The White Mice/Chapter 5
V
“I CAN be quite as foolish as you,” Inez repeated as Roddy continued to regard her. “Some day, when this is over, when you have made it all come right, we will sit out here and pretend that we have escaped from Venezuela, that we are up North in my mother’s country—in your country. We will play these are the rocks at York Harbor, and we’ll be quite young and quite happy. Have you ever sat on the rocks at York Harbor,” she demanded eagerly, “when the spray splashed you, and the waves tried to catch your feet?”
Roddy was regarding her in open suspicion. He retreated warily.
“York Harbor!” he murmured. “I discovered it! It is named after me. But you! I never imagined you’d been there, and I never imagined you could be anything but serious, either. It makes you quite dangerous.”
“Dangerous?” murmured the girl.
“One is dangerous,” said Roddy, “when one is completely charming.”
The girl frowned, and her shoulders moved slightly. “You speak,” she said, “like a Venezuelan.”
But Roddy was in no mood to accept reproof.
“I told you,” he said, “I admire the fools who rush in where angels fear to tread. There is another man I admire equally, ‘the man who runs away.’ It takes great courage to run away. I must do it now.”
He retreated from her. His eyes were filled with a sudden, deep delight in her, and a growing wonder. The girl regarded him steadily.
“Come here,” she commanded, “and say ‘Good-by’ to me.”
Roddy took the slim, gauntleted hand stretched out to him, and for an instant the girl held his hand firmly, and then nodded. The smile this time was very near to tears.
“What you are going to do,” she said, “is the dangerous thing. You don’t know how dangerous. If I should not see you again”
Roddy looked down into her eyes, and laughed from utter happiness.
“You will see me again,” he said.
His tone gave to the words a meaning which the girl entirely disregarded.
“You will remember,” she went on, as though he had not spoken, “that we—that I am grateful.”
Roddy turned and smiled out at the sunlit sea.
“You have given me,” he answered, “other things to remember.”
He pulled off his sombrero and took the gauntleted hand in both of his. He bowed over it and brushed it with his lips. The girl still regarded him steadily, questioningly.
“Good-by,” faltered Roddy.
His eyes sought hers wistfully, appealingly, with all that he felt showing in them. But her own told him nothing. Roddy released her hand with an effort, as though it were bound to his with manacles.
“Now I know,” he said gently, “why I came to Venezuela.”
The girl made no answer, and silently Roddy mounted and rode away. When he had reached the place where the rocks would hide her from sight he glanced back. He saw Inez standing beside her pony, leaning with her arms across the saddle, looking after him. Then, as he waved his hand, she raised hers with a gesture that seemed to Roddy partly a farewell, partly a benediction.
The stable at which Roddy had told Pedro he would leave the pony was far in the suburbs, and by the time he had walked to Willemstad the morning was well advanced.
“Now I know why I came to Venezuela!”
As he approached the quay he recognized that in his absence some event of unusual interest had claimed the attention of the people. Everywhere men were gathered in little groups, gesticulating, laughing, frowning importantly, and at the hotel Roddy was surprised to see, on the balcony leading from his room, Peter and the American Consul. The sight of him apparently afforded them great satisfaction, and they waved and beckoned to him frantically. Ignoring their last meeting, the Consul greeted Roddy as though he were an old friend.
“Have you heard the news?” he demanded. “It is of great local interest, and it should interest you. Last night,” he explained, “President Alvarez declared an amnesty for his political opponents living in foreign countries. All exiles may now return to their homes.”
He pointed at the small passenger steamer lying at the quay directly below the window. The Blue Peter was at the fore, and her deck was crowded with excited, jubilant Venezuelans.
“You see,” explained Captain Codman, “they have lost no time.”
In a tone that precluded the possibility of discussion, Peter briskly added: “And we are going with them. I have packed your bag and paid the bill. We sail in an hour.”
The news of the amnesty bewildered Roddy. The wonderful possibilities it so suddenly presented thrilled him. They were so important that with difficulty he made his voice appear only politely interested.
“And Señora Rojas?” he asked.
“I regret to say,” answered Captain Codman, “she decides to take advantage of the amnesty. As soon as she can arrange her affairs here she will return to Miramar, her home in Porto Cabello.”
To Miramar! Roddy turned suddenly to the window, and with unseeing eyes stared at the busy harbor. By sight he knew the former home of the Rojas family. In his walks he had often passed before its yellow-pillared front and windows barred with intricate screens of wrought iron. Through the great gates that had hung before Miramar since it had been the palace of the Spanish Governor-General, and through which four horses could pass abreast, he had peered at the beautiful gardens. He had wondered at the moss-covered statues, at the orchids on the flamboyant trees, with their flowers of scarlet, at the rare plants, now neglected and trailing riotously across the paths, choked with unkempt weeds. Not an hour before, when he had parted from Inez, he had determined to make sentimental journeys to that same house. For she had walked in those gardens, it was through those gates she had swept in her carriage to take the air in the Plaza; at night, when she slept, some high-ceilinged, iron-barred room of that house had sheltered her. He had pictured himself prowling outside the empty mansion and uncared-for garden, thinking of the exile, keeping vigil in the shadow of her home, freshly resolving to win back her father to health and freedom.
And now, by a scratch of the pen, the best that could happen had come to him. The house would waken to life. Instead of only the fragrance clinging to the vase, the rose itself would bloom again. Again Inez would walk under the arch of royal palms, would drive in the Alameda, would kneel at Mass in the cool, dark church, while, hidden in the shadows, he could stand and watch her. And though, if he hoped to save her father, stealth and subterfuge would still be necessary, he could see her, perhaps, speak to her; at least by the faithful Pedro he could send her written words, flowers, foolish gifts, that were worth only the meaning they carried with them.
Feeling very much of a hypocrite, Roddy exclaimed fervently:
“How wonderful for Señora Rojas! To be near him again! Is she happy? Does it make it easier for her?”
With a disturbed countenance the Consul nodded gravely.
“Yes,” he answered, “she welcomed the change. She believes it means for her husband better conditions. She hopes even for his pardon; but—” The Consul shook his head impatiently, and with pitying eyes looked down upon the excited men on the steamer below them.
“But what?” demanded Roddy.
“I suspect every act of Alvarez,” the Consul explained. “This looks like the act of a generous opponent. But I cannot believe it is that. I believe he knows all that is being plotted against him. I believe this act of amnesty is only a device to put the plotters where he can get his hand on them. He is the spider inviting the flies into his parlor.”
As the little steamer passed the harbor mouth and pushed her nose toward Porto Cabello, Roddy, with Peter at his side, leaned upon the starboard rail. Roddy had assured Inez that Peter must be given their full confidence, and he now only waited a fitting moment to tell him of what had occurred that morning, in so far, at least, as it referred to the tunnel.
The eyes of both were turned toward Casa Blanca, now rapidly retreating from them. And, as they watched it, the mind of each occupied with thoughts of its inmates, they saw a white figure leave the house, and, moving slowly, halt at the edge of the cliff.
Roddy, his eyes straining toward the coast-line, took off his hat and stood with it clasped in his hands. Peter saw the movement, and to hide a smile of sympathy, looked down at the white foam rushing below them.
“Roddy,” he asked, “what sort of a girl is Inez Rojas?”
His eyes still seeking the figure on the rocks, and without turning his head, Roddy answered with startling directness:
“What sort of a girl?” he growled. “The sort of a girl I am going to marry!”
More moved than he knew, and thinking himself secure in the excited babel about him and in the fact that the others spoke in Spanish, Roddy had raised his voice. He was not conscious he had done so until, as he spoke, he saw a man leaning on the rail with his back toward him, give an involuntary start. Furious with himself, Roddy bit his lip, and with impatience waited for the man to disclose himself. For a moment the stranger remained motionless, and then, obviously to find out who had spoken, slowly turned his head. Roddy found himself looking into the glowing, angry eyes of Pino Vega. Of the two men, Roddy was the first to recover. With eagerness he greeted the Venezuelan; with enthusiasm he expressed his pleasure at finding him among his fellow-passengers, he rejoiced that Colonel Vega no longer was an exile. The Venezuelan, who had approached trembling with resentment, sulkily murmured his thanks. With a hope that sounded more like a threat that they would soon meet again, he begged to be allowed to rejoin his friends.
“Now you’ve done it!” whispered Peter cheerily. “And he won’t let it rest there, either.”
“Don’t you suppose I know that better than you do,” returned Roddy miserably. He beat the rail with his fist. “It should not have happened in a thousand years,” he wailed. “He must not know I have ever even seen her.”
“He does know,” objected Peter, coming briskly to the point. “What are you going to do?”
“Lie to him,” said Roddy. “He is an old friend of the family. She told me so herself. She thought even of appealing to him before she appealed to us. If he finds out I have met her alone at daybreak, I have either got to tell him why we met and what we are trying to do, or he’ll believe, in his nasty, suspicious, Spanish-American way, that I am in love with her, and that she came there to let me tell her so.”
Roddy turned on Peter savagely.
“Why didn’t you stop me?” he cried.
“Stop you—talking too much?” gasped Peter. “Is that my position? If it is, I resign.”
The moon that night threw black shadows of shrouds, and ratlines across a deck that was washed by its radiance as white as a bread-board. In the social hall, the happy exiles were rejoicing noisily, but Roddy stood apart, far forward, looking over the ship’s side and considering bitterly the mistake of the morning. His melancholy self-upbraidings were interrupted by a light, alert step, and Pino Vega, now at ease, gracious and on guard, stood bowing before him.
“I do not intrude?” he asked.
Roddy, at once equally on guard, bade him welcome.
“I have sought you out,” said the Venezuelan pleasantly, “because I would desire a little talk with you. I believe we have friends in common.”
“It is possible,” said Roddy. “I have been in Porto Cabello about four months now.”
“It was not of Porto Cabello that I spoke,” continued Vega, “but of Curaçao.” He looked into Roddy’s eyes suddenly and warily, as a swordsman holds the eyes of his opponent. “I did not understand,” he said, “that you knew the Rojas family?”
“I do not know them,” answered Roddy.
Vega turned his back to the moon, so that his face was in shadow. With an impatient gesture he flicked his cigarette into the sea. As though he found Roddy’s answer unsatisfactory, he paused. He appeared to wish that Roddy should have a chance to reconsider it. As the American remained silent, Vega continued, but his tone now was openly hostile.
“I have been Chief of Staff to General Rojas for years,” he said. “I have the honor to know his family well. Señora Rojas treats me as she did her son, who was my dearest friend. I tell you this to explain why I speak of a matter which you may think does not concern me. This morning, entirely against my will, I overheard you speaking to your friend. He asked you of a certain lady. You answered boldly you intended to marry her.” Vega’s voice shook slightly, and he paused to control it. “Now, you inform me that you are not acquainted with the Rojas family. What am I to believe?”
“I am glad you spoke of that,” said Roddy heartily. “I saw that you overheard us, and I was afraid you’d misunderstand me”
The Venezuelan interrupted sharply.
“I am well acquainted with your language!”
“You speak it perfectly,” Roddy returned, “but you did not understand it as I spoke it. The young lady is well known in Willemstad. Our Consul, as you are aware, is her friend. He admires her greatly. He told me that she is half American. She has been educated like an American girl, she rides, she plays tennis. What my friend said to me was, ‘What sort of a girl is Señorita Rojas?’ and I answered, ‘She is the sort of girl I am going to marry,’ meaning she is like the girls in my own country, one of our own people, like one of the women I some day hope to marry.”
Roddy smiled and shrugged his shoulders.
“Now do you understand?” he asked.
The Venezuelan gave no answering smile. His eyes shone with suspicion. Roddy recognized that between his desire to believe and some fact that kept him from believing, the man was acutely suffering.
“Tell me, in a word,” demanded Vega sharply, “give me your word you do not know her.”
“I don’t see,” said Roddy, “that this is any of your damned business!”
The face of Vega checked him. At his refusal to answer, Roddy saw the look of jealousy that came into the man’s eyes and the torment it brought with it. He felt a sudden pity for him, a certain respect as for a fellow-sufferer. He himself had met Inez Rojas but twice, but, as he had told her, he knew now why he had come to Venezuela. This older man had known Inez for years, and to Roddy, arguing from his own state of mind regarding her, the fact was evidence enough that Vega must love her also. He began again, but now quietly, as he would argue with a child.
“I see no reason for making any mystery of it,” he said. “I did meet Miss Rojas. But I can’t say I know her. I met her when she was out riding with her groom. I thought she was an American. She needed some help, which I was able to give her. That is all.”
Vega approached Roddy, leaning forward as though he were about to spring on him. His eyes were close to Roddy’s face.
“And what was the nature of this help?” he demanded.
“You are impertinent,” said Roddy.
“Answer me!” cried the Venezuelan. “I have the right. No one has a better right.”
He flung up his right arm dramatically, and held it tense and trembling, as though it were poised to hurl a weapon.
“You were watched!” he cried hysterically. “I know that you met. And you tried to deceive me. Both of you. She will try, also”
The moonlight disappeared before the eyes of Colonel Vega, and when again he opened them he was looking dizzily up at the swaying masts and yards. Roddy, with his hand at Vega’s throat, was forcing his shoulders back against the rail. His free hand, rigid and heavy as a hammer, swung above the Venezuelan’s face.
“Yesterday,” panted Roddy, “I saved your life. If you insult that girl with your dirty, Latin mind, so help me—I will take it!”
He flung the man from him, but Vega, choking with pain and mortification, staggered forward.
“It is you who insult her,” he shrieked. “It is I who protect her. Do you know why? Do you know what she is to me? She is my promised wife!”
For a moment the two men stood, swaying with the gentle roll of the ship, staring into each other’s eyes. Above the sound of the wind in the cordage and the whisper of the water against the ship’s side, Roddy could hear himself breathing in slow, heavy respirations. Not for an instant did he doubt that the man told the truth. Vega had spoken with a conviction that was only too genuine, and his statement, while it could not justify, seemed to explain his recent, sudden hostility. With a sharp effort, Roddy recovered himself. He saw that no matter how deeply the announcement might affect him, Vega must believe that to the American it was a matter of no possible consequence.
“You should have told me this at first,” he said quietly. “I thought your questions were merely impertinent.”
Roddy hesitated. The interview had become poignantly distasteful to him. He wished to get away; to be alone. He was conscious that a possibility had passed out of his life, the thought of which had been very dear to him. He wanted to think, to plan against this new condition. In discussing Inez with this man, in this way, he felt he was degrading her and his regard for her. But he felt also that for her immediate protection he must find out what Vega knew and what he suspected. With the purpose of goading him into making some disclosure, Roddy continued insolently:
“And I still think they are impertinent.”
Roddy’s indignation rose and got the upper hand. He cast caution aside.
“With us,” he continued, “when a woman promises to marry a man—he does not spy on her.”
“We spied on you,” protested Vega. “We did not think it would lead us to”
Roddy cut him off with a sharp cry of warning.
“Be careful!” he challenged.
“You met in the road”
“So I told you,” returned Roddy.
“You dismounted and talked with her.”
Roddy laughed, and with a gesture of impatience motioned Vega to be silent.
“Is that all?” he demanded.
The Venezuelan saw the figure he presented. Back of him were hundreds of years of Spanish traditions, in his veins was the blood of generations of ancestors by nature suspicious, doubting, jealous. From their viewpoint he was within his rights; they applauded, they gave him countenance; but by the frank contempt of the young man before him his self-respect was being rudely handled. Not even to himself could he justify his attitude.
“In my country,” he protested, “according to our customs, it was enough.”
The answer satisfied and relieved Roddy. It told him all he wished to know. It was now evident that Vega’s agent had seen only the first meeting, that he was not aware that Inez followed after Roddy, or that the next morning by the seashore they had again met. The American brought the interview to an abrupt finish.
“I refuse,” said Roddy loftily, “to discuss this matter with you further. If the mother of Señorita Rojas wishes it, I shall be happy to answer any questions she may ask. I have done nothing that requires explanation or apology. I am responsible to no one. Good-night.”
“Wait!” commanded Vega. “You will find that here you cannot so easily avoid responsibilities. You have struck me. Well, we have other customs, which gentlemen”
“I am entirely at your service,” said Roddy. He made as magnificent a bow as though he himself had descended from a line of Spanish grandees. Vega’s eyes lit with pleasure. He was now playing a part in which he felt assured he appeared to advantage. He almost was grateful to Roddy for permitting him to reëstablish himself in his own esteem.
“My friends shall wait upon you,” he said.
“Whenever you like,” Roddy answered. He started up the deck and returned again to Vega. “Understand me,” he whispered, “as long as I’m enjoying the hospitality of your country I accept the customs of your country. If you’d made such a proposition to me in New York I’d have laughed at you.” Roddy came close to Vega and emphasized his words with a pointed finger. “And understand this! We have quarrelled over politics. You made an offensive remark about Alvarez; I defended him and struck you. You now demand satisfaction. That is what happened. And if you drag the name of any woman into this I won’t give you satisfaction. I will give you a thrashing until you can’t stand or see.”
Roddy found Peter in the smoking-room, and beckoning him on deck, told him what he had done.
“You’re a nice White Mouse!” cried Peter indignantly. “You’re not supposed to go about killing people; you’re supposed to save lives.”
“No one is ever killed in a duel,” said Roddy; “I’ll fire in the air, and he will probably miss me. I certainly hope so. But there will be one good result. It will show Alvarez that I’m not a friend of Vega’s, nor helping him in his revolution.”
“You don’t have to shoot a man to show you’re not a friend of his,” protested Peter.
They were interrupted by the hasty approach of Vega’s chief advisers and nearest friends, General Pulido and Colonel Ramon.
“Pino seems in a hurry,” said Roddy. “I had no idea he was so bloodthirsty.”
“Colonel Vega,” began Pulido abruptly, “has just informed us of the unfortunate incident. We have come to tell you that no duel can take place. It is monstrous. The life of Colonel Vega does not belong to him, it belongs to the Cause. We will not permit him to risk it needlessly. You, of all people, should see that. You must apologize.”
The demand, and the peremptory tone in which it was delivered, caused the fighting blood of Roddy’s Irish grandfathers to bubble in his veins.
“‘Must’ and ‘apologize!’” protested Roddy, in icy tones; “Those are difficult words, gentlemen.”
“Consider,” cried Pulido, “what great events hang upon the life of Colonel Vega.”
“My own life is extremely interesting to me,” said Roddy. “But I have done nothing which needs apology.”
Colonel Ramon now interrupted anxiously.
“You risked your life for Pino. Why now do you wish to take it? Think of his importance to Venezuela, of the happiness he will bring his country, and think what his loss would mean to your own father.”
“My father!” exclaimed Roddy. “What has my father to do with this?”
The two Venezuelans looked at each other in bewilderment, and then back at Roddy sternly and suspiciously.
“Are you jesting?” demanded General Pulido.
“Never been more serious in my life,” said Roddy.
The two officers searched his face eagerly.
“It is as Pino says,” exclaimed Pulido, with sudden enlightenment. “He is telling the truth!”
“Of course I’m telling the truth!” cried Roddy fiercely. “Are you looking for a duel, too?”
“Tell him!” cried Pulido.
“But Mr. Forrester’s orders!” protested Colonel Ramon.
“He is more dangerous,” declared Pulido, “knowing nothing, than he would be if he understood.”
He cast a rapid glance about him. With a scowl, his eyes finally rested upon Peter.
“I’ll be within knockout distance if you want me,” said that young man to Roddy, and moved to the rail opposite.
When he had gone, Pulido bent eagerly forward.
“Do you not know,” he demanded, “what it is your father is doing in our country?”
Roddy burst forth impatiently, “No!” he protested. “And I seem to be the only man in the country who doesn’t.”
The two officers crowded close to him. In sepulchral tones, Pulido exclaimed dramatically. He spoke as though he were initiating Roddy into a secret order.
“Then understand,” he whispered, “that your father supports Pino Vega with five million bolivars; that Vega, whose life you are seeking, is the man your father means to make President of Venezuela. Now do you understand?”
For a long time Roddy remained silent. Then he exclaimed in tones of extreme exasperation:
“I understand,” he said, “that, if my father had given me his telephone number, he would have saved me a lot of trouble. No wonder everybody suspects me.”
“And now,” declared Pulido anxiously, “you are one of us!”
“I am nothing of the sort,” snapped Roddy. “If my father does not wish to tell me his plans I can’t take advantage of what I learn of them from strangers. I shall go on,” he continued with suspicious meekness, “with the work Father has sent me here to do. Who am I, that I should push myself into the politics of your great country?”
“And the duel?” demanded Pulido.
“I am sure,” hastily interjected Colonel Ramon, “if Colonel Vega withdraws his offensive remark about President Alvarez, Mr. Forrester will withdraw his blow.”
Roddy failed to see how a blow that had left a raw spot on the chin of Pino Vega could by mutual agreement be made to vanish. But if to the minds of the Spanish-Americans such a miracle were possible, it seemed ungracious not to consent to it.
“If I understand you,” asked Roddy, “Colonel Vega withdraws his offensive remark?”
The seconds of Pino Vega nodded vigorously.
“Then,” continued Roddy, “as there was no offensive remark, there could have been no blow, and there can be no duel.”
Roddy’s summing up delighted the Venezuelans, and declaring that the honor of all was satisfied, they bowed themselves away.
Next morning at daybreak the fortress of San Carlos rose upon the horizon, and by ten o’clock Roddy was again at work, threatening a gang of Jamaica coolies. But no longer he swore at them with his former wholeheartedness. His mind was occupied with other things. Now, between him and his work, came thoughts of the tunnel that for half a century had lain hidden from the sight of man; and of Inez, elusive, beautiful, distracting, now galloping recklessly toward him down a sunlit road, now a motionless statue standing on a white cliff, with the waves of the Caribbean bending and bowing before her.
With the return of the exiles to Porto Cabello, that picturesque seaport became a place of gay reunions, of banquets, of welcome and rejoicing. The cafés again sprang to life. The Alameda was crowded with loitering figures and smart carriages, whilst the vigilance and activity of the government secret police increased. Roddy found himself an object of universal interest. As the son of his father, and as one who had prevented the assassination of Pino Vega, the members of the government party suspected him. While the fact that in defense of Alvarez he had quarrelled with Vega puzzled them greatly.
“If I can’t persuade them I am with the government,” said Roddy, “I can at least keep them guessing.”
A week passed before Peter and Roddy were able, without arousing suspicion, and without being followed, to visit El Morro. They approached it apparently by accident, at the end of a long walk through the suburbs, and so timed their progress that, just as the sun set, they reached the base of the hill on which the fortress stood. They found that on one side the hill sloped gently toward the city, and on the other toward the sea. The face toward the city, except for some venturesome goats grazing on its scant herbage, was bare and deserted. The side that sloped to the sea was closely overgrown with hardy mesquite bushes and wild laurel, which would effectually conceal any one approaching from that direction. What had been the fortress was now only a broken wall, a few feet in height. It was covered with moss, and hidden by naked bushes with bristling thorns. Inside the circumference of the wall was a broken pavement of flat stones. Between these, trailing vines had forced their way, their roots creeping like snakes over the stones and through their interstices, while giant, ill-smelling weeds had turned the once open court-yard into a maze. These weeds were sufficiently high to conceal any one who did not walk upright, and while Peter kept watch outside the walled ring, Roddy, on his hands and knees, forced his way painfully from stone to stone. After a quarter of an hour of this slow progress he came upon what once had been the mouth of the tunnel. It was an opening in the pavement corresponding to a trap in a roof, or to a hatch in the deck of a ship. The combings were of stone, and were still intact, as were also the upper stones of a flight of steps that led down to the tunnel. But below the level of the upper steps, blocking further descent, were two great slabs of stone. They were buried deep in a bed of cement, and riveted together and to the walls of the tunnel by bands of iron. Roddy signalled for Peter to join him, and in dismay they gazed at the formidable mass of rusty iron, cement and stone.
“We might as well try to break into the Rock of Gibraltar!” gasped Peter.
“Don’t think of the difficulties,” begged Roddy. “Think that on the other side of that barrier an old man is slowly dying. I admit it’s going to be a tough job. It will take months. But whatever a man has put together, a man can pull to pieces.”
“I also try to see the bright side of life,” returned Peter coldly, “but I can’t resist pointing out that the other end of your tunnel opens into a prison. Breaking into a bank I can understand, but breaking into a prison seems almost like looking for trouble.”
The dinner that followed under the stars in their own court-yard did much to dispel Peter’s misgivings, and by midnight, so assured was he of their final success, that he declared it now was time that General Rojas should share in their confidence.
“To a man placed as he is,” he argued, “hope is everything; hope is health, life. He must know that his message has reached the outside. He must feel that some one is working toward him. He is the entombed miner, and, to keep heart in him, we must let him hear the picks of the rescuing party.”
“Fine!” cried Roddy, “I am for that, too. I’ll get my friend Vicenti, the prison doctor, to show you over the fortress to-morrow. And we’ll try to think of some way to give Rojas warning.”
They at once departed for the café of the Dos Hermanos, where the gay youth of Porto Cabello were wont to congregate, and where they found the doctor. During the evening he had been lucky at baccarat, and had been investing his winnings in sweet champagne. He was in a genial mood. He would be delighted to escort the friend of Señor Roddy over the fortress, or to any other of the historical places of interest for which Porto Cabello was celebrated.
“Where Alvarez punishes traitors,” exclaimed Roddy in a loud tone, “is what we most desire to see. And,” he added, scowling darkly through the smoke-laden café, “if we could see others who are still at liberty in the same place we would be better pleased.”
The remark, although directed at no one in particular, caused a sensation, and led several of those who had been for two years in exile to hurriedly finish their chocolate ices and seek their homes.
After making an appointment for the morrow with Doctor Vicenti, and when they were safe in their own patio, Peter protested mildly.
“Your devotion to Alvarez,” he said, “is too sudden. You overdo it. Besides, it’s making an expert liar of you. Don’t get the habit.”
“As the son of the man who is trying to destroy Alvarez,” declared Roddy, “my position is extremely delicate. And next week it will be more so. McKildrick got a cable to-day saying that Sam Caldwell is arriving here by the next boat. His starting for Porto Cabello the very moment Vega arrives here means trouble for Alvarez, and that the trouble is coming soon. For, wherever you find Sam Caldwell, there you will find plotting, bribery, and all uncleanliness. And if I’m to help Rojas out of prison I must have nothing to do with Sam. Alvarez recognizes no neutrals. The man who is not with him is against him. So I must be the friend of Alvarez and of his creatures. For public occasions, my hand must be against the F. C. C., against Vega, and especially against Sam Caldwell, because everybody knows he is the personal agent of my father. Vega’s friends know that my father treats me as though he could not trust me. The Alvarez crowd must know that, too. Even as it is, they think my being down here is a sort of punishment. None of them has ever worked in his life, and the idea of a rich man’s son sweating at a donkey-engine with a gang of Conch niggers, means to them only that my father and I have quarrelled. It will be my object hereafter to persuade them that that is so. If I have to act a bit, or lie a bit, what are a few lies against the freedom of such a man as Rojas? So, to-morrow, if you should be so lucky as to see Rojas, don’t be a bit surprised if I should insult that unhappy gentleman grossly. If I do, within an hour the fact will be all over the cafés and the plazas, and with Alvarez it would be counted to me for righteousness. Much that I may have to do of the same sort will make the gentlemen of Vega’s party consider me an ungrateful son, and very much of a blackguard. They may, in their turn, insult me, and want to fight more duels. But it’s all in the game. To save that old man is my only object for living, my only interest. I don’t care how many revolutions I tread on. I would sacrifice everybody and everything—for him.”
After his long speech, Roddy drew a deep breath and glared at Peter as though inviting contradiction. But, instead of contradicting him, Peter smiled skeptically and moved to his bedroom, which opened upon the court-yard. At the door he turned.
“‘And the woman,’” he quoted, “‘was very fair.’”
The next morning the two Americans met Doctor Vicenti in the guard-room of the fortress, and under his escort began a leisurely inspection of the prison. They themselves saw to it that it was leisurely, and by every device prolonged it. That their interest in the one prisoner they had come to see might not be suspected, they pretended a great curiosity in the doctor’s patients and in all the other prisoners. After each visit to a cell they would invite Vicenti to give them the history of its inmate. They assured him these little biographies, as he related them, were of surpassing brilliancy and pathos. In consequence, Vicenti was so greatly flattered that, before they reached the cell of General Rojas, each succeeding narrative had steadily increased in length, and the young doctor had become communicative and loquacious.
When at last they had descended to the lowest tier of cells, Vicenti paused and pointed toward an iron-barred double door.
“In there,” he whispered to Peter, “is our most distinguished political prisoner, General Rojas. There is no one Alvarez would so willingly see dead. And, if he keeps him here a month longer, Alvarez will have his wish.”
“But they say the man is a traitor,” protested Roddy.
The doctor shrugged his shoulders.
“In my country,” he answered, “every man who is not for the government is a traitor.”
He directed the turnkey who accompanied them to unlock the gate of the cell, and with a gesture invited the Americans to enter. As they did so, each dropped his right hand into his outside coat pocket. When it came forth again, concealed under each little finger was a tiny roll of rice-paper torn from a book of cigarette-wrappers. On each, in pencil, was written, “54-4” and the word “Hope.” The night previous Peter and Roddy had prepared the papers, on the chance that while one of them occupied the attention of the guide, the other could slip his message to Rojas. Roddy had insisted upon the use of rice-paper, because it could be swallowed without indigestion, and instead of the word “Hope,” had preferred a freehand drawing of an anchor, arguing that the anchor was the emblem of hope, and was more picturesque than the written word. To this Peter had objected that while they knew an anchor signified hope, Rojas might not, and as they were risking their lives to get a message to him, it was important he should understand it. They compromised on the numerals, which would show Rojas his own cipher messages had been received and understood, and the word “Hope” was added to put heart into him and strengthen his desire to cling to life.
But on entering the cell they saw at once that there would be no chance to deliver their message. General Rojas was seated at a table some ten feet from them, and the turnkey, who had submitted with ill grace to the Americans entering any of the cells, and who seemed especially to resent their presence in this one, at once placed himself aggressively on guard.
As he did so he commanded sharply: “The visitors will not speak to the prisoner.”
“That is understood,” Vicenti answered.
The Americans saw a room some forty by twenty feet in size, with walls, arched ceiling and floor entirely of stone. There were no windows, but it was well lighted by candles, and the lanterns carried by Vicenti and the turnkey threw a full light into each corner. They saw a cot, a table, a chair, a number of shelves loaded to the bending point with books and, at one end of the cell, an immense archway. This archway had been blocked with stone, roughly hewn and held together by cement. At the first glance, it was obvious that this was the other entrance to the tunnel. As he beheld its solid front, the heart of each of the young men sank in dismay.
General Rojas had risen, and stood shading his eyes from the unaccustomed light of the lanterns.
“I have taken the liberty of intruding upon you,” Vicenti was saying, “because these two gentlemen are interested in the history of the fortress.”
General Rojas bowed gravely, and with a deprecatory gesture, glanced at the turnkey, as though to explain why he did not address them.
“This part of the fortress,” Vicenti began hurriedly, “is very old. It was built in the sixteenth century, and was, I think, originally the messroom. It is now used only for the most important political prisoners.”
For an instant there was an awkward silence, and then Roddy broke it with a laugh, short and contemptuous.
“You mean traitors,” he sneered.
General Rojas straightened as suddenly as though Roddy had struck at him. The young doctor was no less moved. He turned on the American with an exclamation of indignation.
“You forget yourself, sir!” he said.
Though Peter had been warned that Roddy might try by insulting Rojas to make capital for himself, his insolence to a helpless old man was unpardonable. He felt his cheeks burn with mortification. The turnkey alone showed his pleasure, and grinned appreciatively. Roddy himself was entirely unashamed.
“I have no sympathy for such men!” he continued defiantly. “A murderer takes only human life; a traitor would take the life of his country. In the States,” he cried hotly, “we make short work with traitors. We hang them!”
He wheeled furiously on Peter, as though Peter had contradicted him.
“I say we do,” he exclaimed. “It’s in the Constitution. It’s the law. You’ve read it yourself. It’s page fifty-four, paragraph four, of the Constitution of the United States. ‘Punishment for Traitors.’ Page fifty-four, paragraph four.”
Apparently with sudden remorse at his impetuosity, he turned to the doctor.
“I beg your pardon,” he exclaimed. “I did forget myself. But to me, men like that are intolerable.”
Vicenti was not to be mollified.
“Then you had better avoid their presence,” he said angrily.
With an impatient gesture he motioned the two Americans into the corridor, and in distress approached the prisoner.
“I apologize, sir,” he said, “for having subjected you to such an incident.”
But General Rojas made no answer. To his surprise, Vicenti found that the old man was suffering from the scene even more keenly than he had feared. Like one suddenly bereft of strength, General Rojas had sunk into his chair. His bloodless, delicate hands trembled upon the table. Great tears crept down his white, wrinkled face. In the two years through which the young doctor had watched his patient he had never before seen in his eyes the strange, mad light that now shone there. To the medical man, it meant only that the end was nearer than he had supposed. Shocked and grieved, the doctor made a movement to withdraw.
“I am deeply sorry,” he murmured.
General Rojas raised his head. With an effort he drew over his face its customary, deathlike mask.
“It is nothing!” he exclaimed. “What is one more insult, what is one more degradation, when I know that my end is near!” He raised his voice; it was strangely vigorous, youthful, jubilant; it carried through the open bars to the far end of the corridor. “What does anything matter,” he cried, “when I know—that the end is near!” His head sunk upon the table. To hide his tears, the General buried his face in his hands.
Outside, in the darkness, Peter clutched Roddy by the hand, and for an instant crushed it in his own.
“Do you hear?” he whispered. “He is answering you.”
“Yes,” stammered Roddy. The excitement or the dampness of the prison had set him shivering, and with the back of his hand he wiped the cold moisture from his forehead. He laughed mirthlessly. “Yes,” he answered, “he understood me. And now, we’ve got to make good!”
That afternoon when the carriages of the aristocracy of Porto Cabello were solemnly circling the Plaza, Roddy came upon McKildrick, seated on one of the stone benches, observing the parade of local wealth and fashion with eyes that missed nothing and told nothing. McKildrick was a fine type of the self-taught American. He possessed a thorough knowledge of his profession, executive skill, the gift of handling men, and the added glory of having “worked his way up.” He was tall, lean, thin-lipped, between thirty and forty years of age. During business hours he spoke only to give an order or to put a question. Out of working hours, in his manner to his assistants and workmen, he was genially democratic. He had, apparently, a dread of being alone, and was seldom seen without one of the younger engineers at his elbow. With them he was considered a cynic, the reason given for his cynicism being that “the Chief” had tried to “take a fall out of matrimony,” and had come out of it a woman-hater. Officially he was Roddy’s superior, but it never was possible for any one in the pay of the F. C. C. to forget that Roddy was the son of his father. Even McKildrick, in certain ways, acknowledged it. One way was, in their leisure moments, not to seek out Roddy, but to wait for the younger man to make advances. On this occasion, after for a brief moment contemplating McKildrick severely, Roddy, with an impatient exclamation, as though dismissing doubts and misgivings, sat down beside him.
“McKildrick,” he began impetuously, “I want to ask you an impertinent question. It concerns your moral character.”
McKildrick grinned appreciatively.
“We court investigation,” he said.
“Under what pressure to the square inch,” demanded Roddy, “would a secret confided to you be liable to burst its boiler?”
“I’ve never,” returned the engineer, “had an accident of that kind.”
“Good!” exclaimed Roddy. “Then suppose I said to you, ‘McKildrick, I know where there’s buried treasure, but I don’t know how to get it out.’ You would know. Now, if I led you to the buried treasure, would you, as an expert engineer, tell me how to dig it out, and then could you forget you’d given that advice and that you’d ever heard of the treasure?”
For a moment McKildrick considered this hypothetical case. Then he asked: “Which bank are you thinking of opening?”
Roddy rose abruptly.
“I’ll show you,” he exclaimed.
That Roddy was acting, in spite of secret misgivings, was so evident, that McKildrick good-naturedly demurred.
“Better not tell me anything,” he protested, “that you’ll be sorry for when you’re sober.”
Roddy shook his head, and, not until they had left the suburbs and the last fisherman’s hut behind them and were on the open coast, did he again refer to the subject of their walk. Then he exclaimed suddenly; “And I forgot to mention that if Father finds out you advised me you will probably lose your job.”
McKildrick halted in his tracks.
“It’s a pity,” he agreed, “that you forgot to mention that. As a rule, when I give expert advice I get a fat check for it.”
“And what’s more,” continued Roddy, “if Alvarez finds it out you’ll go to jail.”
“Your piquant narrative interests me strangely,” said McKildrick. “What else happens to me?”
“But, of course,” explained Roddy reassuringly, “you’ll tell them you didn’t know what you were doing.”
“How about your telling me what we are doing?” suggested the engineer.
“From this point,” was Roddy’s only reply, “you crawl on your hands and knees, or some one may see you.”
The engineer bent his tall figure and, following in Roddy’s trail, disappeared into the laurel bushes.
“Why shouldn’t they see me?” he called.
“One looks so silly on his hands and knees,” Roddy suggested.
For ten minutes, except for the rustle of the bushes, they pushed their way in silence, and then Roddy scrambled over the fallen wall of the fort, and pointed down at the entrance to the tunnel.
“The problem is,” he said, “to remove these slabs from that staircase, and leave it in such shape that no one who is foolish enough to climb up here could see that they had been disturbed.”
“Do you really think,” demanded McKildrick, smiling sceptically, “that there is buried treasure under these stones?”
“Yes,” answered Roddy anxiously, “a kind of buried treasure.”
Cautiously McKildrick raised his head, and, as though to establish his bearings, surveyed the landscape. To the north he saw the city; to the east, a quarter of a mile away, the fortress, separated from the mainland by a stretch of water; and to the south, the wild mesquite bushes and laurel through which they had just come, stretching to the coast.
“Is this a serious proposition?” he asked.
“It’s a matter of life and death,” Roddy answered.
McKildrick seated himself on the flight of stone steps, and for some time, in silence, studied them critically. He drove the heel of his boot against the cement, and, with his eyes, tested the resistance of the rusty bars of iron.
“With a couple of men and crowbars, and a pinch of dynamite that wouldn’t make a noise,” he said at last, “I could open that in an hour.”
“Could you put it back again?” asked Roddy.
There was a long pause.
“I guess,” said McKildrick, “you’ll have to let me in on the ground floor.”
The sun had set and the air had turned cold and damp. Roddy seated himself beside his chief and pointed at the great slabs at their feet. His voice dropped to a whisper.
“It’s like this,” he began.
When, two hours later, they separated at the outskirts of the city, McKildrick had been initiated into the Brotherhood of the White Mice.
They had separated, agreeing that in the future the less they were seen together the better. But, in wishing to be alone, Roddy had another and more sentimental reason.
Each evening since his return from Curaçao he had made a pilgrimage to the deserted home of the Rojas family, and, as the garden of Miramar ran down to meet the shore of the harbor, as did the garden of his own house, he was able to make the nocturnal visits by rowboat, and without being observed. Sometimes he was satisfied simply to lie on his oars opposite the empty mansion, and think of the young girl who, so soon, was to waken it to life; and again he tied his boat to a public wharf a hundred yards down the shore, and with the aid of the hanging vines pulled himself to the top of the seawall, and dropped into the garden. To a young man very much interested in a young woman, of whom he knew so little that it was possible to endow her with every grace of mind and character, and whose personal charm was never to be forgotten, these melancholy visits afforded much satisfaction. Even to pass the house was a pleasing exercise; and, separating from McKildrick, he turned his steps to the Alameda, the broad avenue shaded by a double line of trees that followed the curve of the harbor, and upon which the gates of Miramar opened. As he approached the house he saw, with surprise and pleasure, that in the future his midnight prowlings were at an end. Miramar was occupied. Every window blazed with light. In this light servants were moving hurriedly, and in front of the gates the Alameda was blocked with carts loaded with trunks and boxes.
Excited by the sight, Roddy hid himself in the shadows of the trees, and, unobserved, stood impatiently waiting for a chance to learn if the exiles had indeed returned to their own. He had not long to wait. In a little figure bustling among the carts, and giving many orders, he recognized his friend and ally, Pedro. Roddy instantly stepped into the glare of the electric globes until he was sure Pedro had seen him, and then again retreated into the shadow. In a moment the old servant was at his side.
“Is she here?” demanded Roddy.
Appreciating that in the world there could be only one “she,” the little man nodded violently.
“Tell her,” whispered Roddy, “I have seen her father, that he knows what we are trying to do. I must talk with the señorita at once. Ask her if she will come to the steps leading from the gardens to the wharf at any hour this evening. From my own house I can row there without being seen.”
Again Pedro nodded happily.
“I will ask the señorita to be there at nine o’clock,” he answered, “or, I will come myself.”
The alternative did not strongly appeal to Roddy, but the mere fact that Inez was now in the same city with him, that even at that moment she was not a hundred yards from him, was in itself a reward.
He continued on down the Alameda, his head in the air, his feet treading on springs.
“Three hours!” his mind protested. “How can I wait three hours?”
In some fashion the hours passed, and at nine, just as over all the city the bugles were recalling the soldiers to the barracks, Roddy was waiting on the narrow stretch of beach that ran between the harbor and the gardens of Miramar.