Part 45

"If he isn't looking at you, he's aiming at the man next to you. 'Live and let Live' doesn't apply at present."

As Langham reached Clay's side triumphant shouts arose from the roof-tops, and the men posted there stood up and showed themselves above the barricades and called to Clay that the cannon were deserted.

Kirkland had come prepared for the barricade, and, running across the street, fastened a dynamite cartridge to each gate post and lit the fuses. The soldiers scattered before him as he came leaping back, and in an instant later there was a racking roar, and the gates were pitched out of their sockets and thrown forward, and those in the street swept across them and surrounded the cannon.

Langham caught it by the throat as though it were human, and did not feel the hot metal burning the palms of his hands as he choked it and pointed its muzzle toward the Palace, while the others dragged at the spokes of the wheel. It was fighting at close range now, close enough to suit even Langham. He found himself in the front rank of it without knowing exactly how he got there. Every man on both sides was playing his own hand, and seemed to know exactly what to do. He felt neglected and very much alone, and was somewhat anxious lest his valor might be wasted through his not knowing how to put it to account. He saw the enemy in changing groups of scowling men, who seemed to eye him for an instant down the length of a gun-barrel and then disappear behind a puff of smoke. He kept thinking that war made men take strange liberties with their fellow-men, and it struck him as being most absurd that strangers should stand up and try to kill one another, men who had so little in common that they did not even know one another's names. The soldiers who were fighting on his own side were equally unknown to him, and he looked in vain for Clay. He saw MacWilliams for a moment through the smoke, jabbing at a jammed cartridge with his pen-knife, and hacking the lead away to make it slip. He was remonstrating with the gun and swearing at it exactly as though it were human, and as Langham ran toward him he threw it away and caught up another from the ground. Kneeling beside the wounded man who had dropped it and picking the cartridges from his belt, he assured him cheerfully that he was not so badly hurt as he thought.

"You all right?" Langham asked.

"I'm all right. I'm trying to get a little laddie hiding behind that blue silk sofa over there. He's taken an unnatural dislike to me, and he's nearly got me three times. I'm knocking horse-hair out of his rampart, though."

The men of Stuart's body-guard were fighting outside of the breastworks and mattresses. They were using their swords as though they were machetes, and the Irishmen were swinging their guns around their shoulders like sledge-hammers, and beating their foes over the head and breast. The guns at his own side sounded close at Langham's ear, and deafened him, and those of the enemy exploded so near to his face that he was kept continually winking and dodging, as though he were being taken by a flashlight photograph. When he fired he aimed where the mass was thickest, so that he might not see what his bullet did, but he remembered afterward that he always reloaded with the most anxious swiftness in order that he might not be killed before he had had another shot, and that the idea of being killed was of no concern to him except on that account. Then the scene before him changed, and apparently hundreds of Mendoza's soldiers poured out from the Palace and swept down upon him, cheering as they came, and he felt himself falling back naturally and as a matter of course, as he would have stepped out of the way of a locomotive, or a runaway horse, or any other unreasoning thing. His shoulders pushed against a mass of shouting, sweating men, who in turn pressed back upon others, until the mass reached the iron fence and could move no farther. He heard Clay's voice shouting to them, and saw him run forward, shooting rapidly as he ran, and he followed him, even though his reason told him it was a useless thing to do, and then there came a great shout from the rear of the Palace, and more soldiers, dressed exactly like the others, rushed through the great doors and swarmed around the two wings of the building, and he recognized them as Rojas's men and knew that the fight was over.

He saw a tall man with a negro's face spring out of the first mass of soldiers and shout to them to follow him. Clay gave a yell of welcome and ran at him, calling upon him in Spanish to surrender. The negro stopped and stood at bay, glaring at Clay and at the circle of soldiers closing in around him. He raised his revolver and pointed it steadily. It was as though the man knew he had only a moment to live, and meant to do that one thing well in the short time left him.

Clay sprang to one side and ran toward him, dodging to the right and left, but Mendoza followed his movements carefully with his revolver.

It lasted but an instant. Then the Spaniard threw his arm suddenly across his face, drove the heel of his boot into the turf, and spinning about on it fell forward.

"If he was shot where his sash crosses his heart, I know the man who did it," Langham heard a voice say at his elbow, and turning saw MacWilliams wetting his fingers at his lips and touching them gingerly to the heated barrel of his Winchester.

The death of Mendoza left his followers without a leader and without a cause. They threw their muskets on the ground and held their hands above their heads, shrieking for mercy. Clay and his officers answered them instantly by running from one group to another, knocking up the barrels of the rifles and calling hoarsely to the men on the roofs to cease firing, and as they were obeyed the noise of the last few random shots was drowned in tumultuous cheering and shouts of exultation, that, starting in the gardens, were caught up by those in the streets and passed on quickly as a line of flame along the swaying housetops.

The native officers sprang upon Clay and embraced him after their fashion, hailing him as the Liberator of Olancho, as the Preserver of the Constitution, and their brother patriot. Then one of them climbed to the top of a gilt and marble table and proclaimed him military President.

"You'll proclaim yourself an idiot, if you don't get down from there," Clay said, laughing. "I thank you for permitting me to serve with you, gentlemen. I shall have great pleasure in telling our President how well you acquitted yourself in this row--battle, I mean. And now I would suggest that you store the prisoners' weapons in the Palace and put a guard over them, and then conduct the men themselves to the military prison, where you can release General Rojas and escort him back to the city in a triumphal procession. You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

But the natives protested that that honor was for him alone. Clay declined it, pleading that he must look after his wounded.

"I can hardly believe there are any dead," he said to Kirkland.

"For, if it takes two thousand bullets to kill a man in European warfare, it must require about two hundred thousand to kill a man in South America."

He told Kirkland to march his men back to the mines and to see that there were no stragglers. "If they want to celebrate, let them celebrate when they get to the mines, but not here. They have made a good record to-day and I won't have it spoiled by rioting. They shall have their reward later. Between Rojas and Mr. Langham they should all be rich men."

The cheering from the housetops since the firing ceased had changed suddenly into hand-clappings, and the cries, though still undistinguishable, were of a different sound. Clay saw that the Americans on the balconies of the club and of the theatre had thrown themselves far over the railings and were all looking in the same direction and waving their hats and cheering loudly, and he heard above the shouts of the people the regular tramp of men's feet marching in step, and the rattle of a machine gun as it bumped and shook over the rough stones. He gave a shout of pleasure, and Kirkland and the two boys ran with him up the slope, crowding each other to get a better view. The mob parted at the Palace gates, and they saw two lines of blue-jackets, spread out like the sticks of a fan, dragging the gun between them, the middies in their tight-buttoned tunics and gaiters, and behind them more blue-jackets with bare, bronzed throats, and with the swagger and roll of the sea in their legs and shoulders. An American flag floated above the white helmets of the marines. Its presence and the sense of pride which the sight of these men from home awoke in them made the fight just over seem mean and petty, and they took off their hats and cheered with the others.

A first lieutenant, who felt his importance and also a sense of disappointment at having arrived too late to see the fighting, left his men at the gate of the Palace, and advanced up the terrace, stopping to ask for information as he came. Each group to which he addressed himself pointed to Clay. The sight of his own flag had reminded Clay that the banner of Mendoza still hung from the mast beside which he was standing, and as the officer approached he was busily engaged in untwisting its halyards and pulling it down.

The lieutenant saluted him doubtfully.

"Can you tell me who is in command here?" he asked. He spoke somewhat sharply, for Clay was not a military looking personage, covered as he was with dust and perspiration, and with his sombrero on the back of his head.

"Our Consul here told us at the landing-place," continued the lieutenant in an aggrieved tone, "that a General Mendoza was in power, and that I had better report to him, and then ten minutes later I hear that he is dead and that a General Rojas is President, but that a man named Clay has made himself Dictator. My instructions are to recognize no belligerents, but to report to the Government party. Now, who is the Government party?"

Clay brought the red-barred flag down with a jerk, and ripped it free from the halyards. Kirkland and the two boys were watching him with amused smiles.

"I appreciate your difficulty," he said. "President Alvarez is dead, and General Mendoza, who tried to make himself Dictator, is also dead, and the real President, General Rojas, is still in jail. So at present I suppose that I represent the Government party, at least I am the man named Clay. It hadn't occurred to me before, but, until Rojas is free, I guess I am the Dictator of Olancho. Is Madame Alvarez on board your ship?"

"Yes, she is with us," the officer replied, in some confusion. "Excuse me--are you the three gentlemen who took her to the yacht? I am afraid I spoke rather hastily just now, but you are not in uniform, and the Government seems to change so quickly down here that a stranger finds it hard to keep up with it."

Six of the native officers had approached as the lieutenant was speaking and saluted Clay gravely. "We have followed your instructions," one of them said, "and the regiments are ready to march with the prisoners. Have you any further orders for us--can we deliver any messages to General Rojas?"

"Present my congratulations to General Rojas, and best wishes," said Clay. "And tell him for me, that it would please me greatly if he would liberate an American citizen named Burke, who is at present in the cuartel. And that I wish him to promote all of you gentlemen one grade and give each of you the Star of Olancho. Tell him that in my opinion you have deserved even higher reward and honor at his hands."