Part 19

Sir Charles halted in his walk, and holding his cigar behind his back, addressed himself to the sergeant.

“A vagrant?” he asked.

The words seemed to bear some amusing significance to the stranger, for his face lit instantly with a sweet and charming smile, and while he turned to hear the sergeant’s reply, he regarded him with a kindly and affectionate interest.

“Yes, your Excellency.”

The Governor turned to the prisoner.

“Do you know the law of this colony regarding vagrants?”

“I do not,” the young man answered. His tone was politely curious, and suggested that he would like to be further informed as to the local peculiarities of a foreign country.

“After two weeks’ residence,” the Governor recited, impressively, “all able-bodied persons who will not work are put to work or deported. Have you made any effort to find work?”

Again the young man smiled charmingly. He shook his head and laughed. “Oh dear no,” he said.

The laugh struck the Governor as impertinent.

“Then you must leave by the next mail-steamer, if you have any money to pay your passage, or, if you have no money, you must go to work on the roads. Have you any money?”

“If I had, I wouldn’t--be a vagrant,” the young man answered. His voice was low and singularly sweet. It seemed to suit the indolence of his attitude and the lazy, inconsequent smile. “I called on our consular agent here,” he continued, leisurely, “to write a letter home for money, but he was disgracefully drunk, so I used his official note-paper to write to the State Department about him, instead.”

The Governor’s deepest interest was aroused. The American consular agent was one of the severest trials he was forced to endure.

“You are not a British subject, then? Ah, I see--and--er--your representative was unable to assist you?”

“He was drunk,” the young man repeated, placidly. “He has been drunk ever since I have been here, particularly in the mornings.”

He halted, as though the subject had lost interest for him, and gazed pleasantly at the sunny bay and up at the moving palms.

“Then,” said the Governor, as though he had not been interrupted, “as you have no means of support, you will help support the colony until you can earn money to leave it. That will do, sergeant.”

The young man placed his hat upon his head and turned to move away, but at the first step he swayed suddenly and caught at the negro’s shoulder, clasping his other hand across his eyes. The sergeant held him by the waist, and looked up at the Governor with some embarrassment.

“The young gentleman has not been well, Sir Charles,” he said, apologetically.

The stranger straightened himself up and smiled vaguely. “I’m all right,” he murmured. “Sun’s too hot.”

“Sit down,” said the Governor.

He observed the stranger more closely. He noticed now that beneath the tan his face was delicate and finely cut, and that his yellow hair clung closely to a well-formed head.

“He seems faint. Has he had anything to eat?” asked the Governor.

The sergeant grinned guiltily. “Yes, Sir Charles; we’ve been feeding him at the barracks. It’s fever, sir.”

Sir Charles was not unacquainted with fallen gentlemen, “beach-combers,” “remittance men,” and vagrants who had known better days, and there had been something winning in this vagrant’s smile, and, moreover, he had reported that thorn in his flesh, the consular agent, to the proper authorities.

He conceived an interest in a young man who, though with naked feet, did not hesitate to correspond with his Minister of Foreign Affairs.

“How long have you been ill?” he asked.

The young man looked up from where he had sunk on the steps, and roused himself with a shrug. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I’ve had a touch of Chagres ever since I was on the Isthmus. I was at work there on the railroad.”