Chapter 14. Farewell To Aureataland

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_ CHAPTER XIV. FAREWELL TO AUREATALAND

The night came on, fair and still, clear and star-lit; but there was no moon and, outside the immediate neighborhood of the main streets, the darkness was enough to favor our hope of escaping notice without being so intense as to embarrass our footsteps. Everything, in fact, seemed to be on our side, and I was full of buoyant confidence as I drank a last solitary glass to the success of our enterprise, put my revolver in my pocket, and, on the stroke of midnight, stole from my lodgings. I looked up toward the bank and dimly descried three or four motionless figures, whom I took to be sentries guarding the treasure. The street itself was almost deserted, but from where I stood I could see the Piazza crowded with a throng of people whose shouts and songs told me that the colonel's hospitality was being fully appreciated. There was dancing going on to the strains of the military band, and every sign showed that our good citizens intended, in familiar phrase, to make a night of it.

I walked swiftly and silently down to the jetty. Yes, the boat was all right! I looked to her fires, and left her moored by one rope ready to be launched into the calm black sea in an instant. Then I strolled along by the harbor side. Here I met a couple of sentries. Innocently I entered into conversation with them, condoling on their hard fate in being kept on duty while pleasure was at the helm in the Piazza. Gently deprecating such excess of caution, I pointed out to them the stationary lights of _The Songstress_ four or five miles out to sea, and with a respectful smile at the colonel's uneasiness, left the seed I had sown to grow in prepared soil. I dared do no more, and had to trust for the rest to their natural inclination to the neglect of duty.

When I got back to the bottom of Liberty Street, I ensconced myself in the shelter of a little group of trees which stood at one side of the roadway. Just across the road, which ran at right angles to the street, the wood began, and a quarter of an hour's walk through its shades would bring us to the jetty where the boat lay. My trees made a perfect screen, and here I stood awaiting events. For some time nothing was audible but an ever-increasing tumult of joviality from the Piazza. But after about twenty minutes I awoke to the fact that a constant dribble of men, singly or in pairs, had begun to flow past me from the Piazza, down Liberty Street, across the road behind me, and into the wood. Some were in uniform, others dressed in common clothes; one or two I recognized as members of Johnny Carr's missing band. The strong contrast between the prevailing revelry and the stealthy, cautious air of these passers-by would alone have suggested that they were bent on business; putting two and two together I had not the least doubt that they were the President's adherents making their way down to the water's edge to receive their chief. So he was coming; the letter had done its work! Some fifty or more must have come and gone before the stream ceased, and I reflected, with great satisfaction, that the colonel was likely to have his hands very full in the next hour or two.

Half an hour or so passed uneventfully; the bonfire still blazed; the songs and dancing were still in full swing. I was close upon the fearful hour of two, when, looking from my hiding-place, I saw a slight figure in black coming quickly and fearfully along the road.

I recognized the signorina at once, as I should recognize her any day among a thousand; and, as she paused nearly opposite where I was, I gently called her name and showed myself for a moment. She ran to me at once.

"Is it all right?" she asked breathlessly.

"We shall see in a moment," said I. "The attack is coming off; it will begin directly."

But the attack was not the next thing we saw. We had both retreated again to the friendly shadow whence we could see without being seen. Hardly had we settled ourselves than the signorina whispered to me, pointing across the road to the wood:

"What's that, Jack?"

I followed the line of her finger and made out a row of figures standing motionless and still on the very edge of the wood. It was too dark to distinguish individuals; but, even as we looked, the silent air wafted to our eager ears a low-voiced word of command:

"Mind, not a sound till I give the word."

"The President!" exclaimed the signorina, in a loud whisper.

"Hush, or he'll hear," said I, "and we're done."

Clearly nothing would happen from that quarter till it was called forth by events in the opposite direction. The signorina was strongly agitated; she clung to me closely, and I saw with alarm that the very proximity of the man she stood in such awe of was too much for her composure. When I had soothed, and I fear half-frightened, her into stillness, I again turned my eyes toward the Piazza. The fire had at last flickered out and the revels seemed on the wane. Suddenly a body of men appeared in close order, marching down the street toward the bank. We stood perhaps a hundred yards from that building, which was, in its turn, about two hundred from the Piazza. Steadily they came along; no sound reached us from the wood.

"This is getting interesting," I said. "There'll be trouble soon."

As near as I could see, the colonel's band, for such it was, no doubt, did not number more than five-and-twenty at the outside. Now they were at the bank. I could hardly see what happened, but there seemed to be a moment's pause; probably someone had knocked and they were waiting. A second later a loud shout rang through the street and I saw a group of figures crowding round the door and pushing a way into my poor bank.

"The gods preserve Jones!" I whispered. "I hope the old fool won't try to stop them."

As I spoke, I heard a short, sharp order from behind, "Now! Charge!"

As the word was given another body of fifty or more rushed by us full tilt, and at their head we saw the President, sword in hand, running like a young man and beckoning his men on. Up the street they swept. Involuntarily we waited a moment to watch them. Just as they came near the bank they sent up a shout:

"The President! the President! Death to traitors!"

Then there was a volley, and they closed round the building.

"Now for our turn, Christina," said I.

She grasped my arm tightly, and we sped across the road and into the wood. It seemed darker than when I came through before, or perhaps my eyes were dazzled by the glare of the street lamps. But still we got along pretty well, I helping my companion with all my power.

"Can we do it?" she gasped.

"Please God," said I; "a clear quarter of an hour will do it, and they ought to take that to finish off the colonel." For I had little doubt of the issue of that _melee_.

On we sped, and already we could see the twinkle of the waves through the thinning trees. Five hundred yards more, and there lay life and liberty and love!

Well, of course, I might have known. Everything had gone so smoothly up to now, that any student of the laws of chance could have foretold that fortune was only delaying the inevitable slap in the face. A plan that seemed wild and risky had proved in the result as effectual as the wisest scheme. By a natural principle of compensation, the simplest obstacle was to bring us to grief. "There's many a slip," says the proverb. Very likely! One was enough for our business. For just as we neared the edge of the wood, just as our eyes were gladdened by the full sight of the sea across the intervening patch of bare land, the signorina gave a cry of pain and, in spite of my arm, fell heavily to the ground. In a moment I was on my knees by her side. An old root growing out of the ground! That was all! And there lay my dear girl white and still.

"What is it, sweet?" I whispered.

"My ankle!" she murmured; "O Jack, it hurts so!" and with that she fainted.

Half an hour--thirty mortal (but seemingly immortal) minutes I knelt by her side ministering to her. I bound up the poor foot, gave her brandy from my flask. I fanned her face with my handkerchief. In a few minutes she came to, but only, poor child, to sob with her bitter pain. Move she could not, and would not. Again and again she entreated me to go and leave her. At last I persuaded her to try and bear the agony of being carried in my arms the rest of the way. I raised her as gently as I could, wrung to the heart by her gallantly stifled groan, and slowly and painfully I made my way, thus burdened, to the edge of the wood. There were no sentries in sight, and with a new spasm of hope I crossed the open land and neared the little wicket gate that led to the jetty. A sharp turn came just before we reached it, and, as I rounded this with the signorina lying yet in my arms, I saw a horse and a man standing by the gate. The horse was flecked with foam and had been ridden furiously. The man was calm and cool. Of course he was! It was the President!

My hands were full with my burden, and before I could do anything, I saw the muzzle of his revolver pointed full--At me? Oh, no! At the signorina!

"If you move a step I shoot her through the heart, Martin," he said, in the quietest voice imaginable.

The signorina looked up as she heard his voice.

"Put me down, Jack! It's no use," she said; "I knew how it would be."

I did not put her down, but I stood there helpless, rooted to the ground.

"What's the matter with her?" he said.

"Fell and sprained her ankle," I replied.

"Come, Martin," said he, "it's no go, and you know it. A near thing; but you've just lost."

"Are you going to stop us?" I said.

"Of course I am," said he.

"Let me put her down, and we'll have a fair fight."

He shook his head.

"All very well for young men," he said. "At my age, if a man holds trumps he keeps them."

"How long have you been here?"

"About two minutes. When I didn't see you at the bank I thought something was up, so I galloped on to her house. No one there! So I came on here. A good shot, eh?"

The fall had done it. But for that we should have been safe.

"Well?" he said.

In the bitterness of my heart I could hardly speak. But I was not going to play either the cur or the fool, so I said:

"Your trick, sir, and therefore your lead! I must do what you tell me."

"Honor bright, Martin?"

"Yes," said I; "I give you my word. Take the revolver if you like," and I nodded my head to the pocket where it lay.

"No," he said, "I trust you."

"I bar a rescue," said I.

"There will be no rescue," said he grimly.

"If the colonel comes--"

"The colonel won't come," he said. "Whose house is that?"

It was my boatman's.

"Bring her there. Poor child, she suffers!"

We knocked up the boatman, who thus did not get his night's rest after all. His astonishment may be imagined.

"Have you a bed?" said the President.

"Yes," he stammered, recognizing his interlocutor.

"Then carry her up, Martin; and you, send your wife to her."

I took her up, and laid her gently on the bed. The President followed me. Then we went downstairs again into the little parlor.

"Let us have a talk," he said; and he added to the man, "Give us some brandy, quick, and then go."

He was obeyed, and we were left alone with the dim light of a single candle.

The President sat down and began to smoke. He offered me a cigar and I took it, but he said nothing. I was surprised at his leisurely, abstracted air. Apparently he had nothing in the world to do but sit and keep me company.

"If your Excellency," said I, instinctively giving him his old title, "has business elsewhere you can leave me safely. I shall not break my word."

"I know that--I know that," he answered. "But I'd rather stay here; I want to have a talk."

"But aren't there some things to settle up in the town?"

"The doctor's doing all that," he said. "You see, there's no danger now. There's no one left to lead them against me."

"Then the colonel is--"

"Yes," he said gravely, "he is dead. I shot him."

"In the attack?"

"Not exactly; the fighting was over. A very short affair, Martin. They never had a chance; and as soon as two or three had fallen and the rest saw me, they threw up the sponge."

"And the colonel?"

"He fought well. He killed two of my fellows; then a lot of them flung themselves on him and disarmed him."

"And you killed him in cold blood?"

The President smiled slightly.

"Six men fell in that affair--five besides the colonel. Does it strike you that you, in fact, killed the five to enable you to run away with the girl you loved?"

It hadn't struck me in that light, but it was quite irrelevant.

"But for your scheme I should have come back without a blow," he continued; "but then I should have shot McGregor just the same."

"Because he led the revolt?"

"Because," said the President, "he has been a traitor from the beginning even to the end--because he tried to rob me of all I held dear in the world. If you like," he added, with a shrug, "because he stood between me and my will. So I went up to him and told him his hour was come, and I shot him through the head. He died like a man, Martin; I will say that."

I could not pretend to regret the dead man. Indeed, I had been near doing the same deed myself. But I shrank before this calm ruthlessness.

Another long pause followed. Then the President said:

"I am sorry for all this, Martin--sorry you and I came to blows."

"You played me false about the money," I said bitterly.

"Yes, yes," he answered gently; "I don't blame you. You were bound to me by no ties. Of course you saw my plan?"

"I supposed your Excellency meant to keep the money and throw me over."

"Not altogether," he said. "Of course I was bound to have the money. But it was the other thing, you know. As far as the money went I would have taken care you came to no harm."

"What was it, then?"

"I thought you understood all along," he said, with some surprise. "I saw you were my rival with Christina, and my game was to drive you out of the country by making the place too hot for you."

"She told me you didn't suspect about me and her till quite the end."

"Did she?" he answered, with a smile. "I must be getting clever to deceive two such wide-awake, young people. Of course I saw it all along. But you had more grit than I thought. I've never been so nearly done by any man as by you."

"But for luck you would have been," said I.

"Yes, but I count luck as one of my resources," he replied.

"Well, what are you going to do now?"

He took no notice, but went on.

"You played too high. It was all or nothing with you, just as it is with me. But for that we could have stood together. I'm sorry, Martin; I like you, you know."

For the life of me I had never been able to help liking him.

"But likings mustn't interfere with duty," he went on, smiling. "What claim have you at my hands?"

"Decent burial, I suppose," I answered.

He got up and paced the room for a moment or two. I waited with some anxiety, for life is worth something to a young man, even when things look blackest, and I never was a hero.

"I make you this offer," he said at last. "Your boat lies there, ready. Get into her and go, otherwise--"

"I see," said I. "And you will marry her?"

"Yes," he said.

"Against her will?"

He looked at me with something like pity.

"Who can tell what a woman's will will be in a week? In less than that she will marry me cheerfully. I hope you may grieve as short a time as she will."

In my inmost heart I knew it was true. I had staked everything, not for a woman's love, but for the whim of a girl! For a moment it was too hard for me, and I bowed my head on the table by me and hid my face.

Then he came and put his hand on mine, and said:

"Yes, Martin; young and old, we are all alike. They're not worth quarreling for. But Nature's too strong."

"May I see her before I go?" I asked.

"Yes," he said.

"Alone?"

"Yes," he said once more. "Go now--if she can see you."

I went up and cautiously opened the door. The signorina was lying on the bed, with a shawl over her. She seemed to be asleep. I bent over her and kissed her. She opened her eyes, and said, in a weary voice:

"Is it you, Jack?"

"Yes, my darling," said I. "I am going. I must go or die; and whether I go or die, I must be alone."

She was strangely quiet--even apathetic. As I knelt down by her she raised herself, and took my face between her hands and kissed me--not passionately, but tenderly.

"My poor Jack!" she said; "it was no use, dear. It is no use to fight against him."

Here was her strange subjection to that influence again.

"You love me?" I cried, in my pain.

"Yes," she said, "but I am very tired; and he will be good to me."

Without another word I went from her, with the bitter knowledge that my great grief found but a pale reflection in her heart.

"I am ready to go," I said to the President.

"Come, then," he replied. "Here, take these, you may want them," and he thrust a bundle of notes into my hand (some of my own from the bank I afterward discovered).

Arrived at the boat, I got in mechanically and made all preparations for the start.

Then the President took my hand.

"Good-by, Jack Martin, and good luck. Some day we may meet again. Just now there's no room for us both here. You bear no malice?"

"No, sir," said I. "A fair fight, and you've won."

As I was pushing off, he added:

"When you arrive, send me word."

I nodded silently.

"Good-by, and good luck," he said again.

I turned the boat's head put to sea, and went forth on my lonely way into the night. _

Read next: Chapter 15. A Diplomatic Arrangement

Read previous: Chapter 13. I Work Upon Human Nature

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