The Lost Road Part 24

When the girl raised her eyes they were eloquent with distress.

"He has been so good to me," she said; "always so gentle. He has been mother and father to me. He is the first person I can remember. When I was a child he put me to bed, he dressed me, and comforted me. When we became rich there was nothing he did not wish to give me. I cannot leave him. He needs me more than ever I needed him. I am all he has.

And there is this besides. Were I to marry, of all the men in the world it would be harder for him if I married you. For if you succeed in what you came here to do, the law will punish him, and he will know it was through you he was punished. And even between you and me there always would be that knowledge, that feeling."

"That is not fair," cried Everett. "I am not an individual fighting less fortunate individuals. I am an insignificant wheel in a great machine. You must not blame me because I-"

With an exclamation the girl reproached him.

"Because you do your duty!" she protested. "Is that fair to me? If for my sake or my brother you failed in your duty, if you were less vigilant, less eager, even though we suffer, I could not love you."

Everett sighed happily.

"As long as you love me," he said, "neither your brother nor any one else can keep us apart."

"My brother," said the girl, as though she were p.r.o.nouncing a sentence, "always will keep us apart, and I will always love you."

It was a week before he again saw her, and then the feeling he had read in her eyes was gone--or rigorously concealed. Now her manner was that of a friend, of a young girl addressing a man older than herself, one to whom she looked up with respect and liking, but with no sign of any feeling deeper or more intimate.

It upset Everett completely. When he pleaded with her, she asked:

"Do you think it is easy for me? But--" she protested, "I know I am doing right. I am doing it to make you happy."

"You are succeeding," Everett a.s.sured her, "in making us both d.a.m.ned miserable."

For Everett, in the second month of his stay in Amapala, events began to move quickly. Following the example of two of his predecessors, the Secretary of State of the United States was about to make a grand tour of Central America. He came on a mission of peace and brotherly love, to foster confidence and good-will, and it was secretly hoped that, in the wake of his escort of battle-ships, trade would follow fast. There would be salutes and visits of ceremony, speeches, banquets, reviews.

But in these rejoicings Amapala would have no part.

For, so Everett was informed by cable, unless, previous to the visit of the Secretary, Amapala fell into line with her sister republics and signed a treaty of extradition, from the itinerary of the great man Amapala would find herself pointedly excluded. It would be a humiliation. In the eyes of her sister republics it would place her outside the pale. Everett saw that in his hands his friend the Secretary had placed a powerful weapon; and lost no time in using it.

He caught the President alone, sitting late at his dinner, surrounded by bottles, and read to him the Secretary's ultimatum. General Mendoza did not at once surrender. Before he threw over the men who fed him the golden eggs that made him rich, and for whom he had sworn never to violate the right of sanctuary, he first, for fully half an hour, raged and swore. During that time, while Everett sat anxiously expectant, the President paced and repaced the length of the dining-hall. When to relight his cigar, or to gulp brandy from a tumbler, he halted at the table, his great bulk loomed large in the flickering candle-flames, and when he continued his march, he would disappear into the shadows, and only his scabbard clanking on the stone floor told of his presence. At last he halted and shrugged his shoulders so that the ta.s.sels of his epaulets tossed like wheat.

"You drive a hard bargain, sir," he said. "And I have no choice.

To-morrow bring the treaty and I will sign."

Everett at once produced it and a fountain pen.

"I should like to cable to-night," he urged, "that you have signed.

They are holding back the public announcement of the Secretary's route until hearing from Your Excellency. This is only tentative," he pointed out; "the Senate must ratify. But our Senate will ratify it, and when you sign now, it is a thing accomplished."

Over the place at which Everett pointed, the pen scratched harshly; and then, throwing it from him, the President sat in silence. With eyes inflamed by anger and brandy he regarded the treaty venomously. As though loath to let it go, his hands played with it, as a cat plays with the mouse between her paws. Watching him breathlessly, Everett feared the end was not yet. He felt a depressing premonition that if ever the treaty were to reach Washington he best had s.n.a.t.c.h it and run.

Even as he waited, the end came. An orderly, appearing suddenly in the light of the candles, announced the arrival, in the room adjoining, of "the Colonel G.o.ddard and Senor Mellen." They desired an immediate audience. Their business with the President was most urgent. Whether from Washington their agents had warned them, whether in Camaguay they had deciphered the cablegram from the State Department, Everett could only guess, but he was certain the cause of their visit was the treaty.

That Mendoza also believed this was most evident.

Into the darkness, from which the two exiles might emerge, he peered guiltily. With an oath he tore the treaty in half. Crushing the pieces of paper into a ball, he threw it at Everett's feet. His voice rose to a shriek. It was apparent he intended his words to carry to the men outside. Like an actor on a stage he waved his arms.

"That is my answer!" he shouted. "Tell your Secretary the choice he offers is an insult! It is blackmail. We will not sign his treaty. We do not desire his visit to our country." Thrilled by his own bravado, his voice rose higher. "Nor," he shouted, "do we desire the presence of his representative. Your usefulness is at an end. You will receive your pa.s.sports in the morning."

As he might discharge a cook, he waved Everett away. His hand, trembling with excitement, closed around the neck of the brandy-bottle.

Everett stooped and secured the treaty. On his return to Washington, torn and rumpled as it was, it would be his justification. It was his "Exhibit A."

As he approached the legation he saw drawn up in front of it three ponies ready saddled. For an instant he wondered if Mendoza intended further to insult him, if he planned that night to send him under guard to the coast. He determined hotly sooner than submit to such an indignity he would fortify the legation, and defend himself. But no such heroics were required of him. As he reached the door, Garland, with an exclamation of relief, hailed him, and Monica, stepping from the shadow, laid an appealing hand upon his sleeve.

"My brother!" she exclaimed. "The guard at Cobre has just sent word that they found Peabody prowling in the ruins and fired on him. He fired back, and he is still there hiding. My brother and others have gone to take him. I don't know what may happen if he resists. Chester is armed, and he is furious; he is beside himself; he would not listen to me. But he must listen to you. Will you go," the girl begged, "and speak to him; speak to him, I mean," she added, "as the American minister?"

Everett already had his foot in the stirrup. "I'm the American minister only until to-morrow," he said. "I've got my walking-papers.

But I'll do all I can to stop this to-night. Garland," he asked, "will you take Miss Ward home, and then follow me?"

"If I do not go with you," said Monica, "I will go alone."

Her tone was final. With a clatter of hoofs that woke alarmed echoes in the sleeping streets the three horses galloped abreast toward Cobre.

In an hour they left the main trail and at a walk picked their way to where the blocks of stone, broken columns, and crumbling temples of the half-buried city checked the jungle.

The moon made it possible to move in safety, and at different distances the lights of torches told them the man-hunt still was in progress.

"Thank G.o.d," breathed Monica, "we are in time."

Everett gave the ponies in care of one of the guards. He turned to Garland.

"Catch up with those lights ahead of us," he said, "and we will join this party to the right. If you find Ward, tell him I forbid him taking the law into his own hands; tell him I will protect his interests. If you meet Peabody, make him give up his gun, and see that the others don't harm him!"

Everett and the girl did not overtake the lights they had seen flashing below them. Before they were within hailing distance, that searching party had disappeared, and still farther away other torches beckoned.

Stumbling and falling, now in pursuit of one will-o'-the-wisp, now of another, they scrambled forward. But always the lights eluded them.

From their exertions and the moist heat they were breathless, and their bodies dripped with water. Panting, they halted at the entrance of what once had been a tomb. From its black interior came a damp mist; above them, alarmed by their intrusion, the vampire bats whirled blindly in circles. Monica, who by day possessed some slight knowledge of the ruins, had, in the moonlight, lost all sense of direction.

"We're lost," said Monica, in a low tone. Unconsciously both were speaking in whispers. "I thought we were following what used to be the main thoroughfare of the city; but I have never seen this place before.

From what I have read I think we must be among the tombs of the kings."

She was silenced by Everett placing one hand quickly on her arm, and with the other pointing. In the uncertain moonlight she saw moving cautiously away from them, and unconscious of their presence, a white, ghostlike figure.

"Peabody," whispered Everett.

"Call him," commanded Monica.

"The others might hear," objected Everett. "We must overtake him. If we're with him when they meet, they wouldn't dare--"

With a gasp of astonishment, his words ceased.

Like a ghost, the ghostlike figure had vanished.

"He walked through that rock!" cried Monica.

Everett caught her by the wrist. "Come!" he commanded.

Over the face of the rock, into which Peabody had dived as into water, hung a curtain of vines. Everett tore it apart. Concealed by the vines was the narrow mouth to a tunnel; and from it they heard, rapidly lessening in the distance, the patter of footsteps.

"Will you wait," demanded Everett, "or come with me?"

With a shudder of distaste, Monica answered by seizing his hand.