry with them for keeping him in suspense. Then the firing gradually slackened and died away.

Everything seemed strangely quiet, except that men were running back down the street in disorder. The rebels had held their ground; the attack had failed.

After a few moments, he noticed that the sun shone down between the houses and it was getting hot. He felt thirsty, and the glare hurt his eyes, which smarted with the dust and acrid vapor that hung about the spot. All the soldiers, however, had not gone back; several lay in strange, slack att.i.tudes near the front of the barricade, and a rebel who sprang down, perhaps with the object of securing fresh cartridges, suddenly dropped. The rest lay close and left the fallen alone. Then a tall priest in threadbare ca.s.sock and clumsy raw-hide shoes came out of a house and with the help of two or three others carried the victims inside. Cliffe heard somebody say that it was Father Agustin.

Soon afterward a man near Cliffe gave him a cigarette, and he smoked it, although his mouth was dry and the tobacco had a bitter taste. The heat was getting worse and his head began to ache, but he was busy wondering what would happen next. Gomez must have more troops than the handful he had sent; the rebels could not hold the position against a strong force, and their supports had not arrived. He hoped Gomez had no machine-guns.

Suddenly the attack recommenced. There were more soldiers, and a rattle of firing that broke out farther up the street suggested that the revolutionaries were being attacked in flank. Some of the men seemed to hesitate and began to look behind them, but they got steadier when an officer called out; and Cliffe understood that a detachment had been sent back to protect their rear. In the meantime, the soldiers in front were coming on. They were slouching, untidy fellows, but their brown faces were savage, and Cliffe knew they meant to get in. It was, however, his business to keep them out, and he fired as fast as he could load. When the barrel got so hot that he could hardly touch it, he paused to cool the open breach and anxiously looked about.

The street seemed filled with white figures, but they had opened out, and in the gaps he could see the dazzling stones over which the hot air danced. There was a gleam of bright steel in the sun, and he noticed that the walls were scarred. Raw spots marked where the chipped whitewash had fallen off and the adobe showed through. But there was no time to observe these things; the foremost men were dangerously near.

Finding he could now hold his rifle, Cliffe snapped in a cartridge and closed the breach. Then he spent a few tense minutes. The enemy reached the foot of the barrier and climbed up. Rifles flashed from roofs and windows, streaks of flame rippled along the top of the barricade, and one or two of the defenders, perhaps stung by smarting wounds or maddened by excitement, leaped down with clubbed weapons and disappeared. Cliffe kept his place between the table legs and pulled round his cartridge-belt.

The tension could not last. Flesh and blood could not stand it. He understood why the men had leaped down, courting death. He hoped his own nerve was normally good, but if the struggle was not decided soon, he could not answer for himself. He must escape from the strain somehow, if he had to charge the attackers with an empty rifle.

There was a sudden change. The climbing white figures seemed to melt away, and though the rifles still clanged from roofs and windows the firing slackened along the barricade. The troops were going back, running not retiring, and trying to break into houses from which men with rude weapons thrust them out. It looked as if the inhabitants were all insurgents now.

Soon the priest reappeared, and Cliffe left his post and sat down where there was a strip of shade. He had helped to beat off two attacks, but he was doubtful about the third. While he rested, a fat, swarthy woman brought him a cup of _cana_, and he was surprised when he saw how much of the fiery spirit he had drunk. The woman smiled, and went on to the next man with the cup.

Cliffe wondered how long he had been fighting, for he found his watch had stopped; but the sun was not high yet. After all, the reenforcements he had begun to despair of might arrive in time. While he comforted himself with this reflection, some of the other men dug a trench behind the barricade, and citizens, loading the earth into baskets, carried it off. Cliffe did not know what this was for, but he supposed the baskets would be used to strengthen defenses somewhere else. It was a long time since he had handled a spade, but if they needed his help he could dig.

Pulling himself up with an effort, he took a tool from a breathless man and set to work.

After a time a citizen appeared with a bundle of papers and a white flag. An officer signed him to come forward, and taking the papers from him threw them among the men. Cliffe got one, and finding a man who spoke a little English, asked him what the notice meant. The man said it was a proclamation by Gomez, stating that, as the people had serious ground for dissatisfaction with the President's administration and were determined to end it, he must accede to the wish of the leading citizens, who had urged him to form a provisional government. He promised a general amnesty for past offenses and the prompt redress of all grievances.

"So the dog turns on his master!" the translator remarked with bitter scorn. "Altiera was a tyrant, but this rogue would be worse!"

The insurgent leader, standing on top of the barricade, read the proclamation in a loud, ironical voice, and when he tore it up with a dramatic gesture, the roar of mocking laughter that rang down the street showed what all who heard it thought of Gomez's claim. Then people ran out of the houses and pelted the messenger with stones as he hurriedly retired, until a few shots from a roof cleared the street.

"The dog has bought the soldiers! Altiera should have been his own paymaster," the man whom Cliffe had questioned remarked.

For the next half hour everything was quiet, but Cliffe felt uneasy. One could not tell what Gomez was doing, but it was plain that he must make a resolute attempt to crush the rebels before he turned his forces against the President. He must have felt reasonably sure of his ground when he made his last daring move. As his terms had been scornfully rejected, the country would soon be devastated by three hostile factions, which would make Evelyn's danger very grave. Cliffe forgot that he was thirsty and there was a pain in his left side brought on by want of food. If help did not come by sunset, his friends would be overwhelmed by numbers when it was too dark to shoot straight.

Then he saw that they were threatened by a more urgent danger. The end of the street opened into the plaza, which had been deserted. The houses on its opposite side were shuttered, and the sun burned down into the dazzling square, except for a strip of shadow beneath one white wall.

Now, however, a body of men appeared, carrying something across the uneven pavement. When they stopped and began to put the separate parts together, Cliffe saw that it was a machine-gun. He wondered why Gomez had not made use of it earlier, unless, perhaps, it had formed the main defense of the _presidio_.

The barrel, thickened by its water jacket, gleamed ominously in front of the steel shield as the men got the gun into position; but it was unthinkable that they should be left to do so undisturbed, and Cliffe scrambled back to his post when an order rang out. He felt that he hated the venomous machine, which had perhaps been bought with his money.

Steadying his rifle, he fired as fast as he could.

Though the smoke was thin, it hung about the rebels' position, making it hard to see, and Cliffe feared their shots were going wide, but after a few moments the barricade trembled, and there was a curious, whirring sound above his head. Dust and splinters of stone were flung up, and large flakes fell from the neighboring walls. All this seemed to happen at once, before he was conscious of a measured thudding like a big hammer falling very fast which drowned the reports of the rifles and dominated everything. The flimsy defenses were pierced. Gaps began to open here and there, and men dropped back into the trench. Then a fierce yell rang across the city, and although Cliffe heard no order the rebel fire slackened. Peering through the vapor, he saw the soldiers were frantically dragging the gun into a new position; the shield no longer hid the men at the breach, but Cliffe did not shoot. He felt paralyzed as he watched to see what was happening.

The hammering began again, and flashes that looked pale in the sunshine leapt about the muzzle of the gun. Soldiers lying down behind it were using their rifles, and another detachment hurriedly came up. Cliffe's view of the plaza was limited. He could not see one side of it, where an attack was evidently being made, but presently a mob of running men swept into sight. A few dropped upon the pavement and began to fire, but the main body ran straight for the gun, and he noticed with a thrill that they were led by a light-skinned man. Some of them fell, but the rest went on, and the rebels behind the barricade began to shout. The eagerly expected reenforcements had arrived.

The man with the fair skin was the first to reach the gun. Cliffe saw his pistol flash; but the struggle did not last. Gomez's men fell back and the others swung round the gun. Then, as flame blazed from its muzzle, a triumphant yell rose from the barricade, and Cliffe, springing up on the table, waved his hat and shouted with the rest. Grahame, with his handful of peons, had saved the day.

In a few seconds Cliffe felt dizzy. His head was unsteady, his knees seemed weak, and as he tried to get down he lost his balance. Falling from the top of the barricade, he plunged heavily into the trench, where his senses left him.

It was some time afterward when he came to himself, and, looking round in a half-dazed manner, wondered where he was. The big room in which he lay was shadowy and cool, and he did not feel much the worse except that his head ached and his eyes were dazzled. A tumult seemed to be going on outside, but the room was quiet, and a girl in a white dress sat near by. He thought he ought to know her, although he could not see her face until she heard him move and came toward him.

"Evelyn!" he gasped.

"Yes," she answered, smiling. "How do you feel?"

"Dizzy," said Cliffe. "But this is Rio Frio, isn't it? How did you get here?"

"You mustn't talk," she said firmly, and he saw that she had a gla.s.s in her hand. "Drink this and go to sleep again."

Cliffe did not mean to go to sleep, although he drained the gla.s.s because he was thirsty. There was much he wanted to know; but he found it difficult to talk, and Evelyn would not answer. After a futile effort to shake it off, he succ.u.mbed to the drowsiness that was overpowering him.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV

THE COMING DAWN

It was getting dark when Cliffe wakened. The windows were open, and a flickering red glow shone into the room. Footsteps and voices rose from the street below, as if the city were astir, but this did not interest him much. Evelyn was standing near, and a man whom he could not see well sat in the shadow.

"You must have something to tell me," Cliffe said to the girl. "We seem to be in safe quarters; but how did we get here?"

Evelyn knelt down beside his couch and put her hand on his hot forehead.

It felt pleasantly cool, and Cliffe lay still with a sigh of satisfaction.

"Father Agustin brought you in here several hours ago," she explained; "but that was before I arrived. I was worried, but the doctor says we needn't be alarmed."

"That's a sure thing," Cliffe replied. "I'm feeling pretty well, but thirsty. What's the matter with me, anyhow?"

"Exhaustion, and perhaps slight sunstroke and shock. You must have had a bad fall, because you are bruised."

"I certainly fell, right down to the bottom of the trench; but that's not what I want to talk about. It is a big relief to see you safe, but where have you been?"

"It will take some time to tell." Evelyn bent closer over him as she began an account of her adventures in a low voice, and Cliffe dully imagined that she did not want the other occupant of the room to hear.

The fellow was no doubt a doctor.