The Key to Yesterday Part 19

"Called at this port for coal," responded the other. "I've been down to Rio with flour, and I have to call at La Guayra. I sail in two hours."

"Where do you go from Venezuela?"

"I sailed out of Havre, and I'm going back with fruit. The Doc's had about enough. I'm goin' to take him with me."

For a moment, Rodman stood speculating, then he bent eagerly forward.

"Paul," he whispered, "you know me. I've done you a turn or two in the past."

The sailor nodded.

"Now, I want you to do me a turn. I want you to take this man with you. He must get out of here, and he can't care for himself. He'll be all right--either all right or dead--before you land on the other side. The Doc here will look after him. He's got money. Whatever you do for him, he'll pay handsomely. He's a rich man." The filibuster was talking rapidly and earnestly.

"Where do I take him?" asked the captain, with evident reluctance.

"Wherever you're going; anywhere away from here. He'll make it all right with you."

The captain caught the surgeon's eyes, and the surgeon nodded.

Rodman suddenly remembered Saxon's story, the story of the old past that was nothing more to him than another life, and the other man upon whom he had turned his back. Possibly, there might even be efforts at locating the conspirators. He leaned over, and, though he sunk his voice low, Herve heard him say:

"This gentleman doesn't want to be found just now. If people ask about him, you don't know who he is, _comprende_?"

"That's no lie, either," growled the s.h.i.+p-master. "I ain't got an idea who he is. I ain't sure I want him on my hands."

A sudden quiet came on the place. An officer had entered the door, his face pale, and, as though with an instantaneous prescience that he bore bad tidings, the noises dropped away. The officer raised his hand, and his words fell on absolute silence as he said in Spanish:

"The conference is ended. Vegas surrenders--without terms."

"You see!" exclaimed Rodman, excitedly. "You see, it's the last chance! Paul, you've got to take him! In a half-hour, the armistice will be over. For G.o.d's sake, man!" He ended with a gesture of appeal.

The place began to empty.

"Get him to my boat, then," acceded the captain. "Here, you fellows, lend a hand. Come on, Doc." The man who had a s.h.i.+p at anchor was in a hurry. "Don't whisper that I'm sailing; I can't carry all the people that want to leave this town to-night. I've got to slip away. Hurry up."

A quarter of an hour later, Herve stood at the mole with Rodman, watching the row-boat that took the other trio out to the tramp steamer, bound ultimately for France. Rodman seized his watch, and studied its face under a street-lamp with something akin to frantic anxiety.

"Where do you go, monsieur?" inquired the Frenchman.

"Go? G.o.d knows!" replied Rodman, as he gazed about in perplexity. "But I've got to beat it, and beat it quick."

A moment later, he was lost in the shadows.

CHAPTER XIV

When Duska Filson had gone out into the woods that day to read Saxon's runaway letter, she had at once decided to follow, with regal disdain of half-way methods. To her own straight-thinking mind, unhampered with petty conventional intricacies, it was all perfectly clear. The ordinary woman would have waited, perhaps in deep distress and tearful anxiety, for some news of the man she loved, because he had gone away, and it is not customary for the woman to follow her wandering lover over a quadrant of the earth's circ.u.mference. Duska Filson was not of the type that sheds tears or remains inactive. To one man in the world, she had said, "I love you," and to her that settled everything.

He had gone to the place where his life was imperiled in the effort to bring back to her a clear record. If he were fortunate, her congratulation, direct from her own heart and lips, should be the first he heard. If he were to be plunged into misery, then above all other times she should be there. Otherwise, what was the use of loving him?

But, when the steamer was under way, crawling slowly down the world by the same route he had taken, the days between quick sunrise and sudden sunset seemed interminable.

Outwardly, she was the blithest pa.s.senger on the steamer, and daily she held a sort of _salon_ for the few other pa.s.sengers who were doomed to the heat and the weariness of such a voyage.

But, when she was alone with Steele in the evening, looking off at the moonlit sea, or in her own cabin, her brow would furrow, and her hands would clench with the tensity of her anxiety. And, when at last Puerto Frio showed across the purple water with a glow of brief sunset behind the brown shoulder of San Francisco, she stood by the rail, almost holding her breath in suspense, while the anchor chains ran out.

As soon as Steele had ensconced Mrs. Horton and Duska at the _Frances y Ingles_, he hurried to the American Legation for news of Saxon. When he left Duska in the hotel _patio_, he knew, from the anxious little smile she threw after him, that for her the jury deciding the supreme question was going out, leaving her as a defendant is left when the panel files into the room where they ballot on his fate. He rushed over to the legation with sickening fear that, when he came back, it might have to be like the juryman whose verdict is adverse.

As it happened, he caught Mr. Pendleton without delay, and before he had finished his question the envoy was looking about for his Panama hat. Mr. Pendleton wanted to do several things at once. He wanted to tell the story of Saxon's coming and going, and he wanted to go in person, and have the party moved over to the legation, where they must be his guests while they remained in Puerto Frio. It would be several days before another steamer sailed north. They had missed by a day the vessel on which Saxon had gone. Meanwhile, there were sights in the town that might beguile the intervening time. Saxon had interested the envoy, and Saxon's friends were welcome. Hospitality is simplified in places where faces from G.o.d's country are things to greet with the fervor of delight.

At dinner that evening, sitting at the right of the minister, Duska heard the full narrative of Saxon's brief stay and return home. Mr.

Pendleton was at his best. There was no diplomatic formality, and the girl, under the reaction and relief of her dispelled anxiety, though still disappointed at the hapless coincidence of missing Saxon, was as gay and childlike as though she had not just emerged from an overshadowing uncertainty.

"I'm sorry that he couldn't accept my hospitality here at the legation," said the minister at the end of his story, with much mock solemnity, "but etiquette in diplomatic circles is quite rigid, and he had an appointment to sleep at the palace."

"So, they jugged him!" chuckled Steele, with a grin that threatened his ears. "I always suspected he'd wind up in the Bastile."

"He was," corrected the girl, her chin high, though her eyes sparkled, "a guest of the President, and, as became his dignity, was supplied with a military escort."

"He needn't permit himself any vaunting pride about that," Steele a.s.sured her. "It's just difference of method. In our country, a similar honor would have been accorded with a patrol wagon and a couple of policemen."

After dinner, Duska insisted on dispatching a cablegram which should intercept the _City of Rio_ at some point below the Isthmus. It was not an original telegram, but, had Saxon received it, it would have delighted him immoderately. She said:

"I told you so. Sail by _Orinoco_."

The following morning, there were tours of discovery, personally conducted by the young Mr. Partridge. Duska had wanted to leave the carriage at the old cathedral, and stand flat against the blank wall, but she refrained, and satisfied herself with marching up very close and regarding it with hostility. As the carriage turned into the main plaza, a regiment of infantry went by, the band marching ahead playing, with the usual blare, the national anthem. Then, as the coachman drew up his horses at the legation door, there was sudden confusion, followed by the noise of popping guns. It was the hour just preceding the noon _siesta_. The plaza was indolent with lounging figures, and droning in the sleeping sing-song chorus of lazy voices.

At the sound, which for the moment impressed the girl like the exploding of a pack of giant crackers, a sudden stillness fell on the place, closely followed by a startled outcry of voices as the figures in the plaza broke wildly for cover, futilely attempting to s.h.i.+eld their faces with their arms against possible bullets. Then, there came a deeper detonation, and somewhere the crumbling of an adobe wall. The first sound came just as Mrs. Horton was stepping to the sidewalk.

Duska had already leaped lightly out, and stood looking on in surprise. But Mr. Partridge knew his Puerto Frio. He led them hastily through the huge street-doors, and they had no sooner pa.s.sed than the porter, with many mumbled prayers to the Holy Mother, slammed the great barriers against the outside world. The final a.s.sault for _Vegas y Libertad_ had at last begun.

Mr. Pendleton had insisted that the ladies remain at the rear of the house, but Duska, with her adventurous pa.s.sion for seeing all there was to see, threatened insubordination. To her, the idea of leaving several perfectly good balconies vacant, and staying at the back of a house, when the only battle one would probably ever see was occurring in the street just outside, seemed far from sensible. But, after she had looked out for a few moments, had seen a belated fruit-vender crumple to the street, and had smelled the acrid stench of the burnt powder, she was willing to turn away.

Inasmuch as the stay of Duska and her aunt involved several days of waiting for the sailing of the next s.h.i.+p, Duska was somewhat surprised at hearing nothing from Saxon in the meanwhile. He had had time to reach the point to which the cablegram was addressed. She had told him she would sail by the _Orinoco_, since that was the first available steamer. At such a time, Saxon would certainly answer that message.

She fancied he would even manage to join her steamer, either by coming down to meet it, or waiting to intercept it at the place where he had received her message. Consequently, when she reached that port and sailed again without either seeing Saxon or receiving a message from him, she was decidedly surprised, and, though she did not admit it even to herself, she was likewise alarmed.

It happened that one of her fellow pa.s.sengers on the steamer _Orinoco_ was a tall, grave gentleman, who wore his beard trimmed in the French fas.h.i.+on, and who in his bearing had a certain air of distinction.

On a coast vessel, it was unusual for a pa.s.senger to hold himself apart and reserved against the chance companions.h.i.+ps of a voyage. Yet, this gentleman did so. He had been introduced by the captain as M.

Herve, had bowed and smiled, but since that he had not sought to further the acquaintances.h.i.+p, or to recognize it except by a polite bow or smile when he pa.s.sed one of the party on his solitary deck promenades.

Possibly, this perfunctory greeting would have been the limit and confine of their a.s.sociations, had he not chanced to be standing one day near enough to Duska and Steele to overhear their conversation.

The voyage was almost ended, and New York was not far off. Long ago, the lush rankness of the tropics had given way to the more temperate beauty of the higher zones, and this beauty was the beauty of early autumn.

Steele was talking of Frederick Marston, and the girl was listening with interest. As long as Saxon insisted on remaining the first disciple, she must of course be interested in his demi-G.o.d. Just now, however, Saxon's name was not mentioned. Finally, the stranger turned, and came over with a smile.

"When I hear the name of Frederick Marston," he said, "I am challenged to interest. Would I be asking too much if I sought to join you in your talk of him?"