mirror of
https://github.com/standardebooks/o-henry_short-fiction.git
synced 2025-02-05 10:50:09 +08:00
Add language spans to foreign phrases
This commit is contained in:
vr8ce
parent
47e56c80cf
commit
0bd51d6e35
@ -20,7 +20,7 @@
|
||||
<p>To the right he turned, and to the left up the street that ultimately reached the Plaza Nacional. When within the toss of a cigar stump from the intersecting Street of the Holy Sepulchre, he stopped suddenly in the pathway.</p>
|
||||
<p>He saw the form of a tall man, clothed in black and carrying a large valise, hurry down the cross-street in the direction of the beach. And Goodwin’s second glance made him aware of a woman at the man’s elbow on the farther side, who seemed to urge forward, if not even to assist, her companion in their swift but silent progress. They were no Coralians, those two.</p>
|
||||
<p>Goodwin followed at increased speed, but without any of the artful tactics that are so dear to the heart of the sleuth. The American was too broad to feel the instinct of the detective. He stood as an agent for the people of Anchuria, and but for political reasons he would have demanded then and there the money. It was the design of his party to secure the imperilled fund, to restore it to the treasury of the country, and to declare itself in power without bloodshed or resistance.</p>
|
||||
<p>The couple halted at the door of the Hotel de los Estranjeros, and the man struck upon the wood with the impatience of one unused to his entry being stayed. Madama was long in response; but after a time her light showed, the door was opened, and the guests housed.</p>
|
||||
<p>The couple halted at the door of the Hotel <span xml:lang="es">de los Estranjeros</span>, and the man struck upon the wood with the impatience of one unused to his entry being stayed. Madama was long in response; but after a time her light showed, the door was opened, and the guests housed.</p>
|
||||
<p>Goodwin stood in the quiet street, lighting another cigar. In two minutes a faint gleam began to show between the slats of the jalousies in the upper story of the hotel. “They have engaged rooms,” said Goodwin to himself. “So, then, their arrangements for sailing have yet to be made.”</p>
|
||||
<p>At that moment there came along one Estebán Delgado, a barber, an enemy to existing government, a jovial plotter against stagnation in any form. This barber was one of Coralio’s saddest dogs, often remaining out of doors as late as eleven, post meridian. He was a partisan Liberal; and he greeted Goodwin with flatulent importance as a brother in the cause. But he had something important to tell.</p>
|
||||
<p>“What think you, Don Frank!” he cried, in the universal tone of the conspirator. “I have tonight shaved <i xml:lang="es">la barba</i>—what you call the ‘weeskers’ of the <i xml:lang="es">Presidente</i> himself, of this countree! Consider! He sent for me to come. In the poor casita of an old woman he awaited me—in a verree leetle house in a dark place. <i xml:lang="es">Carramba!</i>—el Señor Presidente to make himself thus secret and obscured! I think he desired not to be known—but, <i xml:lang="es">carajo!</i> can you shave a man and not see his face? This gold piece he gave me, and said it was to be all quite still. I think, Don Frank, there is what you call a chip over the bug.”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -7,7 +7,7 @@
|
||||
</head>
|
||||
<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
|
||||
<section id="cherchez-la-femme" epub:type="volume se:short-story">
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">Cherchez La Femme</h2>
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title" xml:lang="fr">Cherchez La Femme</h2>
|
||||
<p>Robbins, reporter for the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Picayune</i>, and Dumars, of <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">L’Abeille</i>—the old French newspaper that has buzzed for nearly a century—were good friends, well proven by years of ups and downs together. They were seated where they had a habit of meeting—in the little, Creole-haunted café of Madame Tibault, in Dumaine Street. If you know the place, you will experience a thrill of pleasure in recalling it to mind. It is small and dark, with six little polished tables, at which you may sit and drink the best coffee in New Orleans, and concoctions of absinthe equal to Sazerac’s best. Madame Tibault, fat and indulgent, presides at the desk, and takes your money. Nicolette and Mémé, madame’s nieces, in charming bib aprons, bring the desirable beverages.</p>
|
||||
<p>Dumars, with true Creole luxury, was sipping his absinthe, with half-closed eyes, in a swirl of cigarette smoke. Robbins was looking over the morning <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper"><abbr>Pic.</abbr></i>, detecting, as young reporters will, the gross blunders in the makeup, and the envious blue-pencilling his own stuff had received. This item, in the advertising columns, caught his eye, and with an exclamation of sudden interest he read it aloud to his friend.</p>
|
||||
<blockquote>
|
||||
@ -16,7 +16,7 @@
|
||||
<p>This notice stirred the two friends to a reminiscent talk concerning an episode in their journalistic career that had occurred about two years before. They recalled the incidents, went over the old theories, and discussed it anew from the different perspective time had brought.</p>
|
||||
<p>There were no other customers in the café. Madame’s fine ear had caught the line of their talk, and she came over to their table—for had it not been her lost money—her vanished twenty thousand dollars—that had set the whole matter going?</p>
|
||||
<p>The three took up the long-abandoned mystery, threshing over the old, dry chaff of it. It was in the chapel of this house of the Little Sisters of Samaria that Robbins and Dumars had stood during that eager, fruitless news search of theirs, and looked upon the gilded statue of the Virgin.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Thass so, boys,” said madame, summing up. “Thass ver’ wicked man, M’sieur Morin. Everybody shall be cert’ he steal those money I plaze in his hand for keep safe. Yes. He’s boun’ spend that money, somehow.” Madame turned a broad and contemplative smile upon Dumars. “I ond’stand you, M’sieur Dumars, those day you come ask fo’ tell ev’ything I know ’bout M’sieur Morin. Ah! yes, I know most time when those men lose money you say ‘Cherchez la femme’—there is somewhere the woman. But not for M’sieur Morin. No, boys. Before he shall die, he is like one saint. You might’s well, M’sieur Dumars, go try find those money in those statue of Virgin Mary that M’sieur Morin present at those <i xml:lang="fr">p’tite saeurs</i>, as try find one femme.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Thass so, boys,” said madame, summing up. “Thass ver’ wicked man, M’sieur Morin. Everybody shall be cert’ he steal those money I plaze in his hand for keep safe. Yes. He’s boun’ spend that money, somehow.” Madame turned a broad and contemplative smile upon Dumars. “I ond’stand you, M’sieur Dumars, those day you come ask fo’ tell ev’ything I know ’bout M’sieur Morin. Ah! yes, I know most time when those men lose money you say ‘<span xml:lang="fr">Cherchez la femme</span>’—there is somewhere the woman. But not for M’sieur Morin. No, boys. Before he shall die, he is like one saint. You might’s well, M’sieur Dumars, go try find those money in those statue of Virgin Mary that M’sieur Morin present at those <i xml:lang="fr">p’tite saeurs</i>, as try find one femme.”</p>
|
||||
<p>At Madame Tibault’s last words, Robbins started slightly and cast a keen, sidelong glance at Dumars. The Creole sat, unmoved, dreamily watching the spirals of his cigarette smoke.</p>
|
||||
<p>It was then nine o’clock in the morning and, a few minutes later, the two friends separated, going different ways to their day’s duties. And now follows the brief story of Madame Tibault’s vanished thousands:</p>
|
||||
<hr/>
|
||||
@ -24,16 +24,16 @@
|
||||
<p>When his affairs came to be looked into, it was found that he was practically insolvent, his stock of goods and personal property barely—but nearly enough to free him from censure—covering his liabilities. Following came the disclosure that he had been entrusted with the sum of twenty thousand dollars by a former upper servant in the Morin family, one Madame Tibault, which she had received as a legacy from relatives in France.</p>
|
||||
<p>The most searching scrutiny by friends and the legal authorities failed to reveal the disposition of the money. It had vanished, and left no trace. Some weeks before his death, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Morin had drawn the entire amount, in gold coin, from the bank where it had been placed while he looked about (he told Madame Tibault) for a safe investment. Therefore, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Morin’s memory seemed doomed to bear the cloud of dishonesty, while madame was, of course, disconsolate.</p>
|
||||
<p>Then it was that Robbins and Dumars, representing their respective journals, began one of those pertinacious private investigations which, of late years, the press has adopted as a means to glory and the satisfaction of public curiosity.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Cherchez la femme,” said Dumars.</p>
|
||||
<p>“<span xml:lang="fr">Cherchez la femme</span>,” said Dumars.</p>
|
||||
<p>“That’s the ticket!” agreed Robbins. “All roads lead to the eternal feminine. We will find the woman.”</p>
|
||||
<p>They exhausted the knowledge of the staff of <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Morin’s hotel, from the bellboy down to the proprietor. They gently, but inflexibly, pumped the family of the deceased as far as his cousins twice removed. They artfully sounded the employees of the late jeweller, and dogged his customers for information concerning his habits. Like bloodhounds they traced every step of the supposed defaulter, as nearly as might be, for years along the limited and monotonous paths he had trodden.</p>
|
||||
<p>At the end of their labours, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Morin stood, an immaculate man. Not one weakness that might be served up as a criminal tendency, not one deviation from the path of rectitude, not even a hint of a predilection for the opposite sex, was found to be placed in his debit. His life had been as regular and austere as a monk’s; his habits, simple and unconcealed. Generous, charitable, and a model in propriety, was the verdict of all who knew him.</p>
|
||||
<p>“What, now?” asked Robbins, fingering his empty notebook.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Cherchez la femme,” said Dumars, lighting a cigarette. “Try Lady Bellairs.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“<span xml:lang="fr">Cherchez la femme</span>,” said Dumars, lighting a cigarette. “Try Lady Bellairs.”</p>
|
||||
<p>This piece of femininity was the racetrack favourite of the season. Being feminine, she was erratic in her gaits, and there were a few heavy losers about town who had believed she could be true. The reporters applied for information.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Morin? Certainly not. He was never even a spectator at the races. Not that kind of a man. Surprised the gentlemen should ask.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Shall we throw it up?” suggested Robbins, “and let the puzzle department have a try?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Cherchez la femme,” hummed Dumars, reaching for a match. “Try the Little Sisters of What-d’-you-call-’em.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“<span xml:lang="fr">Cherchez la femme</span>,” hummed Dumars, reaching for a match. “Try the Little Sisters of What-d’-you-call-’em.”</p>
|
||||
<p>It had developed, during the investigation, that <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Morin had held this benevolent order in particular favour. He had contributed liberally toward its support and had chosen its chapel as his favourite place of private worship. It was said that he went there daily to make his devotions at the altar. Indeed, toward the last of his life his whole mind seemed to have fixed itself upon religious matters, perhaps to the detriment of his worldly affairs.</p>
|
||||
<p>Thither went Robbins and Dumars, and were admitted through the narrow doorway in the blank stone wall that frowned upon Bonhomme Street. An old woman was sweeping the chapel. She told them that Sister Félicité, the head of the order, was then at prayer at the altar in the alcove. In a few moments she would emerge. Heavy, black curtains screened the alcove. They waited.</p>
|
||||
<p>Soon the curtains were disturbed, and Sister Félicité came forth. She was tall, tragic, bony, and plain-featured, dressed in the black gown and severe bonnet of the sisterhood.</p>
|
||||
@ -85,7 +85,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“There’s your twenty thousand dollars, with coupons attached,” he said, running his thumb around the edge of the four bonds. “Better get an expert to peel them off for you. Mister Morin was all right. I’m going out to get my ears trimmed.”</p>
|
||||
<p>He dragged Dumars by the arm into the outer room. Madame was screaming for Nicolette and Mémé to come and observe the fortune returned to her by M’sieur Morin, that best of men, that saint in glory.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Marsy,” said Robbins, “I’m going on a jamboree. For three days the esteemed <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper"><abbr>Pic.</abbr></i> will have to get along without my valuable services. I advise you to join me. Now, that green stuff you drink is no good. It stimulates thought. What we want to do is to forget to remember. I’ll introduce you to the only lady in this case that is guaranteed to produce the desired results. Her name is Belle of Kentucky, twelve-year-old Bourbon. In quarts. How does the idea strike you?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“<i xml:lang="fr">Allons!</i>” said Dumars. “Cherchez la femme.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“<i xml:lang="fr">Allons!</i>” said Dumars. “<span xml:lang="fr">Cherchez la femme</span>.”</p>
|
||||
</section>
|
||||
</body>
|
||||
</html>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -18,7 +18,7 @@
|
||||
<p>Nobody knew where Dicky Maloney hailed from or how he reached Coralio. He appeared there one day; and that was all. He afterward said that he came on the fruit steamer <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Thor</i>; but an inspection of the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Thor’s</i> passenger list of that date was found to be Maloneyless. Curiosity, however, soon perished; and Dicky took his place among the odd fish cast up by the Caribbean.</p>
|
||||
<p>He was an active, devil-may-care, rollicking fellow with an engaging gray eye, the most irresistible grin, a rather dark or much sunburned complexion, and a head of the fieriest red hair ever seen in that country. Speaking the Spanish language as well as he spoke English, and seeming always to have plenty of silver in his pockets, it was not long before he was a welcome companion whithersoever he went. He had an extreme fondness for <i xml:lang="es">vino blanco</i>, and gained the reputation of being able to drink more of it than any three men in town. Everybody called him “Dicky”; everybody cheered up at the sight of him—especially the natives, to whom his marvellous red hair and his free-and-easy style were a constant delight and envy. Wherever you went in the town you would soon see Dicky or hear his genial laugh, and find around him a group of admirers who appreciated him both for his good nature and the white wine he was always so ready to buy.</p>
|
||||
<p>A considerable amount of speculation was had concerning the object of his sojourn there, until one day he silenced this by opening a small shop for the sale of tobacco, dulces and the handiwork of the interior Indians—fibre-and-silk-woven goods, deerskin <i xml:lang="es">zapatos</i> and basketwork of tule reeds. Even then he did not change his habits; for he was drinking and playing cards half the day and night with the comandante, the collector of customs, the <i xml:lang="es">Jefe Politico</i> and other gay dogs among the native officials.</p>
|
||||
<p>One day Dicky saw Pasa, the daughter of Madama Ortiz, sitting in the side-door of the Hotel de los Estranjeros. He stopped in his tracks, still, for the first time in Coralio; and then he sped, swift as a deer, to find Vasquez, a gilded native youth, to present him.</p>
|
||||
<p>One day Dicky saw Pasa, the daughter of Madama Ortiz, sitting in the side-door of the Hotel <span xml:lang="es">de los Estranjeros</span>. He stopped in his tracks, still, for the first time in Coralio; and then he sped, swift as a deer, to find Vasquez, a gilded native youth, to present him.</p>
|
||||
<p>The young men had named Pasa “<i xml:lang="es">La Santita Naranjadita</i>.” <i xml:lang="es">Naranjadita</i> is a Spanish word for a certain colour that you must go to more trouble to describe in English. By saying “The little saint, tinted the most beautiful-delicate-slightly-orange-golden,” you will approximate the description of Madama Ortiz’s daughter.</p>
|
||||
<p>La Madama Ortiz sold rum in addition to other liquors. Now, you must know that the rum expiates whatever opprobrium attends upon the other commodities. For rum-making, mind you, is a government monopoly; and to keep a government dispensary assures respectability if not preeminence. Moreover, the saddest of precisians could find no fault with the conduct of the shop. Customers drank there in the lowest of spirits and fearsomely, as in the shadow of the dead; for Madama’s ancient and vaunted lineage counteracted even the rum’s behest to be merry. For, was she not of the Iglesias, who landed with Pizarro? And had not her deceased husband been <i xml:lang="es">comisionado de caminos y puentes</i> for the district?</p>
|
||||
<p>In the evenings Pasa sat by the window in the room next to the one where they drank, and strummed dreamily upon her guitar. And then, by twos and threes, would come visiting young caballeros and occupy the prim line of chairs set against the wall of this room. They were there to besiege the heart of “<i xml:lang="es">La Santita</i>.” Their method (which is not proof against intelligent competition) consisted of expanding the chest, looking valorous, and consuming a gross or two of cigarettes. Even saints delicately oranged prefer to be wooed differently.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -45,7 +45,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“Cheer up,” said Goodwin. “You are a pretty poor fox to be envying a gander. Maybe the enchanting Guilbert will take a fancy to you and your tintypes after we impoverish her royal escort.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“She could do worse,” reflected Keogh; “but she won’t. ’Tis not a tintype gallery, but the gallery of the gods that she’s fitted to adorn. She’s a very wicked lady, and the president man is in luck. But I hear Clancy swearing in the back room for having to do all the work.” And Keogh plunged for the rear of the “gallery,” whistling gaily in a spontaneous way that belied his recent sigh over the questionable good luck of the flying president.</p>
|
||||
<p>Goodwin turned from the main street into a much narrower one that intersected it at a right angle.</p>
|
||||
<p>These side streets were covered by a growth of thick, rank grass, which was kept to a navigable shortness by the machetes of the police. Stone sidewalks, little more than a ledge in width, ran along the base of the mean and monotonous adobe houses. At the outskirts of the village these streets dwindled to nothing; and here were set the palm-thatched huts of the Caribs and the poorer natives, and the shabby cabins of negroes from Jamaica and the West India islands. A few structures raised their heads above the red-tiled roofs of the one-story houses—the bell tower of the Calaboza, the Hotel de los Estranjeros, the residence of the Vesuvius Fruit Company’s agent, the store and residence of Bernard Brannigan, a ruined cathedral in which Columbus had once set foot, and, most imposing of all, the Casa Morena—the summer “White House” of the President of Anchuria. On the principal street running along the beach—the Broadway of Coralio—were the larger stores, the government bodega and post-office, the cuartel, the rum-shops and the market place.</p>
|
||||
<p>These side streets were covered by a growth of thick, rank grass, which was kept to a navigable shortness by the machetes of the police. Stone sidewalks, little more than a ledge in width, ran along the base of the mean and monotonous adobe houses. At the outskirts of the village these streets dwindled to nothing; and here were set the palm-thatched huts of the Caribs and the poorer natives, and the shabby cabins of negroes from Jamaica and the West India islands. A few structures raised their heads above the red-tiled roofs of the one-story houses—the bell tower of the Calaboza, the Hotel <span xml:lang="es">de los Estranjeros</span>, the residence of the Vesuvius Fruit Company’s agent, the store and residence of Bernard Brannigan, a ruined cathedral in which Columbus had once set foot, and, most imposing of all, the Casa Morena—the summer “White House” of the President of Anchuria. On the principal street running along the beach—the Broadway of Coralio—were the larger stores, the government bodega and post-office, the cuartel, the rum-shops and the market place.</p>
|
||||
<p>On his way Goodwin passed the house of Bernard Brannigan. It was a modern wooden building, two stories in height. The ground floor was occupied by Brannigan’s store, the upper one contained the living apartments. A wide cool porch ran around the house half way up its outer walls. A handsome, vivacious girl neatly dressed in flowing white leaned over the railing and smiled down upon Goodwin. She was no darker than many an Andalusian of high descent; and she sparkled and glowed like a tropical moonlight.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Good evening, Miss Paula,” said Goodwin, taking off his hat, with his ready smile. There was little difference in his manner whether he addressed women or men. Everybody in Coralio liked to receive the salutation of the big American.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Is there any news, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Goodwin? Please don’t say no. Isn’t it warm? I feel just like Mariana in her moated grange—or was it a range?—it’s hot enough.”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -11,7 +11,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“Aunt Ellen,” said Octavia, cheerfully, as she threw her black kid gloves carefully at the dignified Persian cat on the window-seat, “I’m a pauper.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“You are so extreme in your statements, Octavia, dear,” said Aunt Ellen, mildly, looking up from her paper. “If you find yourself temporarily in need of some small change for bonbons, you will find my purse in the drawer of the writing desk.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Octavia Beaupree removed her hat and seated herself on a footstool near her aunt’s chair, clasping her hands about her knees. Her slim and flexible figure, clad in a modish mourning costume, accommodated itself easily and gracefully to the trying position. Her bright and youthful face, with its pair of sparkling, life-enamoured eyes, tried to compose itself to the seriousness that the occasion seemed to demand.</p>
|
||||
<p>“You good auntie, it isn’t a case of bonbons; it is abject, staring, unpicturesque poverty, with ready-made clothes, gasolined gloves, and probably one o’clock dinners all waiting with the traditional wolf at the door. I’ve just come from my lawyer, auntie, and, ‘Please, ma’am, I ain’t got nothink ‘t all. Flowers, lady? Buttonhole, gentleman? Pencils, sir, three for five, to help a poor widow?’ Do I do it nicely, auntie, or, as a breadwinner accomplishment, were my lessons in elocution entirely wasted?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“You good auntie, it isn’t a case of bonbons; it is abject, staring, unpicturesque poverty, with ready-made clothes, gasolined gloves, and probably one o’clock dinners all waiting with the traditional wolf at the door. I’ve just come from my lawyer, auntie, and, ‘Please, ma’am, I ain’t got nothink ’t all. Flowers, lady? Buttonhole, gentleman? Pencils, sir, three for five, to help a poor widow?’ Do I do it nicely, auntie, or, as a breadwinner accomplishment, were my lessons in elocution entirely wasted?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Do be serious, my dear,” said Aunt Ellen, letting her paper fall to the floor, “long enough to tell me what you mean. Colonel Beaupree’s estate—”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Colonel Beaupree’s estate,” interrupted Octavia, emphasizing her words with appropriate dramatic gestures, “is of Spanish castellar architecture. Colonel Beaupree’s resources are—wind. Colonel Beaupree’s stocks are—water. Colonel Beaupree’s income is—all in. The statement lacks the legal technicalities to which I have been listening for an hour, but that is what it means when translated.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Octavia!” Aunt Ellen was now visibly possessed by consternation. “I can hardly believe it. And it was the impression that he was worth a million. And the De Peysters themselves introduced him!”</p>
|
||||
@ -22,7 +22,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“Blessed auntie, your three thousand is just sufficient to insure your Hyson to be free from willow leaves and keep the Persian in sterilized cream. I know I’d be welcome, but I prefer to strike bottom like Beelzebub rather than hang around like the Peri listening to the music from the side entrance. I’m going to earn my own living. There’s nothing else to do. I’m a—Oh, oh, oh!—I had forgotten. There’s one thing saved from the wreck. It’s a corral—no, a ranch in—let me see—Texas: an asset, dear old <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Bannister called it. How pleased he was to show me something he could describe as unencumbered! I’ve a description of it among those stupid papers he made me bring away with me from his office. I’ll try to find it.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Octavia found her shopping-bag, and drew from it a long envelope filled with typewritten documents.</p>
|
||||
<p>“A ranch in Texas,” sighed Aunt Ellen. “It sounds to me more like a liability than an asset. Those are the places where the centipedes are found, and cowboys, and fandangos.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘The Rancho de las Sombras,’ ” read Octavia from a sheet of violently purple typewriting, “ ‘is situated one hundred and ten miles southeast of San Antonio, and thirty-eight miles from its nearest railroad station, Nopal, on the <abbr>I. and G. N.</abbr> Ranch, consists of 7,680 acres of well-watered land, with title conferred by State patents, and twenty-two sections, or 14,080 acres, partly under yearly running lease and partly bought under State’s twenty-year-purchase act. Eight thousand graded merino sheep, with the necessary equipment of horses, vehicles and general ranch paraphernalia. Ranch-house built of brick, with six rooms comfortably furnished according to the requirements of the climate. All within a strong barbed-wire fence.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘The <span xml:lang="es">Rancho de las Sombras</span>,’ ” read Octavia from a sheet of violently purple typewriting, “ ‘is situated one hundred and ten miles southeast of San Antonio, and thirty-eight miles from its nearest railroad station, Nopal, on the <abbr>I. and G. N.</abbr> Ranch, consists of 7,680 acres of well-watered land, with title conferred by State patents, and twenty-two sections, or 14,080 acres, partly under yearly running lease and partly bought under State’s twenty-year-purchase act. Eight thousand graded merino sheep, with the necessary equipment of horses, vehicles and general ranch paraphernalia. Ranch-house built of brick, with six rooms comfortably furnished according to the requirements of the climate. All within a strong barbed-wire fence.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘The present ranch manager seems to be competent and reliable, and is rapidly placing upon a paying basis a business that, in other hands, had been allowed to suffer from neglect and misconduct.</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ‘This property was secured by Colonel Beaupree in a deal with a Western irrigation syndicate, and the title to it seems to be perfect. With careful management and the natural increase of land values, it ought to be made the foundation for a comfortable fortune for its owner.’ ”</p>
|
||||
<p>When Octavia ceased reading, Aunt Ellen uttered something as near a sniff as her breeding permitted.</p>
|
||||
@ -36,7 +36,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“I didn’t know,” she said, gently; “I didn’t know—that. Who was it, dear?”</p>
|
||||
<hr/>
|
||||
<p>When <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Octavia Beaupree, née Van Dresser, stepped from the train at Nopal, her manner lost, for the moment, some of that easy certitude which had always marked her movements. The town was of recent establishment, and seemed to have been hastily constructed of undressed lumber and flapping canvas. The element that had congregated about the station, though not offensively demonstrative, was clearly composed of citizens accustomed to and prepared for rude alarms.</p>
|
||||
<p>Octavia stood on the platform, against the telegraph office, and attempted to choose by intuition from the swaggering, straggling string of loungers, the manager of the Rancho de las Sombras, who had been instructed by <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Bannister to meet her there. That tall, serious, looking, elderly man in the blue flannel shirt and white tie she thought must be he. But, no; he passed by, removing his gaze from the lady as hers rested on him, according to the Southern custom. The manager, she thought, with some impatience at being kept waiting, should have no difficulty in selecting her. Young women wearing the most recent thing in ash-coloured travelling suits were not so plentiful in Nopal!</p>
|
||||
<p>Octavia stood on the platform, against the telegraph office, and attempted to choose by intuition from the swaggering, straggling string of loungers, the manager of the <span xml:lang="es">Rancho de las Sombras</span>, who had been instructed by <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Bannister to meet her there. That tall, serious, looking, elderly man in the blue flannel shirt and white tie she thought must be he. But, no; he passed by, removing his gaze from the lady as hers rested on him, according to the Southern custom. The manager, she thought, with some impatience at being kept waiting, should have no difficulty in selecting her. Young women wearing the most recent thing in ash-coloured travelling suits were not so plentiful in Nopal!</p>
|
||||
<p>Thus keeping a speculative watch on all persons of possible managerial aspect, Octavia, with a catching breath and a start of surprise, suddenly became aware of Teddy Westlake hurrying along the platform in the direction of the train—of Teddy Westlake or his sun-browned ghost in cheviot, boots and leather-girdled hat—Theodore Westlake, <abbr>Jr.</abbr>, amateur polo (almost) champion, all-round butterfly and cumberer of the soil; but a broader, surer, more emphasized and determined Teddy than the one she had known a year ago when last she saw him.</p>
|
||||
<p>He perceived Octavia at almost the same time, deflected his course, and steered for her in his old, straightforward way. Something like awe came upon her as the strangeness of his metamorphosis was brought into closer range; the rich, red-brown of his complexion brought out so vividly his straw-coloured mustache and steel-gray eyes. He seemed more grownup, and, somehow, farther away. But, when he spoke, the old, boyish Teddy came back again. They had been friends from childhood.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Why, ’Tave!” he exclaimed, unable to reduce his perplexity to coherence. “How—what—when—where?”</p>
|
||||
@ -46,7 +46,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“I think not,” answered Octavia, reflecting. “And you haven’t, by any chance, noticed a big, gray-mustached man in a blue shirt and six-shooters, with little flakes of merino wool sticking in his hair, have you?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Lots of ’em,” said Teddy, with symptoms of mental delirium under the strain. Do you happen to know any such individual?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“No; the description is imaginary. Is your interest in the old lady whom you describe a personal one?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Never saw her in my life. She’s painted entirely from fancy. She owns the little piece of property where I earn my bread and butter—the Rancho de las Sombras. I drove up to meet her according to arrangement with her lawyer.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Never saw her in my life. She’s painted entirely from fancy. She owns the little piece of property where I earn my bread and butter—the <span xml:lang="es">Rancho de las Sombras</span>. I drove up to meet her according to arrangement with her lawyer.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Octavia leaned against the wall of the telegraph office. Was this possible? And didn’t he know?</p>
|
||||
<p>“Are you the manager of that ranch?” she asked weakly.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I am,” said Teddy, with pride.</p>
|
||||
@ -77,7 +77,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“You needn’t. I like it. I save half my wages, and I’m as hard as a water plug. It beats polo.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Will it furnish bread and tea and jam for another outcast from civilization?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“The spring shearing,” said the manager, “just cleaned up a deficit in last year’s business. Wastefulness and inattention have been the rule heretofore. The autumn clip will leave a small profit over all expenses. Next year there will be jam.”</p>
|
||||
<p>When, about four o’clock in the afternoon, the ponies rounded a gentle, brush-covered hill, and then swooped, like a double cream-coloured cyclone, upon the Rancho de las Sombras, Octavia gave a little cry of delight. A lordly grove of magnificent live-oaks cast an area of grateful, cool shade, whence the ranch had drawn its name, “de las Sombras”—of the shadows. The house, of red brick, one story, ran low and long beneath the trees. Through its middle, dividing its six rooms in half, extended a broad, arched passageway, picturesque with flowering cactus and hanging red earthern jars. A “gallery,” low and broad, encircled the building. Vines climbed about it, and the adjacent ground was, for a space, covered with transplanted grass and shrubs. A little lake, long and narrow, glimmered in the sun at the rear. Further away stood the shacks of the Mexican workers, the corrals, wool sheds and shearing pens. To the right lay the low hills, splattered with dark patches of chaparral; to the left the unbounded green prairie blending against the blue heavens.</p>
|
||||
<p>When, about four o’clock in the afternoon, the ponies rounded a gentle, brush-covered hill, and then swooped, like a double cream-coloured cyclone, upon the <span xml:lang="es">Rancho de las Sombras</span>, Octavia gave a little cry of delight. A lordly grove of magnificent live-oaks cast an area of grateful, cool shade, whence the ranch had drawn its name, “<span xml:lang="es">de las Sombras</span>”—of the shadows. The house, of red brick, one story, ran low and long beneath the trees. Through its middle, dividing its six rooms in half, extended a broad, arched passageway, picturesque with flowering cactus and hanging red earthern jars. A “gallery,” low and broad, encircled the building. Vines climbed about it, and the adjacent ground was, for a space, covered with transplanted grass and shrubs. A little lake, long and narrow, glimmered in the sun at the rear. Further away stood the shacks of the Mexican workers, the corrals, wool sheds and shearing pens. To the right lay the low hills, splattered with dark patches of chaparral; to the left the unbounded green prairie blending against the blue heavens.</p>
|
||||
<p>“It’s a home, Teddy,” said Octavia, breathlessly; that’s what it is—it’s a home.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Not so bad for a sheep ranch,” admitted Teddy, with excusable pride. “I’ve been tinkering on it at odd times.”</p>
|
||||
<p>A Mexican youth sprang from somewhere in the grass, and took charge of the creams. The mistress and the manager entered the house.</p>
|
||||
@ -91,13 +91,13 @@
|
||||
<p>Presently, recollecting that she was now in a wilderness given over to mutton, centipedes and privations, the incongruity of these luxuries struck her, and, with intuitive feminine suspicion, she began turning to the flyleaves of volume after volume. Upon each one was inscribed in fluent characters the name of Theodore Westlake, <abbr class="eoc">Jr.</abbr></p>
|
||||
<p>Octavia, fatigued by her long journey, retired early that night. Lying upon her white, cool bed, she rested deliciously, but sleep coquetted long with her. She listened to faint noises whose strangeness kept her faculties on the alert—the fractious yelping of the coyotes, the ceaseless, low symphony of the wind, the distant booming of the frogs about the lake, the lamentation of a concertina in the Mexicans’ quarters. There were many conflicting feelings in her heart—thankfulness and rebellion, peace and disquietude, loneliness and a sense of protecting care, happiness and an old, haunting pain.</p>
|
||||
<p>She did what any other woman would have done—sought relief in a wholesome tide of unreasonable tears, and her last words, murmured to herself before slumber, capitulating, came softly to woo her, were “He has forgotten.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The manager of the Rancho de las Sombras was no dilettante. He was a “hustler.” He was generally up, mounted, and away of mornings before the rest of the household were awake, making the rounds of the flocks and camps. This was the duty of the major-domo, a stately old Mexican with a princely air and manner, but Teddy seemed to have a great deal of confidence in his own eyesight. Except in the busy seasons, he nearly always returned to the ranch to breakfast at eight o’clock, with Octavia and <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Maclntyre, at the little table set in the central hallway, bringing with him a tonic and breezy cheerfulness full of the health and flavour of the prairies.</p>
|
||||
<p>The manager of the <span xml:lang="es">Rancho de las Sombras</span> was no dilettante. He was a “hustler.” He was generally up, mounted, and away of mornings before the rest of the household were awake, making the rounds of the flocks and camps. This was the duty of the major-domo, a stately old Mexican with a princely air and manner, but Teddy seemed to have a great deal of confidence in his own eyesight. Except in the busy seasons, he nearly always returned to the ranch to breakfast at eight o’clock, with Octavia and <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Maclntyre, at the little table set in the central hallway, bringing with him a tonic and breezy cheerfulness full of the health and flavour of the prairies.</p>
|
||||
<p>A few days after Octavia’s arrival he made her get out one of her riding skirts, and curtail it to a shortness demanded by the chaparral brakes.</p>
|
||||
<p>With some misgivings she donned this and the pair of buckskin leggings he prescribed in addition, and, mounted upon a dancing pony, rode with him to view her possessions. He showed her everything—the flocks of ewes, muttons and grazing lambs, the dipping vats, the shearing pens, the uncouth merino rams in their little pasture, the water-tanks prepared against the summer drought—giving account of his stewardship with a boyish enthusiasm that never flagged.</p>
|
||||
<p>Where was the old Teddy that she knew so well? This side of him was the same, and it was a side that pleased her; but this was all she ever saw of him now. Where was his sentimentality—those old, varying moods of impetuous lovemaking, of fanciful, quixotic devotion, of heartbreaking gloom, of alternating, absurd tenderness and haughty dignity? His nature had been a sensitive one, his temperament bordering closely on the artistic. She knew that, besides being a follower of fashion and its fads and sports, he had cultivated tastes of a finer nature. He had written things, he had tampered with colours, he was something of a student in certain branches of art, and once she had been admitted to all his aspirations and thoughts. But now—and she could not avoid the conclusion—Teddy had barricaded against her every side of himself except one—the side that showed the manager of the Rancho de las Sombras and a jolly chum who had forgiven and forgotten. Queerly enough the words of <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Bannister’s description of her property came into her mind—“all enclosed within a strong barbed-wire fence.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Where was the old Teddy that she knew so well? This side of him was the same, and it was a side that pleased her; but this was all she ever saw of him now. Where was his sentimentality—those old, varying moods of impetuous lovemaking, of fanciful, quixotic devotion, of heartbreaking gloom, of alternating, absurd tenderness and haughty dignity? His nature had been a sensitive one, his temperament bordering closely on the artistic. She knew that, besides being a follower of fashion and its fads and sports, he had cultivated tastes of a finer nature. He had written things, he had tampered with colours, he was something of a student in certain branches of art, and once she had been admitted to all his aspirations and thoughts. But now—and she could not avoid the conclusion—Teddy had barricaded against her every side of himself except one—the side that showed the manager of the <span xml:lang="es">Rancho de las Sombras</span> and a jolly chum who had forgiven and forgotten. Queerly enough the words of <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Bannister’s description of her property came into her mind—“all enclosed within a strong barbed-wire fence.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Teddy’s fenced, too,” said Octavia to herself.</p>
|
||||
<p>It was not difficult for her to reason out the cause of his fortifications. It had originated one night at the Hammersmiths’ ball. It occurred at a time soon after she had decided to accept Colonel Beaupree and his million, which was no more than her looks and the entrée she held to the inner circles were worth. Teddy had proposed with all his impetuosity and fire, and she looked him straight in the eyes, and said, coldly and finally: “Never let me hear any such silly nonsense from you again.” “You won’t,” said Teddy, with an expression around his mouth, and—now Teddy was enclosed within a strong barbed-wire fence.</p>
|
||||
<p>It was on this first ride of inspection that Teddy was seized by the inspiration that suggested the name of Mother Goose’s heroine, and he at once bestowed it upon Octavia. The idea, supported by both a similarity of names and identity of occupations, seemed to strike him as a peculiarly happy one, and he never tired of using it. The Mexicans on the ranch also took up the name, adding another syllable to accommodate their lingual incapacity for the final “p,” gravely referring to her as “<i xml:lang="es">La Madama Bo-Peepy</i>.” Eventually it spread, and “Madame Bo-Peep’s ranch” was as often mentioned as the “Rancho de las Sombras.”</p>
|
||||
<p>It was on this first ride of inspection that Teddy was seized by the inspiration that suggested the name of Mother Goose’s heroine, and he at once bestowed it upon Octavia. The idea, supported by both a similarity of names and identity of occupations, seemed to strike him as a peculiarly happy one, and he never tired of using it. The Mexicans on the ranch also took up the name, adding another syllable to accommodate their lingual incapacity for the final “p,” gravely referring to her as “<i xml:lang="es">La Madama Bo-Peepy</i>.” Eventually it spread, and “Madame Bo-Peep’s ranch” was as often mentioned as the “<span xml:lang="es">Rancho de las Sombras</span>.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Came the long, hot season from May to September, when work is scarce on the ranches. Octavia passed the days in a kind of lotus-eater’s dream. Books, hammocks, correspondence with a few intimate friends, a renewed interest in her old watercolour box and easel—these disposed of the sultry hours of daylight. The evenings were always sure to bring enjoyment. Best of all were the rapturous horseback rides with Teddy, when the moon gave light over the windswept leagues, chaperoned by the wheeling nighthawk and the startled owl. Often the Mexicans would come up from their shacks with their guitars and sing the weirdest of heartbreaking songs. There were long, cosy chats on the breezy gallery, and an interminable warfare of wits between Teddy and <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> MacIntyre, whose abundant Scotch shrewdness often more than overmatched the lighter humour in which she was lacking.</p>
|
||||
<p>And the nights came, one after another, and were filed away by weeks and months—nights soft and languorous and fragrant, that should have driven Strephon to Chloe over wires however barbed, that might have drawn Cupid himself to hunt, lasso in hand, among those amorous pastures—but Teddy kept his fences up.</p>
|
||||
<p>One July night Madame Bo-Peep and her ranch manager were sitting on the east gallery. Teddy had been exhausting the science of prognostication as to the probabilities of a price of twenty-four cents for the autumn clip, and had then subsided into an anesthetic cloud of Havana smoke. Only as incompetent a judge as a woman would have failed to note long ago that at least a third of his salary must have gone up in the fumes of those imported Regalias.</p>
|
||||
@ -144,7 +144,7 @@
|
||||
<p>Between them they slew the centipede. Thus was he rewarded for his agency toward the recovery of things lost at the Hammersmiths’ ball.</p>
|
||||
<p>It seems that Teddy, in due course, remembered the glove, and when he returned to the house at sunset made a secret but exhaustive search for it. Not until evening, upon the moonlit eastern gallery, did he find it. It was upon the hand that he had thought lost to him forever, and so he was moved to repeat certain nonsense that he had been commanded never, never to utter again. Teddy’s fences were down.</p>
|
||||
<p>This time there was no ambition to stand in the way, and the wooing was as natural and successful as should be between ardent shepherd and gentle shepherdess.</p>
|
||||
<p>The prairies changed to a garden. The Rancho de las Sombras became the Ranch of Light.</p>
|
||||
<p>The prairies changed to a garden. The <span xml:lang="es">Rancho de las Sombras</span> became the Ranch of Light.</p>
|
||||
<p>A few days later Octavia received a letter from <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Bannister, in reply to one she had written to him asking some questions about her business. A portion of the letter ran as follows:</p>
|
||||
<blockquote epub:type="z3998:letter">
|
||||
<p>I am at a loss to account for your references to the sheep ranch. Two months after your departure to take up your residence upon it, it was discovered that Colonel Beaupree’s title was worthless. A deed came to light showing that he disposed of the property before his death. The matter was reported to your manager, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Westlake, who at once repurchased the property. It is entirely beyond my powers of conjecture to imagine how you have remained in ignorance of this fact. I beg that you that will at once confer with that gentleman, who will, at least, corroborate my statement.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -41,7 +41,7 @@
|
||||
<p>For five months in the year Coralio is the Newport of Anchuria. Then only does the town possess life. From November to March it is practically the seat of government. The president with his official family sojourns there; and society follows him. The pleasure-loving people make the season one long holiday of amusement and rejoicing. Fiestas, balls, games, sea bathing, processions and small theatres contribute to their enjoyment. The famous Swiss band from the capital plays in the little plaza every evening, while the fourteen carriages and vehicles in the town circle in funereal but complacent procession. Indians from the interior mountains, looking like prehistoric stone idols, come down to peddle their handiwork in the streets. The people throng the narrow ways, a chattering, happy, careless stream of buoyant humanity. Preposterous children rigged out with the shortest of ballet skirts and gilt wings, howl, underfoot, among the effervescent crowds. Especially is the arrival of the presidential party, at the opening of the season, attended with pomp, show and patriotic demonstrations of enthusiasm and delight.</p>
|
||||
<p>When Keogh and White reached their destination, on the return trip of the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Karlsefin</i>, the gay winter season was well begun. As they stepped upon the beach they could hear the band playing in the plaza. The village maidens, with fireflies already fixed in their dark locks, were gliding, barefoot and coy-eyed, along the paths. Dandies in white linen, swinging their canes, were beginning their seductive strolls. The air was full of human essence, of artificial enticement, of coquetry, indolence, pleasure—the man-made sense of existence.</p>
|
||||
<p>The first two or three days after their arrival were spent in preliminaries. Keogh escorted the artist about town, introducing him to the little circle of English-speaking residents and pulling whatever wires he could to effect the spreading of White’s fame as a painter. And then Keogh planned a more spectacular demonstration of the idea he wished to keep before the public.</p>
|
||||
<p>He and White engaged rooms in the Hotel de los Estranjeros. The two were clad in new suits of immaculate duck, with American straw hats, and carried canes of remarkable uniqueness and inutility. Few caballeros in Coralio—even the gorgeously uniformed officers of the Anchurian army—were as conspicuous for ease and elegance of demeanour as Keogh and his friend, the great American painter, Señor White.</p>
|
||||
<p>He and White engaged rooms in the Hotel <span xml:lang="es">de los Estranjeros</span>. The two were clad in new suits of immaculate duck, with American straw hats, and carried canes of remarkable uniqueness and inutility. Few caballeros in Coralio—even the gorgeously uniformed officers of the Anchurian army—were as conspicuous for ease and elegance of demeanour as Keogh and his friend, the great American painter, Señor White.</p>
|
||||
<p>White set up his easel on the beach and made striking sketches of the mountain and sea views. The native population formed at his rear in a vast, chattering semicircle to watch his work. Keogh, with his care for details, had arranged for himself a pose which he carried out with fidelity. His role was that of friend to the great artist, a man of affairs and leisure. The visible emblem of his position was a pocket camera.</p>
|
||||
<p>“For branding the man who owns it,” said he, “a genteel dilettante with a bank account and an easy conscience, a steam-yacht ain’t in it with a camera. You see a man doing nothing but loafing around making snapshots, and you know right away he reads up well in ‘Bradstreet.’ You notice these old millionaire boys—soon as they get through taking everything else in sight they go to taking photographs. People are more impressed by a kodak than they are by a title or a four-carat scarf-pin.” So Keogh strolled blandly about Coralio, snapping the scenery and the shrinking señoritas, while White posed conspicuously in the higher regions of art.</p>
|
||||
<p>Two weeks after their arrival, the scheme began to bear fruit. An aide-de-camp of the president drove to the hotel in a dashing victoria. The president desired that Señor White come to the Casa Morena for an informal interview.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -17,7 +17,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“Of a truth,” testified Estebán before the mighty secretary, “it was he, the president. Consider!—how could I shave a man and not see his face? He sent for me to shave him in a small house. He had a beard very black and thick. Had I ever seen the president before? Why not? I saw him once ride forth in a carriage from the <i>vapor</i> in Solitas. When I shaved him he gave me a gold piece, and said there was to be no talk. But I am a Liberal—I am devoted to my country—and I spake of these things to Señor Goodwin.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“It is known,” said Colonel Falcon, smoothly, “that the late President took with him an American leather valise, containing a large amount of money. Did you see that?”</p>
|
||||
<p>“<i xml:lang="es">De veras</i>—no,” Estebán answered. “The light in the little house was but a small lamp by which I could scarcely see to shave the President. Such a thing there may have been, but I did not see it. No. Also in the room was a young lady—a señorita of much beauty—that I could see even in so small a light. But the money, señor, or the thing in which it was carried—that I did not see.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The comandante and other officers gave testimony that they had been awakened and alarmed by the noise of a pistol-shot in the Hotel de los Estranjeros. Hurrying thither to protect the peace and dignity of the republic, they found a man lying dead, with a pistol clutched in his hand. Beside him was a young woman, weeping sorely. Señor Goodwin was also in the room when they entered it. But of the valise of money they saw nothing.</p>
|
||||
<p>The comandante and other officers gave testimony that they had been awakened and alarmed by the noise of a pistol-shot in the Hotel <span xml:lang="es">de los Estranjeros</span>. Hurrying thither to protect the peace and dignity of the republic, they found a man lying dead, with a pistol clutched in his hand. Beside him was a young woman, weeping sorely. Señor Goodwin was also in the room when they entered it. But of the valise of money they saw nothing.</p>
|
||||
<p>Madame Timotea Ortiz, the proprietress of the hotel in which the game of Fox-in-the-Morning had been played out, told of the coming of the two guests to her house.</p>
|
||||
<p>“To my house they came,” said she—“one señor, not quite old, and one señorita of sufficient handsomeness. They desired not to eat or to drink—not even of my aguardiente, which is the best. To their rooms they ascended—<i xml:lang="es">Numero Nueve</i> and <i xml:lang="es">Numero Diez</i>. Later came Señor Goodwin, who ascended to speak with them. Then I heard a great noise like that of a <em>canon</em>, and they said that the <i xml:lang="es">pobre Presidente</i> had shot himself. <i xml:lang="es">Está bueno.</i> I saw nothing of money or of the thing you call <i xml:lang="es">veliz</i> that you say he carried it in.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Colonel Falcon soon came to the reasonable conclusion that if anyone in Coralio could furnish a clue to the vanished money, Frank Goodwin must be the man. But the wise secretary pursued a different course in seeking information from the American. Goodwin was a powerful friend to the new administration, and one who was not to be carelessly dealt with in respect to either his honesty or his courage. Even the private secretary of His Excellency hesitated to have this rubber prince and mahogany baron haled before him as a common citizen of Anchuria. So he sent Goodwin a flowery epistle, each word-petal dripping with honey, requesting the favour of an interview. Goodwin replied with an invitation to dinner at his own house.</p>
|
||||
@ -45,7 +45,7 @@
|
||||
<p>After the meal they lingered, according to the custom, over their coffee and cigars. Colonel Falcon, with true Castilian delicacy, waited for his host to open the question that they had met to discuss. He had not long to wait. As soon as the cigars were lighted, the American cleared the way by inquiring whether the secretary’s investigations in the town had furnished him with any clue to the lost funds.</p>
|
||||
<p>“I have found no one yet,” admitted Colonel Falcon, “who even had sight of the valise or the money. Yet I have persisted. It has been proven in the capital that President Miraflores set out from San Mateo with one hundred thousand dollars belonging to the government, accompanied by Señorita Isabel Guilbert, the opera singer. The Government, officially and personally, is loathe to believe,” concluded Colonel Falcon, with a smile, “that our late President’s tastes would have permitted him to abandon on the route, as excess baggage, either of the desirable articles with which his flight was burdened.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“I suppose you would like to hear what I have to say about the affair,” said Goodwin, coming directly to the point. “It will not require many words.</p>
|
||||
<p>“On that night, with others of our friends here, I was keeping a lookout for the president, having been notified of his flight by a telegram in our national cipher from Englehart, one of our leaders in the capital. About ten o’clock that night I saw a man and a woman hurrying along the streets. They went to the Hotel de los Estranjeros, and engaged rooms. I followed them upstairs, leaving Estebán, who had come up, to watch outside. The barber had told me that he had shaved the beard from the president’s face that night; therefore I was prepared, when I entered the rooms, to find him with a smooth face. When I apprehended him in the name of the people he drew a pistol and shot himself instantly. In a few minutes many officers and citizens were on the spot. I suppose you have been informed of the subsequent facts.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“On that night, with others of our friends here, I was keeping a lookout for the president, having been notified of his flight by a telegram in our national cipher from Englehart, one of our leaders in the capital. About ten o’clock that night I saw a man and a woman hurrying along the streets. They went to the Hotel <span xml:lang="es">de los Estranjeros</span>, and engaged rooms. I followed them upstairs, leaving Estebán, who had come up, to watch outside. The barber had told me that he had shaved the beard from the president’s face that night; therefore I was prepared, when I entered the rooms, to find him with a smooth face. When I apprehended him in the name of the people he drew a pistol and shot himself instantly. In a few minutes many officers and citizens were on the spot. I suppose you have been informed of the subsequent facts.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Goodwin paused. Losada’s agent maintained an attitude of waiting, as if he expected a continuance.</p>
|
||||
<p>“And now,” went on the American, looking steadily into the eyes of the other man, and giving each word a deliberate emphasis, “you will oblige me by attending carefully to what I have to add. I saw no valise or receptacle of any kind, or any money belonging to the Republic of Anchuria. If President Miraflores decamped with any funds belonging to the treasury of this country, or to himself, or to anyone else, I saw no trace of it in the house or elsewhere, at that time or at any other. Does that statement cover the ground of the inquiry you wished to make of me?”</p>
|
||||
<p>Colonel Falcon bowed, and described a fluent curve with his cigar. His duty was performed. Goodwin was not to be disputed. He was a loyal supporter of the government, and enjoyed the full confidence of the new president. His rectitude had been the capital that had brought him fortune in Anchuria, just as it had formed the lucrative “graft” of Mellinger, the secretary of Miraflores.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -25,12 +25,12 @@
|
||||
<p>“But you’ve got ’em, though,” went on Keogh. “And there’s Goodwin and Blanchard and Geddie and old Lutz and Doc Gregg and that Italian that’s agent for the banana company, and there’s old Delgado—no; he wears sandals. And, oh, yes; there’s Madama Ortiz, ‘what kapes the hotel’—she had on a pair of red slippers at the baile the other night. And Miss Pasa, her daughter, that went to school in the States—she brought back some civilized notions in the way of footgear. And there’s the comandante’s sister that dresses up her feet on feast-days—and <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Geddie, who wears a two with a Castilian instep—and that’s about all the ladies. Let’s see—don’t some of the soldiers at the cuartel—no: that’s so; they’re allowed shoes only when on the march. In barracks they turn their little toeses out to grass.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“ ’Bout right,” agreed the consul. “Not over twenty out of the three thousand ever felt leather on their walking arrangements. Oh, yes; Coralio is just the town for an enterprising shoe store—that doesn’t want to part with its goods. Wonder if old Patterson is trying to jolly me! He always was full of things he called jokes. Write him a letter, Billy. I’ll dictate it. We’ll jolly him back a few.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Keogh dipped his pen, and wrote at Johnny’s dictation. With many pauses, filled in with smoke and sundry travellings of the bottle and glasses, the following reply to the Dalesburg communication was perpetrated:</p>
|
||||
<blockquote epub:type="letter">
|
||||
<blockquote epub:type="z3998:letter">
|
||||
<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Obadiah Patterson, Dalesburg, Ala.</p>
|
||||
<p><span epub:type="z3998:salutation">Dear Sir</span>: In reply to your favour of July 2nd, I have the honour to inform you that, according to my opinion, there is no place on the habitable globe that presents to the eye stronger evidence of the need of a first-class shoe store than does the town of Coralio. There are 3,000 inhabitants in the place, and not a single shoe store! The situation speaks for itself. This coast is rapidly becoming the goal of enterprising business men, but the shoe business is one that has been sadly overlooked or neglected. In fact, there are a considerable number of our citizens actually without shoes at present.</p>
|
||||
<p>Besides the want above mentioned, there is also a crying need for a brewery, a college of higher mathematics, a coal yard, and a clean and intellectual Punch and Judy show. I have the honour to be, sir,</p>
|
||||
<footer>
|
||||
<p epub:type="z3998:valediction">Your Obt. Servant,</p>
|
||||
<p epub:type="z3998:valediction">Your <abbr>Obt.</abbr> Servant,</p>
|
||||
<p class="signature" epub:type="z3998:sender">John De Graffenreid Atwood,</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr class="initialism">US</abbr> Consul at Coralio.</p>
|
||||
</footer>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -32,8 +32,8 @@
|
||||
<p>“That’s the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Karlsefin</i>,” said the consul. “She’s a tramp fruiter—made her last trip to New York, I believe. No; she brought no passengers. I saw her boat come ashore, and there was no one. About the only exciting recreation we have here is watching steamers when they arrive; and a passenger on one of them generally causes the whole town to turn out. If you are going to remain in Coralio a while, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Smith, I’ll be glad to take you around to meet some people. There are four or five American chaps that are good to know, besides the native highfliers.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Thanks,” said the yachtsman, “but I wouldn’t put you to the trouble. I’d like to meet the guys you speak of, but I won’t be here long enough to do much knocking around. That cool gent on the beach spoke of a doctor; can you tell me where I could find him? The <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Rambler</i> ain’t quite as steady on her feet as a Broadway hotel; and a fellow gets a touch of seasickness now and then. Thought I’d strike the croaker for a handful of the little sugar pills, in case I need ’em.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“You will be apt to find <abbr>Dr.</abbr> Gregg at the hotel,” said the consul. “You can see it from the door—it’s that two-story building with the balcony, where the orange-trees are.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The Hotel de los Estranjeros was a dreary hostelry, in great disuse both by strangers and friends. It stood at a corner of the Street of the Holy Sepulchre. A grove of small orange-trees crowded against one side of it, enclosed by a low, rock wall over which a tall man might easily step. The house was of plastered adobe, stained a hundred shades of colour by the salt breeze and the sun. Upon its upper balcony opened a central door and two windows containing broad jalousies instead of sashes.</p>
|
||||
<p>The lower floor communicated by two doorways with the narrow, rock-paved sidewalk. The pulperia—or drinking shop—of the proprietress, Madama Timotea Ortiz, occupied the ground floor. On the bottles of brandy, <i xml:lang="es">anisada</i>, Scotch “smoke” and inexpensive wines behind the little counter the dust lay thick save where the fingers of infrequent customers had left irregular prints. The upper story contained four or five guestrooms which were rarely put to their destined use. Sometimes a fruit-grower, riding in from his plantation to confer with his agent, would pass a melancholy night in the dismal upper story; sometimes a minor native official on some trifling government quest would have his pomp and majesty awed by Madama’s sepulchral hospitality. But Madama sat behind her bar content, not desiring to quarrel with Fate. If anyone required meat, drink or lodging at the Hotel de los Estranjeros they had but to come, and be served. <i xml:lang="es">Está bueno.</i> If they came not, why, then, they came not. <i xml:lang="es">Está bueno.</i></p>
|
||||
<p>The Hotel <span xml:lang="es">de los Estranjeros</span> was a dreary hostelry, in great disuse both by strangers and friends. It stood at a corner of the Street of the Holy Sepulchre. A grove of small orange-trees crowded against one side of it, enclosed by a low, rock wall over which a tall man might easily step. The house was of plastered adobe, stained a hundred shades of colour by the salt breeze and the sun. Upon its upper balcony opened a central door and two windows containing broad jalousies instead of sashes.</p>
|
||||
<p>The lower floor communicated by two doorways with the narrow, rock-paved sidewalk. The pulperia—or drinking shop—of the proprietress, Madama Timotea Ortiz, occupied the ground floor. On the bottles of brandy, <i xml:lang="es">anisada</i>, Scotch “smoke” and inexpensive wines behind the little counter the dust lay thick save where the fingers of infrequent customers had left irregular prints. The upper story contained four or five guestrooms which were rarely put to their destined use. Sometimes a fruit-grower, riding in from his plantation to confer with his agent, would pass a melancholy night in the dismal upper story; sometimes a minor native official on some trifling government quest would have his pomp and majesty awed by Madama’s sepulchral hospitality. But Madama sat behind her bar content, not desiring to quarrel with Fate. If anyone required meat, drink or lodging at the Hotel <span xml:lang="es">de los Estranjeros</span> they had but to come, and be served. <i xml:lang="es">Está bueno.</i> If they came not, why, then, they came not. <i xml:lang="es">Está bueno.</i></p>
|
||||
<p>As the exceptional yachtsman was making his way down the precarious sidewalk of the Street of the Holy Sepulchre, the solitary permanent guest of that decaying hotel sat at its door, enjoying the breeze from the sea.</p>
|
||||
<p><abbr>Dr.</abbr> Gregg, the quarantine physician, was a man of fifty or sixty, with a florid face and the longest beard between Topeka and Terra del Fuego. He held his position by virtue of an appointment by the Board of Health of a seaport city in one of the Southern states. That city feared the ancient enemy of every Southern seaport—the yellow fever—and it was the duty of <abbr>Dr.</abbr> Gregg to examine crew and passengers of every vessel leaving Coralio for preliminary symptoms. The duties were light, and the salary, for one who lived in Coralio, ample. Surplus time there was in plenty; and the good doctor added to his gains by a large private practice among the residents of the coast. The fact that he did not know ten words of Spanish was no obstacle; a pulse could be felt and a fee collected without one being a linguist. Add to the description the facts that the doctor had a story to tell concerning the operation of trepanning which no listener had ever allowed him to conclude, and that he believed in brandy as a prophylactic; and the special points of interest possessed by <abbr>Dr.</abbr> Gregg will have become exhausted.</p>
|
||||
<p>The doctor had dragged a chair to the sidewalk. He was coatless, and he leaned back against the wall and smoked, while he stroked his beard. Surprise came into his pale blue eyes when he caught sight of Smith in his unusual and prismatic clothes.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -10,9 +10,9 @@
|
||||
<h2 epub:type="title">The Admiral</h2>
|
||||
<p>Spilled milk draws few tears from an Anchurian administration. Many are its lacteal sources; and the clocks’ hands point forever to milking time. Even the rich cream skimmed from the treasury by the bewitched Miraflores did not cause the newly-installed patriots to waste time in unprofitable regrets. The government philosophically set about supplying the deficiency by increasing the import duties and by “suggesting” to wealthy private citizens that contributions according to their means would be considered patriotic and in order. Prosperity was expected to attend the reign of Losada, the new president. The ousted officeholders and military favourites organized a new “Liberal” party, and began to lay their plans for a re-succession. Thus the game of Anchurian politics began, like a Chinese comedy, to unwind slowly its serial length. Here and there Mirth peeps for an instant from the wings and illumines the florid lines.</p>
|
||||
<p>A dozen quarts of champagne in conjunction with an informal sitting of the president and his cabinet led to the establishment of the navy and the appointment of Felipe Carrera as its admiral.</p>
|
||||
<p>Next to the champagne the credit of the appointment belongs to Don Sabas Placido, the newly confirmed Minister of War.</p>
|
||||
<p>Next to the champagne the credit of the appointment belongs to <span xml:lang="es">Don Sabas Placido</span>, the newly confirmed Minister of War.</p>
|
||||
<p>The president had requested a convention of his cabinet for the discussion of questions politic and for the transaction of certain routine matters of state. The session had been signally tedious; the business and the wine prodigiously dry. A sudden, prankish humour of Don Sabas, impelling him to the deed, spiced the grave affairs of state with a whiff of agreeable playfulness.</p>
|
||||
<p>In the dilatory order of business had come a bulletin from the coast department of Orilla del Mar reporting the seizure by the customhouse officers at the town of Coralio of the sloop <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Estrella del Noche</i> and her cargo of drygoods, patent medicines, granulated sugar and three-star brandy. Also six Martini rifles and a barrel of American whisky. Caught in the act of smuggling, the sloop with its cargo was now, according to law, the property of the republic.</p>
|
||||
<p>In the dilatory order of business had come a bulletin from the coast department of Orilla del Mar reporting the seizure by the customhouse officers at the town of Coralio of the sloop <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship" xml:lang="es">Estrella del Noche</i> and her cargo of drygoods, patent medicines, granulated sugar and three-star brandy. Also six Martini rifles and a barrel of American whisky. Caught in the act of smuggling, the sloop with its cargo was now, according to law, the property of the republic.</p>
|
||||
<p>The Collector of Customs, in making his report, departed from the conventional forms so far as to suggest that the confiscated vessel be converted to the use of the government. The prize was the first capture to the credit of the department in ten years. The collector took opportunity to pat his department on the back.</p>
|
||||
<p>It often happened that government officers required transportation from point to point along the coast, and means were usually lacking. Furthermore, the sloop could be manned by a loyal crew and employed as a coast guard to discourage the pernicious art of smuggling. The collector also ventured to nominate one to whom the charge of the boat could be safely entrusted—a young man of Coralio, Felipe Carrera—not, be it understood, one of extreme wisdom, but loyal and the best sailor along the coast.</p>
|
||||
<p>It was upon this hint that the Minister of War acted, executing a rare piece of drollery that so enlivened the tedium of executive session.</p>
|
||||
@ -26,20 +26,20 @@
|
||||
<p>When the outcome of Don Sabas’ little pleasantry arrived in the form of the imposing and preposterous commission, the collector smiled. He had not expected such prompt and overwhelming response to his recommendation. He despatched a muchacho at once to fetch the future admiral.</p>
|
||||
<p>The collector waited in his official quarters. His office was in the Calle Grande, and the sea breezes hummed through its windows all day. The collector, in white linen and canvas shoes, philandered with papers on an antique desk. A parrot, perched on a pen rack, seasoned the official tedium with a fire of choice Castilian imprecations. Two rooms opened into the collector’s. In one the clerical force of young men of variegated complexions transacted with glitter and parade their several duties. Through the open door of the other room could be seen a bronze babe, guiltless of clothing, that rollicked upon the floor. In a grass hammock a thin woman, tinted a pale lemon, played a guitar and swung contentedly in the breeze. Thus surrounded by the routine of his high duties and the visible tokens of agreeable domesticity, the collector’s heart was further made happy by the power placed in his hands to brighten the fortunes of the “innocent” Felipe.</p>
|
||||
<p>Felipe came and stood before the collector. He was a lad of twenty, not ill-favoured in looks, but with an expression of distant and pondering vacuity. He wore white cotton trousers, down the seams of which he had sewed red stripes with some vague aim at military decoration. A flimsy blue shirt fell open at his throat; his feet were bare; he held in his hand the cheapest of straw hats from the States.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Señor Carrera,” said the collector, gravely, producing the showy commission, “I have sent for you at the president’s bidding. This document that I present to you confers upon you the title of Admiral of this great republic, and gives you absolute command of the naval forces and fleet of our country. You may think, friend Felipe, that we have no navy—but yes! The sloop the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Estrella del Noche</i>, that my brave men captured from the coast smugglers, is to be placed under your command. The boat is to be devoted to the services of your country. You will be ready at all times to convey officials of the government to points along the coast where they may be obliged to visit. You will also act as a coastguard to prevent, as far as you may be able, the crime of smuggling. You will uphold the honour and prestige of your country at sea, and endeavour to place Anchuria among the proudest naval powers of the world. These are your instructions as the Minister of War desires me to convey them to you. <i xml:lang="es">Por Dios!</i> I do not know how all this is to be accomplished, for not one word did his letter contain in respect to a crew or to the expenses of this navy. Perhaps you are to provide a crew yourself, Señor Admiral—I do not know—but it is a very high honour that has descended upon you. I now hand you your commission. When you are ready for the boat I will give orders that she shall be made over into your charge. That is as far as my instructions go.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Señor Carrera,” said the collector, gravely, producing the showy commission, “I have sent for you at the president’s bidding. This document that I present to you confers upon you the title of Admiral of this great republic, and gives you absolute command of the naval forces and fleet of our country. You may think, friend Felipe, that we have no navy—but yes! The sloop the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship" xml:lang="es">Estrella del Noche</i>, that my brave men captured from the coast smugglers, is to be placed under your command. The boat is to be devoted to the services of your country. You will be ready at all times to convey officials of the government to points along the coast where they may be obliged to visit. You will also act as a coastguard to prevent, as far as you may be able, the crime of smuggling. You will uphold the honour and prestige of your country at sea, and endeavour to place Anchuria among the proudest naval powers of the world. These are your instructions as the Minister of War desires me to convey them to you. <i xml:lang="es">Por Dios!</i> I do not know how all this is to be accomplished, for not one word did his letter contain in respect to a crew or to the expenses of this navy. Perhaps you are to provide a crew yourself, Señor Admiral—I do not know—but it is a very high honour that has descended upon you. I now hand you your commission. When you are ready for the boat I will give orders that she shall be made over into your charge. That is as far as my instructions go.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Felipe took the commission that the collector handed to him. He gazed through the open window at the sea for a moment, with his customary expression of deep but vain pondering. Then he turned without having spoken a word, and walked swiftly away through the hot sand of the street.</p>
|
||||
<p>“<i xml:lang="es">Pobrecito loco!</i>” sighed the collector; and the parrot on the pen racks screeched “Loco!—loco!—loco!”</p>
|
||||
<p>The next morning a strange procession filed through the streets to the collector’s office. At its head was the admiral of the navy. Somewhere Felipe had raked together a pitiful semblance of a military uniform—a pair of red trousers, a dingy blue short jacket heavily ornamented with gold braid, and an old fatigue cap that must have been cast away by one of the British soldiers in Belize and brought away by Felipe on one of his coasting voyages. Buckled around his waist was an ancient ship’s cutlass contributed to his equipment by Pedro Lafitte, the baker, who proudly asserted its inheritance from his ancestor, the illustrious buccaneer. At the admiral’s heels tagged his newly-shipped crew—three grinning, glossy, black Caribs, bare to the waist, the sand spurting in showers from the spring of their naked feet.</p>
|
||||
<p>Briefly and with dignity Felipe demanded his vessel of the collector. And now a fresh honour awaited him. The collector’s wife, who played the guitar and read novels in the hammock all day, had more than a little romance in her placid, yellow bosom. She had found in an old book an engraving of a flag that purported to be the naval flag of Anchuria. Perhaps it had so been designed by the founders of the nation; but, as no navy had ever been established, oblivion had claimed the flag. Laboriously with her own hands she had made a flag after the pattern—a red cross upon a blue-and-white ground. She presented it to Felipe with these words: “Brave sailor, this flag is of your country. Be true, and defend it with your life. Go you with God.”</p>
|
||||
<p>For the first time since his appointment the admiral showed a flicker of emotion. He took the silken emblem, and passed his hand reverently over its surface. “I am the admiral,” he said to the collector’s lady. Being on land he could bring himself to no more exuberant expression of sentiment. At sea with the flag at the masthead of his navy, some more eloquent exposition of feelings might be forthcoming.</p>
|
||||
<p>Abruptly the admiral departed with his crew. For the next three days they were busy giving the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Estrella del Noche</i> a new coat of white paint trimmed with blue. And then Felipe further adorned himself by fastening a handful of brilliant parrot’s plumes in his cap. Again he tramped with his faithful crew to the collector’s office and formally notified him that the sloop’s name had been changed to <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">El Nacional</i>.</p>
|
||||
<p>During the next few months the navy had its troubles. Even an admiral is perplexed to know what to do without any orders. But none came. Neither did any salaries. <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">El Nacional</i> swung idly at anchor.</p>
|
||||
<p>Abruptly the admiral departed with his crew. For the next three days they were busy giving the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship" xml:lang="es">Estrella del Noche</i> a new coat of white paint trimmed with blue. And then Felipe further adorned himself by fastening a handful of brilliant parrot’s plumes in his cap. Again he tramped with his faithful crew to the collector’s office and formally notified him that the sloop’s name had been changed to <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship" xml:lang="es">El Nacional</i>.</p>
|
||||
<p>During the next few months the navy had its troubles. Even an admiral is perplexed to know what to do without any orders. But none came. Neither did any salaries. <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship" xml:lang="es">El Nacional</i> swung idly at anchor.</p>
|
||||
<p>When Felipe’s little store of money was exhausted he went to the collector and raised the question of finances.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Salaries!” exclaimed the collector, with hands raised; “<i xml:lang="es">Válgame Dios!</i> not one centavo of my own pay have I received for the last seven months. The pay of an admiral, do you ask? <i xml:lang="es">Quién sabe?</i> Should it be less than three thousand pesos? <i xml:lang="es">Mira!</i> you will see a revolution in this country very soon. A good sign of it is when the government calls all the time for pesos, pesos, pesos, and pays none out.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Felipe left the collector’s office with a look almost of content on his sombre face. A revolution would mean fighting, and then the government would need his services. It was rather humiliating to be an admiral without anything to do, and have a hungry crew at your heels begging for <i xml:lang="es">reales</i> to buy plantains and tobacco with.</p>
|
||||
<p>When he returned to where his happy-go-lucky Caribs were waiting they sprang up and saluted, as he had drilled them to do.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Come, muchachos,” said the admiral; “it seems that the government is poor. It has no money to give us. We will earn what we need to live upon. Thus will we serve our country. Soon”—his heavy eyes almost lighted up—“it may gladly call upon us for help.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Thereafter <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">El Nacional</i> turned out with the other coast craft and became a wage-earner. She worked with the lighters freighting bananas and oranges out to the fruit steamers that could not approach nearer than a mile from the shore. Surely a self-supporting navy deserves red letters in the budget of any nation.</p>
|
||||
<p>Thereafter <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship" xml:lang="es">El Nacional</i> turned out with the other coast craft and became a wage-earner. She worked with the lighters freighting bananas and oranges out to the fruit steamers that could not approach nearer than a mile from the shore. Surely a self-supporting navy deserves red letters in the budget of any nation.</p>
|
||||
<p>After earning enough at freighting to keep himself and his crew in provisions for a week Felipe would anchor the navy and hang about the little telegraph office, looking like one of the chorus of an insolvent comic opera troupe besieging the manager’s den. A hope for orders from the capital was always in his heart. That his services as admiral had never been called into requirement hurt his pride and patriotism. At every call he would inquire, gravely and expectantly, for despatches. The operator would pretend to make a search, and then reply:</p>
|
||||
<p>“Not yet, it seems, <i xml:lang="es">Señor el Almirante—poco tiempo!</i>”</p>
|
||||
<p>Outside in the shade of the lime-trees the crew chewed sugar cane or slumbered, well content to serve a country that was contented with so little service.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -19,9 +19,9 @@
|
||||
<p>Proceed immediately with your vessel to mouth of Rio Ruiz; transport beef and provisions to barracks at Alforan.</p>
|
||||
<p class="signature">Martinez, General.</p>
|
||||
</blockquote>
|
||||
<p>Small glory, to be sure, in this, his country’s first call. But it had called, and joy surged in the admiral’s breast. He drew his cutlass belt to another buckle hole, roused his dozing crew, and in a quarter of an hour <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">El Nacional</i> was tacking swiftly down coast in a stiff landward breeze.</p>
|
||||
<p>Small glory, to be sure, in this, his country’s first call. But it had called, and joy surged in the admiral’s breast. He drew his cutlass belt to another buckle hole, roused his dozing crew, and in a quarter of an hour <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship" xml:lang="es">El Nacional</i> was tacking swiftly down coast in a stiff landward breeze.</p>
|
||||
<p>The Rio Ruiz is a small river, emptying into the sea ten miles below Coralio. That portion of the coast is wild and solitary. Through a gorge in the Cordilleras rushes the Rio Ruiz, cold and bubbling, to glide, at last, with breadth and leisure, through an alluvial morass into the sea.</p>
|
||||
<p>In two hours <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">El Nacional</i> entered the river’s mouth. The banks were crowded with a disposition of formidable trees. The sumptuous undergrowth of the tropics overflowed the land, and drowned itself in the fallow waters. Silently the sloop entered there, and met a deeper silence. Brilliant with greens and ochres and floral scarlets, the umbrageous mouth of the Rio Ruiz furnished no sound or movement save of the seagoing water as it purled against the prow of the vessel. Small chance there seemed of wresting beef or provisions from that empty solitude.</p>
|
||||
<p>In two hours <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship" xml:lang="es">El Nacional</i> entered the river’s mouth. The banks were crowded with a disposition of formidable trees. The sumptuous undergrowth of the tropics overflowed the land, and drowned itself in the fallow waters. Silently the sloop entered there, and met a deeper silence. Brilliant with greens and ochres and floral scarlets, the umbrageous mouth of the Rio Ruiz furnished no sound or movement save of the seagoing water as it purled against the prow of the vessel. Small chance there seemed of wresting beef or provisions from that empty solitude.</p>
|
||||
<p>The admiral decided to cast anchor, and, at the chain’s rattle, the forest was stimulated to instant and resounding uproar. The mouth of the Rio Ruiz had only been taking a morning nap. Parrots and baboons screeched and barked in the trees; a whirring and a hissing and a booming marked the awakening of animal life; a dark blue bulk was visible for an instant, as a startled tapir fought his way through the vines.</p>
|
||||
<p>The navy, under orders, hung in the mouth of the little river for hours. The crew served the dinner of shark’s fin soup, plantains, crab gumbo and sour wine. The admiral, with a three-foot telescope, closely scanned the impervious foliage fifty yards away.</p>
|
||||
<p>It was nearly sunset when a reverberating “hal-lo-o-o!” came from the forest to their left. It was answered; and three men, mounted upon mules, crashed through the tropic tangle to within a dozen yards of the river’s bank. There they dismounted; and one, unbuckling his belt, struck each mule a violent blow with his sword scabbard, so that they, with a fling of heels, dashed back again into the forest.</p>
|
||||
@ -36,14 +36,14 @@
|
||||
<p>“No fault of the butchers, <i xml:lang="es">Almirante mio</i>, that the beef awaits you not. But you are come in time to save the cattle. Get us aboard your vessel, señor, at once. You first, <i xml:lang="es">caballeros—á priesa!</i> Come back for me. The boat is too small.”</p>
|
||||
<p>The dory conveyed the two officers to the sloop, and returned for the large man.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Have you so gross a thing as food, good admiral?” he cried, when aboard. “And, perhaps, coffee? Beef and provisions! <i xml:lang="es">Nombre de Dios!</i> a little longer and we could have eaten one of those mules that you, Colonel Rafael, saluted so feelingly with your sword scabbard at parting. Let us have food; and then we will sail—for the barracks at Alforan—no?”</p>
|
||||
<p>The Caribs prepared a meal, to which the three passengers of <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">El Nacional</i> set themselves with famished delight. About sunset, as was its custom, the breeze veered and swept back from the mountains, cool and steady, bringing a taste of the stagnant lagoons and mangrove swamps that guttered the lowlands. The mainsail of the sloop was hoisted and swelled to it, and at that moment they heard shouts and a waxing clamour from the bosky profundities of the shore.</p>
|
||||
<p>The Caribs prepared a meal, to which the three passengers of <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship" xml:lang="es">El Nacional</i> set themselves with famished delight. About sunset, as was its custom, the breeze veered and swept back from the mountains, cool and steady, bringing a taste of the stagnant lagoons and mangrove swamps that guttered the lowlands. The mainsail of the sloop was hoisted and swelled to it, and at that moment they heard shouts and a waxing clamour from the bosky profundities of the shore.</p>
|
||||
<p>“The butchers, my dear admiral,” said the large man, smiling, “too late for the slaughter.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Further than his orders to his crew, the admiral was saying nothing. The topsail and jib were spread, and the sloop glided out of the estuary. The large man and his companions had bestowed themselves with what comfort they could about the bare deck. Belike, the thing big in their minds had been their departure from that critical shore; and now that the hazard was so far reduced their thoughts were loosed to the consideration of further deliverance. But when they saw the sloop turn and fly up coast again they relaxed, satisfied with the course the admiral had taken.</p>
|
||||
<p>The large man sat at ease, his spirited blue eye engaged in the contemplation of the navy’s commander. He was trying to estimate this sombre and fantastic lad, whose impenetrable stolidity puzzled him. Himself a fugitive, his life sought, and chafing under the smart of defeat and failure, it was characteristic of him to transfer instantly his interest to the study of a thing new to him. It was like him, too, to have conceived and risked all upon this last desperate and madcap scheme—this message to a poor, crazed <i xml:lang="es">fanatico</i> cruising about with his grotesque uniform and his farcical title. But his companions had been at their wits’ end; escape had seemed incredible; and now he was pleased with the success of the plan they had called crackbrained and precarious.</p>
|
||||
<p>The brief, tropic twilight seemed to slide swiftly into the pearly splendour of a moonlit night. And now the lights of Coralio appeared, distributed against the darkening shore to their right. The admiral stood, silent, at the tiller; the Caribs, like black panthers, held the sheets, leaping noiselessly at his short commands. The three passengers were watching intently the sea before them, and when at length they came in sight of the bulk of a steamer lying a mile out from the town, with her lights radiating deep into the water, they held a sudden voluble and close-headed converse. The sloop was speeding as if to strike midway between ship and shore.</p>
|
||||
<p>The large man suddenly separated from his companions and approached the scarecrow at the helm.</p>
|
||||
<p>“My dear admiral,” he said, “the government has been exceedingly remiss. I feel all the shame for it that only its ignorance of your devoted service has prevented it from sustaining. An inexcusable oversight has been made. A vessel, a uniform and a crew worthy of your fidelity shall be furnished you. But just now, dear admiral, there is business of moment afoot. The steamer lying there is the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Salvador</i>. I and my friends desire to be conveyed to her, where we are sent on the government’s business. Do us the favour to shape your course accordingly.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Without replying, the admiral gave a sharp command, and put the tiller hard to port. <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">El Nacional</i> swerved, and headed straight as an arrow’s course for the shore.</p>
|
||||
<p>Without replying, the admiral gave a sharp command, and put the tiller hard to port. <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship" xml:lang="es">El Nacional</i> swerved, and headed straight as an arrow’s course for the shore.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Do me the favour,” said the large man, a trifle restively, “to acknowledge, at least, that you catch the sound of my words.” It was possible that the fellow might be lacking in senses as well as intellect.</p>
|
||||
<p>The admiral emitted a croaking, harsh laugh, and spake.</p>
|
||||
<p>“They will stand you,” he said, “with your face to a wall and shoot you dead. That is the way they kill traitors. I knew you when you stepped into my boat. I have seen your picture in a book. You are Sabas Placido, traitor to your country. With your face to a wall. So, you will die. I am the admiral, and I will take you to them. With your face to a wall. Yes.”</p>
|
||||
@ -58,11 +58,11 @@
|
||||
<p>He cut short his words, for he heard the dull “swish” of iron scraping along tin. The admiral had drawn the cutlass of Pedro Lafitte, and was darting upon him. The blade descended, and it was only by a display of surprising agility that the large man escaped, with only a bruised shoulder, the glancing weapon. He was drawing his pistol as he sprang, and the next instant he shot the admiral down.</p>
|
||||
<p>Don Sabas stooped over him, and rose again.</p>
|
||||
<p>“In the heart,” he said briefly. “Señores, the navy is abolished.”</p>
|
||||
<p>Colonel Rafael sprang to the helm, and the other officer hastened to loose the mainsail sheets. The boom swung round; <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">El Nacional</i> veered and began to tack industriously for the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Salvador</i>.</p>
|
||||
<p>Colonel Rafael sprang to the helm, and the other officer hastened to loose the mainsail sheets. The boom swung round; <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship" xml:lang="es">El Nacional</i> veered and began to tack industriously for the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Salvador</i>.</p>
|
||||
<p>“Strike that flag, señor,” called Colonel Rafael. “Our friends on the steamer will wonder why we are sailing under it.”</p>
|
||||
<p>“Well said,” cried Don Sabas. Advancing to the mast he lowered the flag to the deck, where lay its too loyal supporter. Thus ended the Minister of War’s little piece of after-dinner drollery, and by the same hand that began it.</p>
|
||||
<p>Suddenly Don Sabas gave a great cry of joy, and ran down the slanting deck to the side of Colonel Rafael. Across his arm he carried the flag of the extinguished navy.</p>
|
||||
<p>“<i xml:lang="es">Mire! mire! señor.</i> Ah, <i xml:lang="es">Dios!</i> Already can I hear that great bear of an <i xml:lang="de">Oestreicher</i> shout, <i xml:lang="de">‘Du hast mein herz gebrochen!’ Mire!</i> Of my friend, Herr Grunitz, of Vienna, you have heard me relate. That man has travelled to Ceylon for an orchid—to Patagonia for a headdress—to Benares for a slipper—to Mozambique for a spearhead to add to his famous collections. Thou knowest, also, amigo Rafael, that I have been a gatherer of curios. My collection of battle flags of the world’s navies was the most complete in existence until last year. Then Herr Grunitz secured two, O! such rare specimens. One of a Barbary state, and one of the Makarooroos, a tribe on the west coast of Africa. I have not those, but they can be procured. But this flag, señor—do you know what it is? Name of God! do you know? See that red cross upon the blue and white ground! You never saw it before? <i xml:lang="es">Seguramente no.</i> It is the naval flag of your country. <i xml:lang="es">Mire!</i> This rotten tub we stand upon is its navy—that dead cockatoo lying there was its commander—that stroke of cutlass and single pistol shot a sea battle. All a piece of absurd foolery, I grant you—but authentic. There has never been another flag like this, and there never will be another. No. It is unique in the whole world. Yes. Think of what that means to a collector of flags! Do you know, <i xml:lang="es">Coronel mio</i>, how many golden crowns Herr Grunitz would give for this flag? Ten thousand, likely. Well, a hundred thousand would not buy it. Beautiful flag! Only flag! Little devil of a most heaven-born flag! <i xml:lang="es">O-hé!</i> old grumbler beyond the ocean. Wait till Don Sabas comes again to the Königin Strasse. He will let you kneel and touch the folds of it with one finger. <i xml:lang="es">O-hé!</i> old spectacled ransacker of the world!”</p>
|
||||
<p>“<i xml:lang="es">Mire! mire! señor.</i> Ah, <i xml:lang="es">Dios!</i> Already can I hear that great bear of an <i xml:lang="de">Oestreicher</i> shout, <i xml:lang="de">‘Du hast mein herz gebrochen!’ Mire!</i> Of my friend, Herr Grunitz, of Vienna, you have heard me relate. That man has travelled to Ceylon for an orchid—to Patagonia for a headdress—to Benares for a slipper—to Mozambique for a spearhead to add to his famous collections. Thou knowest, also, amigo Rafael, that I have been a gatherer of curios. My collection of battle flags of the world’s navies was the most complete in existence until last year. Then Herr Grunitz secured two, O! such rare specimens. One of a Barbary state, and one of the Makarooroos, a tribe on the west coast of Africa. I have not those, but they can be procured. But this flag, señor—do you know what it is? Name of God! do you know? See that red cross upon the blue and white ground! You never saw it before? <i xml:lang="es">Seguramente no.</i> It is the naval flag of your country. <i xml:lang="es">Mire!</i> This rotten tub we stand upon is its navy—that dead cockatoo lying there was its commander—that stroke of cutlass and single pistol shot a sea battle. All a piece of absurd foolery, I grant you—but authentic. There has never been another flag like this, and there never will be another. No. It is unique in the whole world. Yes. Think of what that means to a collector of flags! Do you know, <i xml:lang="es">Coronel mio</i>, how many golden crowns Herr Grunitz would give for this flag? Ten thousand, likely. Well, a hundred thousand would not buy it. Beautiful flag! Only flag! Little devil of a most heaven-born flag! <i xml:lang="es">O-hé!</i> old grumbler beyond the ocean. Wait till Don Sabas comes again to the <span xml:lang="de">Königin Strasse</span>. He will let you kneel and touch the folds of it with one finger. <i xml:lang="es">O-hé!</i> old spectacled ransacker of the world!”</p>
|
||||
<p>Forgotten was the impotent revolution, the danger, the loss, the gall of defeat. Possessed solely by the inordinate and unparalleled passion of the collector, he strode up and down the little deck, clasping to his breast with one hand the paragon of a flag. He snapped his fingers triumphantly toward the east. He shouted the paean to his prize in trumpet tones, as though he would make old Grunitz hear in his musty den beyond the sea.</p>
|
||||
<p>They were waiting, on the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Salvador</i>, to welcome them. The sloop came close alongside the steamer where her sides were sliced almost to the lower deck for the loading of fruit. The sailors of the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Salvador</i> grappled and held her there.</p>
|
||||
<p>Captain McLeod leaned over the side.</p>
|
||||
@ -76,7 +76,7 @@
|
||||
<p>“<i xml:lang="es">Pobrecito loco</i>,” he said softly.</p>
|
||||
<p>He was a brilliant cosmopolite and a cognoscente of high rank; but, after all, he was of the same race and blood and instinct as this people. Even as the simple paisanos of Coralio had said it, so said Don Sabas. Without a smile, he looked, and said, “The poor little crazed one!”</p>
|
||||
<p>Stooping he raised the limp shoulders, drew the priceless and induplicable flag under them and over the breast, pinning it there with the diamond star of the Order of San Carlos that he took from the collar of his own coat.</p>
|
||||
<p>He followed after the others, and stood with them upon the deck of the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Salvador</i>. The sailors that steadied <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">El Nacional</i> shoved her off. The jabbering Caribs hauled away at the rigging; the sloop headed for the shore.</p>
|
||||
<p>He followed after the others, and stood with them upon the deck of the <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Salvador</i>. The sailors that steadied <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship" xml:lang="es">El Nacional</i> shoved her off. The jabbering Caribs hauled away at the rigging; the sloop headed for the shore.</p>
|
||||
<p>And Herr Grunitz’s collection of naval flags was still the finest in the world.</p>
|
||||
</section>
|
||||
</body>
|
||||
|
||||
@ -13,7 +13,7 @@
|
||||
</h2>
|
||||
<p>They will tell you in Anchuria, that President Miraflores, of that volatile republic, died by his own hand in the coast town of Coralio; that he had reached thus far in flight from the inconveniences of an imminent revolution; and that one hundred thousand dollars, government funds, which he carried with him in an American leather valise as a souvenir of his tempestuous administration, was never afterward recovered.</p>
|
||||
<p>For a <i xml:lang="es">real</i>, a boy will show you his grave. It is back of the town near a little bridge that spans a mangrove swamp. A plain slab of wood stands at its head. Someone has burned upon the headstone with a hot iron this inscription:</p>
|
||||
<blockquote>
|
||||
<blockquote xml:lang="es">
|
||||
<p>Ramon Angel de las Cruzes</p>
|
||||
<p>Y miraflores</p>
|
||||
<p>Presidente de la Republica</p>
|
||||
@ -23,7 +23,7 @@
|
||||
<p>It is characteristic of this buoyant people that they pursue no man beyond the grave. “Let God be his judge!”—Even with the hundred thousand unfound, though greatly coveted, the hue and cry went no further than that.</p>
|
||||
<p>To the stranger or the guest the people of Coralio will relate the story of the tragic end of their former president; how he strove to escape from the country with the public funds and also with Doña Isabel Guilbert, the young American opera singer; and how, being apprehended by members of the opposing political party in Coralio, he shot himself through the head rather than give up the funds, and, in consequence, the Señorita Guilbert. They will relate further that Doña Isabel, her adventurous bark of fortune shoaled by the simultaneous loss of her distinguished admirer and the souvenir hundred thousand, dropped anchor on this stagnant coast, awaiting a rising tide.</p>
|
||||
<p>They say, in Coralio, that she found a prompt and prosperous tide in the form of Frank Goodwin, an American resident of the town, an investor who had grown wealthy by dealing in the products of the country—a banana king, a rubber prince, a sarsaparilla, indigo, and mahogany baron. The Señorita Guilbert, you will be told, married Señor Goodwin one month after the president’s death, thus, in the very moment when Fortune had ceased to smile, wresting from her a gift greater than the prize withdrawn.</p>
|
||||
<p>Of the American, Don Frank Goodwin, and of his wife the natives have nothing but good to say. Don Frank has lived among them for years, and has compelled their respect. His lady is easily queen of what social life the sober coast affords. The wife of the governor of the district, herself, who was of the proud Castilian family of Monteleon y Dolorosa de los Santos y Mendez, feels honoured to unfold her napkin with olive-hued, ringed hands at the table of Señora Goodwin. Were you to refer (with your northern prejudices) to the vivacious past of <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Goodwin when her audacious and gleeful abandon in light opera captured the mature president’s fancy, or to her share in that statesman’s downfall and malfeasance, the Latin shrug of the shoulder would be your only answer and rebuttal. What prejudices there were in Coralio concerning Señora Goodwin seemed now to be in her favour, whatever they had been in the past.</p>
|
||||
<p>Of the American, Don Frank Goodwin, and of his wife the natives have nothing but good to say. Don Frank has lived among them for years, and has compelled their respect. His lady is easily queen of what social life the sober coast affords. The wife of the governor of the district, herself, who was of the proud Castilian family of <span xml:lang="es">Monteleon y Dolorosa de los Santos y Mendez</span>, feels honoured to unfold her napkin with olive-hued, ringed hands at the table of Señora Goodwin. Were you to refer (with your northern prejudices) to the vivacious past of <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Goodwin when her audacious and gleeful abandon in light opera captured the mature president’s fancy, or to her share in that statesman’s downfall and malfeasance, the Latin shrug of the shoulder would be your only answer and rebuttal. What prejudices there were in Coralio concerning Señora Goodwin seemed now to be in her favour, whatever they had been in the past.</p>
|
||||
<p>It would seem that the story is ended, instead of begun; that the close of tragedy and the climax of a romance have covered the ground of interest; but, to the more curious reader it shall be some slight instruction to trace the close threads that underlie the ingenuous web of circumstances.</p>
|
||||
<p>The headpiece bearing the name of President Miraflores is daily scrubbed with soap-bark and sand. An old half-breed Indian tends the grave with fidelity and the dawdling minuteness of inherited sloth. He chops down the weeds and ever-springing grass with his machete, he plucks ants and scorpions and beetles from it with his horny fingers, and sprinkles its turf with water from the plaza fountain. There is no grave anywhere so well kept and ordered.</p>
|
||||
<p>Only by following out the underlying threads will it be made clear why the old Indian, Galvez, is secretly paid to keep green the grave of President Miraflores by one who never saw that unfortunate statesman in life or in death, and why that one was wont to walk in the twilight, casting from a distance looks of gentle sadness upon that unhonoured mound.</p>
|
||||
|
||||
Loading…
Reference in New Issue
Block a user