Captain Macklin: His Memoirs Part 7

"Silence, you--you," Reeder interrupted. He was white with anger. "Mr.

Quay is my friend," he cried. "I trust him. I trust him as I would trust my own brother. How dare you accuse him!"

He ceased and stood gasping with indignation, but his show of anger encouraged Captain Heinze to make a fresh attack on Aiken.

"Quay took you off the beach," he shouted.

"He gave you food and clothes, and a bed to lie on. It's like you, to bite the hand that fed you. When have you ever stuck to any side or anybody if you could get a dollar more by selling him out?"

The whole thing had become intolerable. It was abject and degrading, like a falling-out among thieves. They reminded me of a group of drunken women I had once seen, shameless and foul-mouthed, fighting in the street, with grinning night-birds urging them on. I felt in some way horribly responsible, as though they had dragged me into it--as though the flying handfuls of mud had splattered me. And yet the thing which inflamed me the most against them was their unfairness to Aiken. They would not let him speak, and they would not see that they were so many, and that he was alone. I did not then know that he was telling the truth. Indeed, I thought otherwise. I did not then know that on those occasions when he appeared to the worst advantage, he generally was trying to tell the truth.

Captain Heinze pushed nearer, and shoved his fist close to Aiken's face.

"We know what you are," he jeered. "We know you're no more on our side than you're the American Consul. You lied to us about that, and you've lied to us about everything else. And now we've caught you, and we'll make you pay for it."

One of the men in the rear of the crowd shouted, "Ah, shoot the beggar!"

and others began to push forward and to jeer. Aiken heard them and turned quite white.

"You've caught me?" Aiken stammered. "Why, I came here of my own will.

Is it likely I'd have done that if I had sold you out?"

"I tell you you did sell us out," Heinze roared. "And you're a coward besides, and I tell you so to your face!" He sprang at Aiken, and Aiken shrank back. It made me sick to see him do it. I had such a contempt for the men against him that I hated his not standing up to them. It was to hide the fact that he had stepped back, that I jumped in front of him and pretended to restrain him. I tried to make it look as though had I not interfered, he would have struck at Heinze.

The German had swung around toward the men behind him, as though he were subpoenaing them as witnesses.

"I call him a coward to his face!" he shouted. But when he turned again I was standing in front of Aiken, and he halted in surprise, glaring at me. I don't know what made me do it, except that I had heard enough of their recriminations, and was sick with disappointment. I hated Heinze and all of them, and myself for being there.

"Yes, you can call him a coward," I said, as offensively as I could, "with fifty men behind you. How big a crowd do you want before you dare insult a man?" Then I turned on the others. "Aren't you ashamed of yourselves," I cried, "to all of you set on one man in your own camp? I don't know anything about this row and I don't want to know, but there's fifty men here against one, and I'm on the side of that one. You're a lot of cheap bullies," I cried, "and this German drill-sergeant,"

I shouted, pointing at Heinze, "who calls himself an officer, is the cheapest bully of the lot." I jerked open the buckle which held my belt and revolver, and flung them on the ground. Then I slipped off my coat, and shoved it back of me to Aiken, for I wanted to keep him out of it.

It was the luck of Royal Macklin himself that led me to take off my coat instead of drawing my revolver. At the Point I had been accustomed to settle things with my fists, and it had been only since I started from the coast that I had carried a gun. A year later, in the same situation, I would have reached for it. Had I done so that morning, as a dozen of them a.s.sured me later, they would have shot me before I could have got my hand on it. But, as it was, when I rolled up my sleeves the men began to laugh, and some shouted: "Give him room," "Make a ring," "Fair play, now," "Make a ring." The semi-circle spread out and lengthened until it formed a ring, with Heinze and Reeder, and Aiken holding my coat, and myself in the centre of it.

I squared off in front of the German and tapped him lightly on the chest with the back of my hand.

"Now, then," I cried, taunting him, "I call _you_ a coward to _your_ face. What are you going to do about it?"

For an instant he seemed too enraged and astonished to move, and the next he exploded with a wonderful German oath and rushed at me, tugging at his sword. At the same moment the men gave a shout and the ring broke. I thought they had cried out in protest when they saw Heinze put his hand on his sword, but as they scattered and fell back I saw that they were looking neither at Heinze nor at me, but at someone behind me.

Heinze, too, halted as suddenly as though he had been pulled back by a curbed bit, and, bringing his heels together, stood stiffly at salute.

I turned and saw that everyone was falling out of the way of a tall man who came striding toward us, and I knew on the instant that he was General Laguerre. At the first glance I disa.s.sociated him from his followers. He was entirely apart. In any surroundings I would have picked him out as a leader of men. Even a civilian would have known he was a soldier, for the signs of his calling were stamped on him as plainly as the sterling mark on silver, and although he was not in uniform his carriage and countenance told you that he was a personage.

He was very tall and gaunt, with broad shoulders and a waist as small as a girl's, and although he must then have been about fifty years of age he stood as stiffly erect as though his spine had grown up into the back of his head.

At the first glance he reminded me of Van d.y.k.e's portrait of Charles I.

He had the same high-bred features, the same wistful eyes, and hewore his beard and mustache in what was called the Van d.y.k.e fas.h.i.+on, before Louis Napoleon gave it a new vogue as the "imperial."

It must have been that I read the wistful look in his eyes later, for at the moment of our first meeting it was a very stern Charles I. who confronted us, with the delicate features stiffened in anger, and the eyes set and burning. Since then I have seen both the wistful look and the angry look many times, and even now I would rather face the muzzle of a gun than the eyes of General Laguerre when you have offended him.

His first words were addressed to Reeder.

"What does this mean, sir?" he demanded. "If you cannot keep order in this camp when my back is turned I shall find an officer who can. Who is this?" he added, pointing at me. I became suddenly conscious of the fact that I was without my hat or coat, and that my sleeves were pulled up to the shoulders. Aiken was just behind me, and as I turned to him for my coat I disclosed his presence to the General. He gave an exclamation of delight.

"Mr. Aiken!" he cried, "at last!" He lowered his voice to an eager whisper. "Where are the guns?" he asked.

Apparently Aiken felt more confidence in General Laguerre than in his officers, for at this second questioning he answered promptly.

"I regret to say, sir," he began, "that the guns were seized at New Orleans. Someone informed the Honduranian Consul there, and he--"

"Seized!" cried Laguerre. "By whom? Do you mean we have lost them?"

Aiken lowered his eyes and nodded.

"But how do you know?" Laguerre demanded, eagerly. "You are not sure?

Who seized them?"

"The Treasury officers," Aiken answered

"The captain of the Panama told me he saw the guns taken on the company's wharf."

For some moments Laguerre regarded him sternly, but I do not think he saw him. He turned and walked a few steps from us and back again.

Then he gave an upward toss of his head as though he had accepted his sentence. "The fortunes of war," he kept repeating to himself, "the fortunes of war." He looked up and saw us regarding him with expressions of the deepest concern.

"I thought I had had my share of them," he said, simply. He straightened his shoulders and frowned, and then looked at us and tried to smile. But the bad news had cut deeply. During the few minutes since he had come pus.h.i.+ng his way through the crowd, he seemed to have grown ten years older. He walked to the door of his tent and then halted and turned toward Reeder.

"I think my fever is coming on again," he said. "I believe I had better rest. Do not let them disturb me."

"Yes, General," Reeder answered. Then he pointed at Aiken and myself.

"And what are we to do with these?" he asked.

"Do with these?" Laguerre repeated. "Why, what did you mean to do with them?"

Reeder swelled out his chest importantly, "If you had not arrived when you did, General," he said, "I would have had them shot!"

The General stopped at the entrance to the tent and leaned heavily against the pole. He raised his eyes and looked at us wearily and with no show of interest.

"Shoot them?" he asked. "Why were you going to shoot them?"

"Because, General," Reeder declared, theatrically, pointing an accusing finger at Aiken, "I believe this man sold our secret to the Isthmian Line. No one knew of the guns but our three selves and Quay. And Quay is not a man to betray his friends. I wish I could say as much for Mr.

Aiken."

At that moment Aiken, being quite innocent, said even less for himself, and because he was innocent looked the trapped and convicted criminal.

Laguerre's eyes glowed like two branding-irons. As he fixed them on Aiken's face one expected to see them leave a mark.

"If the General will only listen," Aiken stammered. "If you will only give me a hearing, sir. Why should I come to your camp if I had sold you out? Why didn't I get away on the first steamer, and stay away--as Quay did?"

The General gave an exclamation of disgust, and shrugged his shoulders.

He sank back slowly against one of the Gatling guns.

"What does it matter?" he said, bitterly. "Why lock the stable door now?

I will give you a hearing," he said, turning to Aiken, "but it would be better for you if I listened to you later. Bring him to me to-morrow morning after roll-call. And the other?" he asked. He pointed at me, but his eyes, which were heavy with disappointment, were staring moodily at the ground.