The Spread Eagle and Other Stories Part 11

"I shouldn't bring tuppence," said the earl.

"But you," said Forrest to the earl, "what would you do if you were stone-broke?"

"I would marry Dorothy to-morrow," said the earl, "instead of waiting until September. Fortunately, I have a certain amount of a.s.sets that the law won't allow me to get rid of."

"I wish you could," said Forrest.

"Why?" The earl wrinkled his eyebrows.

"I would like to see what you would do." He laid his hand lightly upon the young Englishman's shoulder. "You don't mind? I am an old man," he said, "but I cannot tell you--what meeting you has meant to me. I want you to come with me now, for a few minutes, to Mr. Ballin. Will you?"

III

"Mr. Ballin," said Forrest, his hand still on the earl's shoulder, "I want you to tell this young man what only you and I know."

Ballin looked up from his chair with the look of a sick man.

"It's this, Charlie," he said in a voice that came with difficulty.

"It's a mistake to suppose that I am a rich man. Everything in this world that I honestly thought belonged to me belongs to Mr. Forrest."

The earl read truth in the ashen, careworn face of his love's father.

"But surely," he said anxiously, "Dorothy is still yours--to give."

Forrest's dark and brooding countenance became as if suddenly brightly lighted.

"My boy--my boy!" he cried, and he folded the wriggling and embarra.s.sed Stuart in his long, gaunt arms.

I think an angel bringing glad tidings might have looked as Forrest did when, releasing the Earl of Moray, he turned upon the impulse and began to pour out words to Ballin.

"When I found out who I was," he said, "and realized for how long--oh, my Lord! how long--others had been enjoying what was mine, and that I had rubbed myself bare and bleeding against all the rough places of life, will you understand what a rage and bitterness against you all possessed me? And I came--oh, on wings--to trample, and to dispossess, and to sneer, and to send you packing.... But first the peace of the woods and the meadows, and the beech wood and the gardens, and the quiet hills and the little brooks staggered me. And then you--the way you took it, cousin!--all pale and wretched as you were; you were so calm, and you admitted the claim at once--and bore up.... Then I began to repent of the bitterness in which I had come.... And I left the papers in your keeping.... I thought--for I have known mostly evil--that, perhaps, you would destroy them.... It never entered your head.... Your are clean white--and so are your girls and your boy.... I did not expect to find white people in possession. Why should I?... But I said, 'Surely the Englishman isn't white--he is after the money.' But right away I began to have that feeling, too, smoothed out of me.... And now, when he finds that instead of Dorothy being an heiress she is a pauper, he says, 'But surely, Dorothy is still yours to give!'

"I was a fool to come. Yet I am glad."

Neither Ballin nor the earl spoke.

"Could I have this room to myself for a little while?" asked Forrest.

"Of course," said Ballin; "it is yours."

Forrest bowed; the corners of his mouth turned a little upward.

"Will you come back in an hour--you, alone, cousin?"

Ballin nodded quietly.

"Come along, Charlie," he said, and together they left the room. But when Ballin returned alone, an hour later, the room was empty. Upon the Signer's writing-desk was a package addressed collectively to "The Ballins," and in one corner was written, "Blood will tell."

The package, on being opened, proved to contain nothing more substantial than ashes. And by the donor thereof there was never given any further sign.

ONE MORE MARTYR

A little one-act play, sufficiently dramatic, is revived from time to time among the Latin races for long runs. The play is of simplified, cla.s.sic construction. But the princ.i.p.al part is variously interpreted by different actors. The minor characters, a priest and an officer, have no great lat.i.tude for individuality, while the work of the chorus comes as near mathematics as anything human can. The play is a pa.s.sion play. No actor has ever played the princ.i.p.al part more than once. And the play differs from other plays in this, also, that there are not even traditional lines for the princ.i.p.al character to speak. He may say whatever comes into his head. He may say nothing. He may play his part with reticence or melodramatically. It does not matter. His is what actors call a fat part; it cannot be spoiled. And at the climax and curtain he may sink slowly to the ground or fall upon his back or upon his face. It does not matter. Once, before falling, a man leaped so violently upward and forward as to break the ropes with which his legs and arms were bound. Those who saw this performance cannot speak of it to this day without a shudder.

Under the management of General Weyler in Cuba this little play enjoyed, perhaps, its longest continuous run. Curiously enough, there were absolutely no profits to be divided at the end. But, then, think of the expense of production! Why, to enable the General to stage that play for so many nights--I mean sunrises--required the employment of several hundred thousand men and actually bankrupted a nation. In this world one must pay like the devil for one's fancies. Think what Weyler paid: all the money that his country could beg or borrow; then his own reputation as a soldier, as a statesman, and as a man; ending with a series of monstrous mortgages on his own soul. For which, when it is finally sold at auction, there will not be bid so much as one breath of garlic.

When Juan D'Acosta's mother heard that her younger son Manual had been taken prisoner by the Spaniards and was to be shot the following morning at sunrise she sat for an hour motionless, staring at the floor. Juan, as is, or was, well known, had died gloriously, a cigarette between his lips, after inestimable, if secret, services to Cuba. Nor had his execution been entirely a martyrdom. He was shot for a spy. He was a spy, and a very daring, clever, and self-effacing one. He had been caught within the Spanish lines with incriminating papers upon his person. And before they could secure him he had had the eternal satisfaction of ripping open two Spaniards with his knife so that they died. He was executed without a trial. His mother went out with others of his relatives to see him die. The memory of his dying had remained with her to comfort her for the fact of it. She had seen him, calm, and in her eyes very beautiful, standing in strong relief with his back to a white wall, a cigarette between his lips. There had not been the slightest bravado in his perfect self-possession. It had been that of a gentleman, which he was not by birth, and a man of the world; quiet, retiring and attentive. He had looked so courteous, so kind-hearted, so pure! He had spoken--on either side of his cigarette--for some moments to the priest, apologizing through him to G.o.d for whatever spots there may have been upon his soul. Then his eyes had sought his mother's among the spectators and remained steadfastly upon them, smiling, until the exactions of his part demanded that he face more to the front and look into the muzzles of the Mausers. The fire of his cigarette having burned too close to his lips for comfort, and his hands being tied, he spat the b.u.t.t out of his mouth and allowed the last taste of smoke which he was to enjoy on earth to curl slowly off through his nostrils. Then, for it was evident that the edge of the sun would show presently above the rim of the world, he had drawn a breath or two of the fresh morning air and had spoken his last words in a clear, controlled voice.

"Whenever one of us dies," he had said, "it strengthens the cause of liberty instead of weakening it. I am so sure of this that I would like to come to life after being shot, so that I might be taken and shot again and again and again. You, my friends, are about to fire _for_ Cuba, not against her. Therefore, I thank you. I think that is all.

Christ receive me."

The impact of the volley had flattened him backward against the wall with shocking violence, but he had remained on his feet for an appreciable interval of time and had then sunk slowly to his knees and had fallen quietly forward upon his face.

So her older boy had died, honoring himself and his country, after serving his country only. The memory of his life, deeds and dying was a comfort to her. And when she learned that Manuel, too, was to be shot, and sat staring at the floor, it was not entirely of Manuel that she was thinking. She did not love Manuel as she had loved Juan. He had not been a comfort to her in any way. He had been a sneaking, cowardly child; he had grown into a vicious and cowardly young man. He was a patriot because he was afraid not to be; he had enlisted in the Cuban army because he was afraid not to. He had even partic.i.p.ated in skirmishes, sweating with fear and discharging his rifle with his eyes closed. But he had been clever enough to conceal his white feathers, and he could talk in a modest, purposeful way, just like a genuine hero. He was to be shot, not because he was himself, but because he was Juan's brother. The Spaniards feared the whole family as a man fears a hornet's nest in the eaves and, because one hornet has stung him, wages exterminating war upon all hornets. In Manuel's case, however, there was a trial, short and unpleasant. The man was on his knees half the time, blubbering, abjuring, perspiring, and begging for mercy; swearing on his honor to betray his country wherever and whenever possible; to fight against her, to spy within her defenses and plans--anything, everything!

His judges were not impressed. They believed him to be acting. He was one of the D'Acostas; Juan's brother, Ferdinand's son--a hornet. Not the same type of hornet, but for that very reason, perhaps, the more to be feared. "When he finds," said the colonel who presided, "that he is to be shot beyond peradventure he will turn stoic like the others, you'll see. Even now he is probably laughing at us for being moved by his blubberings and entreaties. He wants to get away from us at any price.

That's all. He wants a chance to sting us again. And that chance he will not get."

Oddly enough, the coward did turn stoic the moment he was formally condemned. But it was physical exhaustion as much as anything else; a sudden numbing of the senses, a kind of hideous hypnotism upon him by the idea of death. It lasted the better part of an hour. Then, alone in his cell, he hurled himself against the walls, screaming, or cowered upon the stone floor, pooling it with tears, sobbing horribly with his whole body, going now and again into convulsions of nausea. These actions were attributed by his guard to demoniacal rage, but not to fear. He thus fought blindly against the unfightable until about four in the afternoon, when exhaustion once more put a quietus upon him. It was then that his mother, having taken counsel at last with her patriot soul, visited him.

She had succeeded, not without difficulty, in gaining permission. It was not every mother who could manage a last interview with a condemned son.

But she had bribed the colonel. She had given him in silver the savings of a lifetime.

The old woman sat down by her son and took his hand in hers. Then the door of the cell was closed upon them and locked. Manuel turned and collapsed against his mother's breast.

"It's all right, Manuel," she said in her quiet, cheerful voice. "I've seen the colonel."

Manuel looked up quickly, a glint of hope in his rodent eyes.

"What do you mean?" he said. His voice was hoa.r.s.e. His mother bit her lips, for the hoa.r.s.eness told her that her son had been screaming with fear. In that moment she almost hated him. But she controlled herself.

She looked at him sidewise.

"The colonel tells me that you have offered to serve Spain if he will give you your life?"

This was a shrewd guess. She waited for Manuel's answer, not even hoping that it would be in the negative. She knew him through and through.

"Well," he choked, "it wouldn't do."

"That's where you are wrong, my son," she said. "The colonel, on the contrary, believes he can make use of you. He is going to let you go free."

Manuel could not believe his ears, it seemed. He kept croaking "What?"

in his hoa.r.s.e voice, his face brightening with each reiteration.