The Lost Road Part 21

"Maybe in the rough," said the consul. "But I prefer to think it's treasure. The place is full of secret chambers, tombs, and pa.s.sage-ways cut through the rock, deep under the surface. I believe Ward has stumbled on some vault where the priests used to hide their loot. I believe he's getting it out bit by bit and going shares with Mendoza."

"If that were so," ventured Everett, "why wouldn't Mendoza take it all?"

"Because Ward," explained the consul, "is the only one who knows where it is. The ruins cover two square miles. You might search for years.

They tried to follow and spy on him, but Ward was too clever for them.

He turned back at once. If they don't take what he gives, they get nothing. So they protect him from real explorers and from extradition.

The whole thing is unfair. A real archaeologist turned up here a month ago. He had letters from the Smithsonian Inst.i.tute and several big officials at Washington, but do you suppose they would let him so much as smell of Cobre? Not they! Not even when I spoke for him as consul.

Then he appealed to Ward, and Ward turned him down hard. You were arriving, so he's hung on here hoping you may have more influence. His name is Peabody; he's a professor, but he's young and full of 'get there,' and he knows more about the ruins of Cobre now than Ward does after having them all to himself for two years. He's good people and I hope you'll help him."

Everett shook his head doubtfully.

"If the government has given the concession to him," he pointed out, "no matter who Ward may be, or what its motives were for giving it to him, I can't ask it to break its promise. As an American citizen Ward is as much ent.i.tled to my help--officially--as Professor Peabody, whatever his standing."

"Ward's a forger," protested Garland, "a fugitive from justice; and Peabody is a scholar and a gentleman. I'm not keen about dead cities myself--this one we're in now is dead enough for me--but if civilization is demanding to know what Cobre was like eight hundred years ago, civilization is ent.i.tled to find out, and Peabody seems the man for the job. It's a shame to turn him down for a gang of grafters."

"Tell him to come and talk to me," said the minister.

"He rode over to the ruins of Copan last week," explained Garland, "where the Harvard expedition is. But he's coming back to-morrow on purpose to see you."

The consul had started toward the door when he suddenly returned.

"And there's some one else coming to see you," he said. "Some one," he added anxiously, "you want to treat right. That's Monica Ward. She's Chester Ward's sister, and you mustn't get her mixed up with anything I told you about her brother. She's coming to ask you to help start a Red Cross Society. She was a volunteer nurse in the hospital in the last two revolutions, and what she saw makes her want to be sure she won't see it again. She's taught the native ladies the 'first aid'

drill, and they expect you to be honorary president of the society.

You'd better accept."

Shaking his head, Garland smiled pityingly upon the new minister.

"You've got a swell chance to get your treaty," he declared. "Monica is another one who will prevent it."

Everett sighed patiently.

"What," he demanded, "might her particular crime be; murder, shoplifting, treason--"

"If her brother had to leave this country," interrupted Garland, "she'd leave with him. And the people don't want that. Her pull is the same as old man G.o.ddard's. Everybody loves him and everybody loves her. I love her," exclaimed the consul cheerfully; "the President loves her, the sisters in the hospital, the chain-gang in the street, the washerwomen in the river, the palace guard, everybody in this flea-bitten, G.o.d-forsaken country loves Monica Ward--and when you meet her you will, too."

Garland had again reached the door to the outer hall before Everett called him back.

"If it is not a leading question," asked the minister, "what little indiscretion in your life brought you to Amapala?"

Garland grinned appreciatively.

"I know they sound a queer lot," he a.s.sented, "but when you get to know 'em, you like 'em. My own trouble," he added, "was a horse. I never could see why they made such a fuss about him. He was lame when I took him."

Disregarding Garland's pleasantry, for some time His Excellency sat with his hands clasped behind his head, frowning up from the open patio into the hot, cloudless sky. On the ridge of his tiled roof a foul buzzard blinked at him from red-rimmed eyes, across the yellow wall a lizard ran for shelter, at his elbow a macaw compa.s.sing the circle of its tin prison muttered dreadful oaths. Outside, as the washerwomen beat their linen clubs upon the flat rocks of the river, the hot, stale air was spanked with sharp reports. In Camaguay theirs was the only industry, the only sign of cleanliness; and recognizing that another shirt had been thrashed into subjection and rags, Everett winced. No less visibly did his own thoughts cause him to wince. Garland he had forgotten, and he was sunk deep in self-pity. His thoughts were of London, with its world politics, its splendid traditions, its great and gracious ladies; of Paris in the spring sunshine, when he cantered through the Bois; of Madrid, with its pomp and royalty, and the gray walls of its galleries proclaiming Murillo and Velasquez. These things he had forsaken because he believed he was ambitious; and behold into what a cul-de-sac his ambition had led him! A comic-opera country that was not comic, but dead and buried from the world; a savage people, unread, unenlightened, unclean; and for society of his countrymen, pitiful derelicts in hiding from the law. In his soul he rebelled. In words he exploded bitterly.

"This is one h.e.l.l of a hole, Garland," cried the diplomat. His jaws and his eyes hardened. "I'm going back to Europe. And the only way I can go is to get that treaty. I was sent here to get it. Those were my orders. And I'll get it if I have to bribe them out of my own pocket; if I have to outbid Mr. Ward, and send him and your good Colonel G.o.ddard and all the rest of the crew to the jails where they belong!"

Garland heard him without emotion. From long residence near the equator he diagnosed the outbreak as a case of tropic choler, aggravated by nostalgia and fleas.

"I'll bet you don't," he said.

"I'll bet you your pa.s.sage-money home," shouted Everett, "against my pa.s.sage-money to Europe."

"Done!" said Garland. "How much time do you want--two years?"

The diplomat exclaimed mockingly:

"Two months!"

"I win now," said the consul. "I'll go home and pack."

The next morning his clerk told Everett that in the outer office Monica Ward awaited him.

Overnight Everett had developed a prejudice against Miss Ward. What Garland had said in her favor had only driven him the wrong way. Her universal popularity he disliked. He argued that to gain popularity one must concede and capitulate. He felt that the sister of an acknowledged crook, no matter how innocent she might be, were she a sensitive woman, would wish to efface herself. And he had found that, as a rule, women who worked in hospitals and organized societies bored him. He did not admire the militant, executive sister. He pictured Miss Ward as probably pretty, but with the coquettish effrontery of the village belle and with the pushing, "good-fellow" manners of the new school. He was prepared either to have her slap him on the back or, from behind tilted eye-gla.s.ses, make eyes at him. He was sure she wore eye-gla.s.ses, and was large, plump, and Junoesque. With reluctance he entered the outer office. He saw, all in white, a girl so young that she was hardly more than a child, but with the tall, slim figure of a boy. Her face was lovely as the face of a violet, and her eyes were as shy. But shy not through lack of confidence in Everett, nor in any human being, but in herself. They seemed to say, "I am a very unworthy, somewhat frightened young person; but you, who are so big and generous, will overlook that, and you are going to be my friend.

Indeed, I see you are my friend."

Everett stood quite still. He nodded gloomily.

"Garland was right," he exclaimed; "I do!"

The young lady was plainly distressed.

"Do what?" she stammered.

"Some day I will tell you," said the young man. "Yes," he added, without shame, "I am afraid I will." He bowed her into the inner office.

"I am sorry," apologized Monica, "but I am come to ask a favor--two favors; one of you and one of the American minister."

Everett drew his armchair from his desk and waved Monica into it.

"I was sent here," he said, "to do exactly what you want. The last words the President addressed to me were, 'On arriving at your post report to Miss Monica Ward."'

Fearfully, Monica perched herself on the edge of the armchair; as though for protection she clasped the broad table before her.

"The favor I want," she hastily a.s.sured him, "is not for myself."

"I am sorry," said Everett, "for it is already granted."

"You are very good," protested Monica.

"No," replied Everett, "I am only powerful. I represent ninety-five million Americans, and they are all entirely at your service. So is the army and navy."

Monica smiled and shook her head. The awe she felt was due an American minister was rapidly disappearing, and in Mr. Everett himself her confidence was increasing. The other ministers plenipotentiary she had seen at Camaguay had been old, with beards like mountain-goats, and had worn linen dusters. They always were very red in the face and very damp. Monica decided Mr. Everett also was old; she was sure he must be at least thirty-five; but in his silk pongee and pipe-clayed tennis-shoes he was a refreshing spectacle. Just to look at him turned one quite cool.

"We have a very fine line of battle-ships this morning at Guantanamo,"

urged Everett; "if you want one I'll cable for it."

Monica laughed softly. It was good to hear nonsense spoken. The Amapalans had never learned it, and her brother said just what he meant and no more.