The Key to Yesterday Part 16

"I am," announced Rodman, calmly. "I could spin you many a yarn of intrigue, but for the fact that, since you began wearing a halo instead of a hat, you have become too sanctified to listen."

"Inasmuch," smilingly suggested the painter, "as we might yet be languis.h.i.+ng in the _cuartel_ except for the fact that I was able to give so good an account of myself, I don't see that you have any reasonable quarrel with my halo."

Rodman raised his brows.

"Oh, I never lost sight of the fact that you had some reason for the saint role, and, as you say, I was in on the good results. But, now that you are flitting northward, what's the idea of keeping your ears stopped?"

"They are open," declared Mr. Saxon graciously; "you are at liberty to tell me anything you like, but only what you like. I'm not thirsting for criminal confessions."

"That's all right, but you--" Rodman broke off, and his lips twisted into ironical good humor--"no, I apologize--I mean, a fellow who looked remarkably like you used to be so deeply versed in international politics that I think this new adventure would appeal to you. Ever remember hearing of one Senor Miraflores?"

Saxon shook his head, whereupon Rodman laughed with great sophistication. Carter had known Senor Miraflores quite well, and Rodman knew that Carter had known him.

"Very consistent acting," he approved. "You're a good comedian. In the Chinese theaters, they put flour on the comedian's nose to show that he's not a tragedian, but you don't need the badge. You're all right.

You know how to get a laugh. But this isn't dramatic criticism. It's wars and rumors of wars."

The adventurer drew a long puff from his cigarette, inhaled it deeply, and stood idly watching the curls of outward-blown smoke hanging in the hot air, before he went on.

"Well, Miraflores has once more been at the helm. Of course, in the lower commissions of the _insurrecto_ organization, we have the usual a.s.sortment of foreign officers, odds and ends, but the chief difference between this enterprise and the other one--the one Carter knew about--is the fact that we have some artillery, and that, when we start things going, we can come pretty near battering down the old town."

Rodman proceeded to sketch the outlines of the conspiracy. It was much the stereotyped arrangement with a few variations. Two regiments in the city barracks, suspected of disloyalty, had been practically disarmed by the President, but these troops had been secretly rearmed with a part of the guns brought in by Rodman, and would be ready to rise at the signal, together with several other disaffected commands--not for the government, but against it.

The mountain of San Francisco is really not a mountain at all, but a foot hill of the mountains. Yet, it looks down on the city of Puerto Frio as Marathon on the sea, and here are guns trained inward as well as outward. These guns can sh.e.l.l the capital into ruins in the s.p.a.ce of a few hours; then, they can hurl their projectiles further, and play havoc with the environs. Also, they can guard the city from the approach that lies along the roads from the interior. A commander who holds San Francisco stands at the door of Puerto Frio with a latch-key in his hand. The revolutionists under Vegas had arranged their attack on the basis of unwarned a.s.sault. The Dictator had indeed some apprehensions, but they were fears for the future--not for the immediate present. The troops garrisoned on San Francisco, ostensibly the loyal legion of the Dictator's forces, were in reality watching the outward approaches only as doors through which they were to welcome friends. The guns that were trained and ready to belch fire on signal from Vegas, were the guns trained inward on the city, and, when they opened, the main plaza would resemble nothing so much as the far end of a bowling alley when an expert stands on the foul-line, and the palace of the President would be the kingpin for their gunnery. The _insurrecto_ forces were to enter San Francisco without resistance, and the opening of its crater was to be the signal for hurling through the streets of the city itself those troops that had been secretly armed with the smuggled weapons, completing the confusion and throwing into stampeding panic the demoralized remnants upon which the government depended.

Unless there were a traitor in very exclusive and carefully guarded councils, there would hardly be a miscarriage of the plans.

Saxon stood idly listening to these confidences. Nothing seemed strange to him, and least of all the entire willingness of the conspirator to tell him things that involved life and death for men and governments. He knew that, in spite of all he had said, or could say, to the other man, he was the former ally in crime. He had thought at first that Rodman would ultimately discover some discrepancy in appearance which would undeceive him, but now he realized that the secret of the continued mistake was an almost miraculous resemblance, and the fact that the other man had, in the former affair, met him in person only twice, and that five years ago.

"And so," went on Rodman in conclusion, "I'm here adrift, waiting for the last act. I thought Miraflores might possibly be on the _Amazon_ last night, and so, while you sat dawdling over letter-paper and pen, little Howard Stanley was up and doing. I went across to the other boat, and made search, but it was another case of nothing transpiring.

Miraflores was too foxy to go touring so openly."

Saxon felt that some comment was expected from him, yet his mind was wandering far afield from the doings of _juntas_. All these seemed as unreal as scenes from an extravagantly staged musical comedy. What appeared to him most real at that moment was the picture of a slim girl walking, dryad-like, through the hills of her Kentucky homeland, and the thought that he would soon be walking with her.

"It looks gloomy for the city," he said, abstractedly.

"Say," went on Rodman, "do you know that the only people on that boat booked for Puerto Frio were three fool American tourists, and that, of the three, two were women? Now, what chance have those folks got to enjoy themselves? Do you think Puerto Frio, say day after to-morrow, will make a hit with them?" The informant laughed softly to himself, but Saxon was still deep in his own thoughts. It suddenly struck him with surprised discovery that the view from the deck was beautiful.

And Rodman, also, felt the languid invitation of the sea air, and it made him wish to talk. So, unmindful of a self-absorbed listener, he went on garrulously.

"You know, I felt like quoting to them, 'Into the jaws of death, into the mouth of h.e.l.l, sailed the three tourists,' but that would have been to tip off state secrets. If people will fare forth for adventure, I guess they've got to have it."

"Do you suppose," asked Saxon perfunctorily, "they'll be in actual danger?"

"Danger!" repeated the filibuster with sarcasm. "Danger, did you say?

Oh, no, of course not. It will be a pink tea! You know that town as well as I do. You know there are two places in it where American visitors can stop--the _Frances y Ingles_, where you were, and the American Legation. By day after to-morrow, that plaza will be the bull's-eye for General Vegas's target-practice. General Vegas has a mountain to rest his target-gun on, and it's loaded with sh.e.l.l. Oh, no, there won't be any danger!"

"Wasn't there some pretext on which you could warn them off?" inquired the painter.

Rodman shook his head.

"You see, I have to be careful in my talk. I might say too much. As it was, I knocked the town to the fellow all I could. But he seemed h.e.l.l-bent on getting there, and getting there quick. He was a fool Kentuckian, and you can't head off a bull-headed Kentuckian with subtleties or hints. I've met one or two of them before. And there was a girl along who seemed as anxious to get there as he was. That girl was all to the good!"

Saxon leaned suddenly forward.

"A Kentuckian?" he demanded. "Did you hear his name?"

"Sure," announced Mr. Rodman. "Little Howard Stanley picks up information all along the way. The chap was named George Steele, and----"

But the speaker broke off in his story, to stand astounded at the conduct of his auditor.

"And the girl!" shouted Saxon. "Her name?"

"Her name," replied the intriguer, "was Miss Filson."

Suddenly, the inattention of the other had fallen away, and he had wheeled, his jaw dropping. For an instant, he stood in an att.i.tude of bewildered shock, gripping the support of the rail like a prize-fighter struggling against the groggy blackness of the knock-out blow.

Saxon stood such a length of time as it might have required for the referee to count nine over him, had the support he gripped been that of the prize-ring instead of the steamer's rail. Then, he stepped forward, and gripped Rodman's arm with fingers that bit into the flesh.

"Rodman," he said in a low voice that was almost a whisper, between his labored breathings, "I've got to talk to you--alone. There's not a minute to lose. Come to my stateroom."

CHAPTER XII

Below, in the narrow confines of the cabin, Saxon paced back and forth excitedly as he talked. For five minutes, he did not pause, and the other man, sitting on the camp-stool in a corner of the place, followed him with eyes much as a lion-tamer, shut in a cage with his uncertain charge, keeps his gaze bent on the animal. As he listened, Rodman's expression ran a gamut from astonishment, through sympathy, and into final distrust. At last, Saxon ended with:

"And, so, I've got to get them away from there. I've got to get back to that town, and you must manage it. For G.o.d's sake, don't delay!"

The painter had not touched on the irrelevant point of his own mystery, or why the girl had followed him. That would have been a story the other would not have believed, and there was no time for argument and futile personalities. The slow northward fifteen knots had all at once become a fevered racing in the wrong direction, and each throb of the shafts in the engine-room seemed to hurl him madly through s.p.a.ce away from his goal.

When he halted in his narrative, the other man looked sternly up, and his sharp features were decisively set.

"Suppose I should get you there," he began swiftly. "Suppose it were possible to get back in time, what reason have I to trust you? Suppose I were willing to trust you absolutely, what right have I--a mere agent of a cause that's bigger than single lives--to send you back there, where a word from you would spoil everything? My G.o.d, man, there are thousands of people there who are risking their lives to change this government. Hundreds of them must die to do it. For months, we have worked and planned, covering and secreting every detail of our plotting. We have all taken our lives in our hands. Now, a word of warning, an indiscreet act, the changing of the garrison on San Francisco, and where would we be? Every platoon that follows Vegas and Miraflores marches straight into a death-trap! The signal is given, and every man goes to destruction as swift as a bat out of h.e.l.l. That's what you are asking me to do--to play traitor to my cause. And you calmly tell me I must do it simply because you've got friends in town."

The man came to his feet with an excited gesture of anger.

"You know that in this business no man can trust his twin brother, and you ask me to trust you to the extent of laying in your hands everything I've worked for--the lives of an army!" His tones rose to a climax of vehemence: "And that's what you ask!"

"You know you can trust me," began Saxon, conscious of the feeble nature of his argument. "You didn't have to tell me. I didn't ask your confidence. I warned you not to tell me."

"Maybe I was a d.a.m.ned fool, and maybe you were pretty slick, playing me along with your bait of indifference," retorted Rodman, hotly. "How am I to know whom you really mean to warn? You insist that I shall harbor a childlike faith in you, yet you won't trust me enough to quit your d.a.m.ned play-acting. You call on me to believe in you, yet you lie to me, and cling to your smug alias. You won't confess who you are, though you know I know it. No, Mr. Carter, I must decline."

Saxon stood white and rigid. Every moment wasted in argument imperiled more deeply the girl and the friends he must save, for whose hazarded lives he was unwittingly responsible. Yet, he could do nothing except with Rodman's a.s.sistance. The only chance lay in convincing him, and that must be done at any cost. This was no time for selecting methods.

"I don't have to tell a syllable of your plans," he contended, desperately. "They will go with me without asking the reason. I have only to see them. You have my life in your hands: you can go with me.

You can disarm me, and keep me in view every moment of the time. You can kill me at the first false move. You can----"

"Cut out the tommy-rot," interrupted Rodman, with fierce bluntness. "I can do better than that, and you know it. My word on this s.h.i.+p goes the same as if I were an admiral. I can say to the captain that you a.s.saulted me, and it will be my testimony against yours. I can have you put in irons, and thrown down in the hold, and, by G.o.d, I'm going to do it!" The man moved toward the cabin bell, and halted with his finger near the b.u.t.ton. "Now, d.a.m.n you! my platform is _Vegas y Libertad_, and I'm not the sucker I may have seemed. If this is a trick of yours, you aren't going to have the chance to turn it."