________________________________________________
_ Clay reached the President's Palace during the supper-hour, and
found Mr. Langham and his daughter at the President's table.
Madame Alvarez pointed to a place for him beside Alice Langham,
who held up her hand in welcome. ``You were very foolish to rush
off like that,'' she said.
``It wasn't there,'' said Clay, crowding into the place beside
her.
``No, it was here in the carriage all the time. Captain Stuart
found it for me.''
``Oh, he did, did he?'' said Clay; ``that's why I couldn't find
it. I am hungry,'' he laughed, ``my ride gave me an appetite.''
He looked over and grinned at Stuart, but that gentleman was
staring fixedly at the candles on the table before him, his eyes
filled with concern. Clay observed that Madame Alvarez was
covertly watching the young officer, and frowning her disapproval
at his preoccupation. So he stretched his leg under the table
and kicked viciously at Stuart's boots. Old General Rojas, the
Vice-President, who sat next to Stuart, moved suddenly and then
blinked violently at the ceiling with an expression of
patient suffering, but the exclamation which had escaped him
brought Stuart back to the present, and he talked with the woman
next him in a perfunctory manner.
Miss Langham and her father were waiting for their carriage in
the great hall of the Palace as Stuart came up to Clay, and
putting his hand affectionately on his shoulder, began pointing
to something farther back in the hall. To the night-birds of the
streets and the noisy fiacre drivers outside, and to the crowd of
guests who stood on the high marble steps waiting for their turn
to depart, he might have been relating an amusing anecdote of the
ball just over.
``I'm in great trouble, old man,'' was what he said. ``I must
see you alone to-night. I'd ask you to my rooms, but they watch
me all the time, and I don't want them to suspect you are in this
until they must. Go on in the carriage, but get out as you pass
the Plaza Bolivar and wait for me by the statue there.''
Clay smiled, apparently in great amusement. ``That's very
good,'' he said.
He crossed over to where King stood surveying the powdered
beauties of Olancho and their gowns of a past fashion, with an
intensity of admiration which would have been suspicious to those
who knew his tastes. ``When we get into the carriage,''
said Clay, in a low voice, ``we will both call to Stuart that we
will see him to-morrow morning at breakfast.''
``All right,'' assented King. ``What's up?''
Stuart helped Miss Langham into her carriage, and as it moved
away King shouted to him in English to remember that he was
breakfasting with him on the morrow, and Clay called out in
Spanish, ``Until to-morrow at breakfast, don't forget.'' And
Stuart answered, steadily, ``Good night until to-morrow at one.''
As their carriage jolted through the dark and narrow street,
empty now of all noise or movement, one of Stuart's troopers
dashed by it at a gallop, with a lighted lantern swinging at his
side. He raised it as he passed each street crossing, and held
it high above his head so that its light fell upon the walls of
the houses at the four corners. The clatter of his horse's hoofs
had not ceased before another trooper galloped toward them riding
more slowly, and throwing the light of his lantern over the
trunks of the trees that lined the pavements. As the carriage
passed him, he brought his horse to its side with a jerk of the
bridle, and swung his lantern in the faces of its occupants.
``Who lives?'' he challenged.
``Olancho,'' Clay replied.
``Who answers?''
``Free men,'' Clay answered again, and pointed at the star on his
coat.
The soldier muttered an apology, and striking his heels into his
horse's side, dashed noisily away, his lantern tossing from side
to side, high in the air, as he drew rein to scan each tree and
passed from one lamp-post to the next.
``What does that mean?'' said Mr. Langham; ``did he take us for
highwaymen?''
``It is the custom,'' said Clay. ``We are out rather late, you
see.''
``If I remember rightly, Clay,'' said King, ``they gave a ball at
Brussels on the eve of Waterloo.''
``I believe they did,'' said Clay, smiling. He spoke to the
driver to stop the carriage, and stepped down into the street.
``I have to leave you here,'' he said; ``drive on quickly,
please; I can explain better in the morning.''
The Plaza Bolivar stood in what had once been the centre of the
fashionable life of Olancho, but the town had moved farther up
the hill, and it was now far in the suburbs, its walks neglected
and its turf overrun with weeds. The houses about it had fallen
into disuse, and the few that were still occupied at the time
Clay entered it showed no sign of life. Clay picked his way
over the grass-grown paths to the statue of Bolivar, the
hero of the sister republic of Venezuela, which still stood on
its pedestal in a tangle of underbrush and hanging vines. The
iron railing that had once surrounded it was broken down, and the
branches of the trees near were black with sleeping buzzards.
Two great palms reared themselves in the moonlight at either
side, and beat their leaves together in the night wind,
whispering and murmuring together like two living conspirators.
``This ought to be safe enough,'' Clay murmured to himself.
``It's just the place for plotting. I hope there are no
snakes.'' He seated himself on the steps of the pedestal, and
lighting a cigar, remained smoking and peering into the shadows
about him, until a shadow blacker than the darkness rose at his
feet, and a voice said, sternly, ``Put out that light. I saw it
half a mile away.''
Clay rose and crushed his cigar under his foot. ``Now then, old
man,'' he demanded briskly, ``what's up? It's nearly daylight
and we must hurry.''
Stuart seated himself heavily on the stone steps, like a man
tired in mind and body, and unfolded a printed piece of paper.
Its blank side was damp and sticky with paste.
``It is too dark for you to see this,'' he began, in a
strained voice, ``so I will translate it to you. It is an attack
on Madame Alvarez and myself. They put them up during the ball,
when they knew my men would be at the Palace. I have had them
scouring the streets for the last two hours tearing them down,
but they are all over the place, in the cafe's and clubs. They
have done what they were meant to do.''
Clay took another cigar from his pocket and rolled it between his
lips. ``What does it say?'' he asked.
``It goes over the old ground first. It says Alvarez has given
the richest birthright of his country to aliens--that means the
mines and Langham--and has put an alien in command of the army--
that is meant for me. I've no more to do with the army than you
have--I only wish I had! And then it says that the boundary
aggressions of Ecuador and Venezuela have not been resented in
consequence. It asks what can be expected of a President who is
as blind to the dishonor of his country as he is to the dishonor
of his own home?''
Clay muttered under his breath, ``Well, go on. Is it explicit?
More explicit than that?''
``Yes,'' said Stuart, grimly. ``I can't repeat it. It is quite
clear what they mean.''
``Have you got any of them?'' Clay asked. Can you fix it on
some one that you can fight?''
``Mendoza did it, of course,'' Stuart answered, ``but we cannot
prove it. And if we could, we are not strong enough to take him.
He has the city full of his men now, and the troops are pouring
in every hour.''
``Well, Alvarez can stop that, can't he?''
``They are coming in for the annual review. He can't show the
people that he is afraid of his own army.''
``What are you going to do?''
``What am I going to do?'' Stuart repeated, dully. ``That is
what I want you to tell me. There is nothing I can do now. I've
brought trouble and insult on people who have been kinder to me
than my own blood have been. Who took me in when I was naked and
clothed me, when I hadn't a friend or a sixpence to my name. You
remember--I came here from that row in Colombia with my wound,
and I was down with the fever when they found me, and Alvarez
gave me the appointment. And this is how I reward them. If I
stay I do more harm. If I go away I leave them surrounded by
enemies, and not enemies who fight fair, but damned thieves and
scoundrels, who stab at women and who fight in the dark. I
wouldn't have had it happen, old man, for my right arm!
They--they have been so kind to me, and I have been so happy
here--and now!'' The boy bowed his face in his hands and sat
breathing brokenly while Clay turned his unlit cigar between his
teeth and peered at him curiously through the darkness. ``Now I
have made them both unhappy, and they hate me, and I hate myself,
and I have brought nothing but trouble to every one. First I
made my own people miserable, and now I make my best friends
miserable, and I had better be dead. I wish I were dead. I wish
I had never been born.''
Clay laid his hand on the other's bowed shoulder and shook him
gently. ``Don't talk like that,'' he said; ``it does no good.
Why do you hate yourself?''
``What?'' asked Stuart, wearily, without looking up. ``What did
you say?''
``You said you had made them hate you, and you added that you
hated yourself. Well, I can see why they naturally would be
angry for the time, at least. But why do you hate yourself?
Have you reason to?''
``I don't understand,'' said Stuart.
``Well, I can't make it any plainer,'' Clay replied. ``It isn't
a question I will ask. But you say you want my advice. Well, my
advice to my friend and to a man who is not my friend, differ.
And in this case it depends on whether what that thing--''
Clay kicked the paper which had fallen on the ground--``what that
thing says is true.''
The younger man looked at the paper below him and then back at
Clay, and sprang to his feet.
``Why, damn you,'' he cried, ``what do you mean?''
He stood above Clay with both arms rigid at his side and his head
bent forward. The dawn had just broken, and the two men saw each
other in the ghastly gray light of the morning. ``If any man,''
cried Stuart thickly, ``dares to say that that blackguardly lie
is true I'll kill him. You or any one else. Is that what you
mean, damn you? If it is, say so, and I'll break every bone of
your body.''
``Well, that's much better,'' growled Clay, sullenly. ``The way
you went on wishing you were dead and hating yourself made me
almost lose faith in mankind. Now you go make that speech to the
President, and then find the man who put up those placards, and
if you can't find the right man, take any man you meet and make
him eat it, paste and all, and beat him to death if he doesn't.
Why, this is no time to whimper--because the world is full of
liars. Go out and fight them and show them you are not afraid.
Confound you, you had me so scared there that I almost thrashed
you myself. Forgive me, won't you?'' he begged earnestly.
He rose and held out his hand and the other took it, doubtfully.
``It was your own fault, you young idiot,'' protested Clay.
``You told your story the wrong way. Now go home and get some
sleep and I'll be back in a few hours to help you. Look!'' he
said. He pointed through the trees to the sun that shot up like
a red hot disk of heat above the cool green of the mountains.
``See,'' said Clay, ``God has given us another day. Seven
battles were fought in seven days once in my country. Let's be
thankful, old man, that we're NOT dead, but alive to fight our
own and other people's battles.''
The younger man sighed and pressed Clay's hand again before he
dropped it.
``You are very good to me,'' he said. ``I'm not just quite
myself this morning. I'm a bit nervous, I think. You'll surely
come, won't you?''
``By noon,'' Clay promised. ``And if it does come,'' he added,
``don't forget my fifteen hundred men at the mines.''
``Good! I won't,'' Stuart replied. ``I'll call on you if I need
them.'' He raised his fingers mechanically to his helmet in
salute, and catching up his sword turned and strode away erect
and soldierly through the debris and weeds of the deserted plaza.
Clay remained motionless on the steps of the pedestal and
followed the younger man with his eyes. He drew a long breath
and began a leisurely search through his pockets for his match-
box, gazing about him as he did so, as though looking for some
one to whom he could speak his feelings. He lifted his eyes to
the stern, smooth-shaven face of the bronze statue above him that
seemed to be watching Stuart's departing figure.
``General Bolivar,'' Clay said, as he lit his cigar, ``observe
that young man. He is a soldier and a gallant gentleman. You,
sir, were a great soldier--the greatest this God-forsaken country
will ever know--and you were, sir, an ardent lover. I ask you to
salute that young man as I do, and to wish him well.'' Clay
lifted his high hat to the back of the young officer as it was
hidden in the hanging vines, and once again, with grave respect
to the grim features of the great general above him, and then
smiling at his own conceit, he ran lightly down the steps and
disappeared among the trees of the plaza. _
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