Part 44

He took a piece of paper from the table and wrote a few lines upon it, and then rewrote them several times. The message he finally sent to her was this: "I am sure you understand, and that you would not have me give up beaten now, when what we do to-day may set us right again. I know better than any one else in the world can know, what I run the risk of losing, but you would not have that fear stop me from going on with what we have been struggling for so long. I cannot come back to see you before we start, but I know your heart is with me. With great love, Robert Clay."

He gave the note to his servant, and the answer was brought to him almost immediately. Hope had not rewritten her message: "I love you because you are the sort of man you are, and had you given up as father wished you to do, or on my account, you would have been some one else, and I would have had to begin over again to learn to love you for some different reasons. I know that you will come back to me bringing your sheaves with you. Nothing can happen to you now. Hope."

He had never received a line from her before, and he read and reread this with a sense of such pride and happiness in his face that MacWilliams smiled covertly and bent his eyes upon his instrument. Clay went back into his room and kissed the page of paper gently, flushing like a boy as he did so, and then folding it carefully, he put it away beneath his jacket. He glanced about him guiltily, although he was quite alone, and taking out his watch, pried it open and looked down into the face of the photograph that had smiled up at him from it for so many years. He thought how unlike it was to Alice Langham as he knew her. He judged that it must have been taken when she was very young, at the age Hope was then, before the little world she lived in had crippled and narrowed her and marked her for its own. He remembered what she had said to him the first night he had seen her. "That is the picture of the girl who ceased to exist four years ago, and whom you have never met." He wondered if she had ever existed.

"It looks more like Hope than her sister," he mused. "It looks very much like Hope." He decided that he would let it remain where it was until Hope gave him a better one; and smiling slightly he snapped the lid fast, as though he were closing a door on the face of Alice Langham and locking it forever.

Kirkland was in the cab of the locomotive that brought the soldiers from the mine. He stopped the first car in front of the freight station until the workmen had filed out and formed into a double line on the platform. Then he moved the train forward the length of that car, and those in the one following were mustered out in a similar manner. As the cars continued to come in, the men at the head of the double line passed on through the freight station and on up the road to the city in an unbroken column. There was no confusion, no crowding, and no haste.

When the last car had been emptied, Clay rode down the line and appointed a foreman to take charge of each company, stationing his engineers and the Irish-Americans in the van. It looked more like a mob than a regiment. None of the men were in uniform, and the native soldiers were barefoot. But they showed a winning spirit, and stood in as orderly an array as though they were drawn up in line to receive their month's wages. The Americans in front of the column were humorously disposed, and inclined to consider the whole affair as a pleasant outing. They had been placed in front, not because they were better shots than the natives, but because every South American thinks that every citizen of the United States is a master either of the rifle or the revolver, and Clay was counting on this superstition. His assistant engineers and foremen hailed him as he rode on up and down the line with good-natured cheers, and asked him when they were to get their commissions, and if it were true that they were all captains, or only colonels, as they were at home.

They had been waiting for a half-hour, when there was the sound of horses' hoofs on the road, and the even beat of men's feet, and the advance guard of the Third and Fourth regiments came toward them at a quickstep. The men were still in the full-dress uniforms they had worn at the review the day before, and in comparison with the soldier-workmen and the Americans in flannel shirts, they presented so martial a showing that they were welcomed with tumultuous cheers. Clay threw them into a double line on one side of the road, down the length of which his own marched until they had reached the end of it nearest to the city, when they took up their position in a close formation, and the native regiments fell in behind them. Clay selected twenty of the best shots from among the engineers and sent them on ahead as a skirmish line. They were ordered to fall back at once if they saw any sign of the enemy. In this order the column of four thousand men started for the city.

It was a little after seven when they advanced, and the air was mild and peaceful. Men and women came crowding to the doors and windows of the huts as they passed, and stood watching them in silence, not knowing to which party the small army might belong. In order to enlighten them, Clay shouted, "Viva Rojas." And his men took it up, and the people answered gladly.

They had reached the closely built portion of the city when the skirmish line came running back to say that it had been met by a detachment of Mendoza's cavalry, who had galloped away as soon as they saw them. There was then no longer any doubt that the fact of their coming was known at the Palace, and Clay halted his men in a bare plaza and divided them into three columns. Three streets ran parallel with one another from this plaza to the heart of the city, and opened directly upon the garden of the Palace where Mendoza had fortified himself. Clay directed the columns to advance up these streets, keeping the head of each column in touch with the other two. At the word they were to pour down the side streets and rally to each other's assistance.

As they stood, drawn up on the three sides of the plaza, he rode out before them and held up his hat for silence. They were there with arms in their hands, he said, for two reasons: the greater one, and the one which he knew actuated the native soldiers, was their desire to preserve the Constitution of the Republic. According to their own laws, the Vice-President must succeed when the President's term of office had expired, or in the event of his death. President Alvarez had been assassinated, and the Vice-President, General Rojas, was, in consequence, his legal successor. It was their duty, as soldiers of the Republic, to rescue him from prison, to drive the man who had usurped his place into exile, and by so doing uphold the laws which they had themselves laid down. The second motive, he went on, was a less worthy and more selfish one. The Olancho mines, which now gave work to thousands and brought millions of dollars into the country, were coveted by Mendoza, who would, if he could, convert them into a monopoly of his government. If he remained in power all foreigners would be driven out of the country, and the soldiers would be forced to work in the mines without payment. Their condition would be little better than that of the slaves in the salt mines of Siberia. Not only would they no longer be paid for their labor, but the people as a whole would cease to receive that share of the earnings of the mines which had hitherto been theirs.

"Under President Rojas you will have liberty, justice, and prosperity," Clay cried. "Under Mendoza you will be ruled by martial law. He will rob and overtax you, and you will live through a reign of terror. Between them--which will you choose?"

The native soldiers answered by cries of "Rojas," and breaking ranks rushed across the plaza toward him, crowding around his horse and shouting, "Long live Rojas," "Long live the Constitution," "Death to Mendoza." The Americans stood as they were and gave three cheers for the Government.

They were still cheering and shouting as they advanced upon the Palace, and the noise of their coming drove the people indoors, so that they marched through deserted streets and between closed doors and sightless windows. No one opposed them, and no one encouraged them. But they could now see the facade of the Palace and the flag of the Revolutionists hanging from the mast in front of it.

Three blocks distant from the Palace they came upon the buildings of the United States and English Legations, where the flags of the two countries had been hung out over the narrow thoroughfare.

The windows and the roofs of each legation were crowded with women and children who had sought refuge there, and the column halted as Weimer, the Consul, and Sir Julian Pindar, the English Minister, came out, bare-headed, into the street and beckoned to Clay to stop.

"As our Minister was not here," Weimer said, "I telegraphed to Truxillo for the man-of-war there. She started some time ago, and we have just heard that she is entering the lower harbor. She should have her blue-jackets on shore in twenty minutes. Sir Julian and I think you ought to wait for them."

The English Minister put a detaining hand on Clay's bridle. "If you attack Mendoza at the Palace with this mob," he remonstrated, "rioting and lawlessness generally will break out all over the city. I ask you to keep them back until we get your sailors to police the streets and protect property."

Clay glanced over his shoulder at the engineers and the Irish workmen standing in solemn array behind him. "Oh, you can hardly call this a mob," he said. "They look a little rough and ready, but I will answer for them. The two other columns that are coming up the streets parallel to this are Government troops and properly engaged in driving a usurper out of the Government building. The best thing you can do is to get down to the wharf and send the marines and blue-jackets where you think they will do the most good. I can't wait for them. And they can't come too soon."

The grounds of the Palace occupied two entire blocks; the Botanical Gardens were in the rear, and in front a series of low terraces ran down from its veranda to the high iron fence which separated the grounds from the chief thoroughfare of the city.

Clay sent word to the left and right wing of his little army to make a detour one street distant from the Palace grounds and form in the street in the rear of the Botanical Gardens. When they heard the firing of his men from the front they were to force their way through the gates at the back and attack the Palace in the rear.

"Mendoza has the place completely barricaded," Weimer warned him, "and he has three field pieces covering each of these streets. You and your men are directly in line of one of them now. He is only waiting for you to get a little nearer before he lets loose."

From where he sat Clay could count the bars of the iron fence in front of the grounds. But the boards that backed them prevented his forming any idea of the strength or the distribution of Mendoza's forces. He drew his staff of amateur officers to one side and explained the situation to them.

"The Theatre National and the Club Union," he said, "face the Palace from the opposite corners of this street. You must get into them and barricade the windows and throw up some sort of shelter for yourselves along the edge of the roofs and drive the men behind that fence back to the Palace. Clear them away from the cannon first, and keep them away from it. I will be waiting in the street below. When you have driven them back, we will charge the gates and have it out with them in the gardens. The Third and Fourth regiments ought to take them in the rear about the same time. You will continue to pick them off from the roof."

The two supporting columns had already started on their roundabout way to the rear of the Palace. Clay gathered up his reins, and telling his men to keep close to the walls, started forward, his soldiers following on the sidewalks and leaving the middle of the street clear. As they reached a point a hundred yards below the Palace, a part of the wooden shield behind the fence was thrown down, there was a puff of white smoke and a report, and a cannon-ball struck the roof of a house which they were passing and sent the tiles clattering about their heads. But the men in the lead had already reached the stage-door of the theatre and were opposite one of the doors to the club. They drove these in with the butts of their rifles, and raced up the stairs of each of the deserted buildings until they reached the roof. Langham was swept by a weight of men across a stage, and jumped among the music racks in the orchestra. He caught a glimpse of the early morning sun shining on the tawdry hangings of the boxes and the exaggerated perspective of the scenery. He ran through corridors between two great statues of Comedy and Tragedy, and up a marble stair case to a lobby in which he saw the white faces about him multiplied in long mirrors, and so out to an iron balcony from which he looked down, panting and breathless, upon the Palace Gardens, swarming with soldiers and white with smoke. Men poured through the windows of the club opposite, dragging sofas and chairs out to the balcony and upon the flat roof. The men near him were tearing down the yellow silk curtains in the lobby and draping them along the railing of the balcony to better conceal their movements from the enemy below. Bullets spattered the stucco about their heads, and panes of glass broke suddenly and fell in glittering particles upon their shoulders. The firing had already begun from the roofs near them. Beyond the club and the theatre and far along the street on each side of the Palace the merchants were slamming the iron shutters of their shops, and men and women were running for refuge up the high steps of the church of Santa Maria. Others were gathered in black masses on the balconies and roofs of the more distant houses, where they stood outlined against the soft blue sky in gigantic silhouette. Their shouts of encouragement and anger carried clearly in the morning air, and spurred on the gladiators below to greater effort. In the Palace Gardens a line of Mendoza's men fought from behind the first barricade, while others dragged tables and bedding and chairs across the green terraces and tumbled them down to those below, who seized them and formed them into a second line of defence.

Two of the assistant engineers were kneeling at Langham's feet with the barrels of their rifles resting on the railing of the balcony. Their eyes had been trained for years to judge distances and to measure space, and they glanced along the sights of their rifles as though they were looking through the lens of a transit, and at each report their faces grew more earnest and their lips pressed tighter together. One of them lowered his gun to light a cigarette, and Langham handed him his match-box, with a certain feeling of repugnance.

"Better get under cover, Mr. Langham," the man said, kindly. "There's no use our keeping your mines for you if you're not alive to enjoy them. Take a shot at that crew around the gun."

"I don't like this long range business," Langham answered. "I am going down to join Clay. I don't like the idea of hitting a man when he isn't looking at you."

The engineer gave an incredulous laugh.