The Lion and the Unicorn
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Richard Harding Davis >> The Lion and the Unicorn
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"Well, but surely," Arkwright objected, "that took courage? To
own that for ten years you had been wrong, and to come out for
the right at the last."
Livingstone stared and shrugged his shoulders. "It's all a
question of motives," he said indifferently. "I don't want to
shatter your idol; I only want to save you from counting too much
on him."
When Arkwright called on the morrow Senator Stanton was not at
home, and the day following he was busy, and could give him only
a brief interview. There were previous engagements and other
difficulties in the way of his going which he had not foreseen,
he said, and he feared he should have to postpone his visit to
Cuba indefinitely. He asked if Mr. Arkwright would be so
kind as to call again within a week; he would then be better able
to give him a definite answer.
Arkwright left the apartment with a sensation of such keen
disappointment that it turned him ill and dizzy. He felt that
the great purpose of his life was being played with and put
aside. But he had not selfish resentment on his own account; he
was only the more determined to persevere. He considered new
arguments and framed new appeals; and one moment blamed himself
bitterly for having foolishly discouraged the statesman by too
vivid pictures of the horrors he might encounter, and the next,
questioned if he had not been too practical and so failed because
he had not made the terrible need of immediate help his sole
argument. Every hour wasted in delay meant, as he knew, the
sacrifice of many lives, and there were other, more sordid and
more practical, reasons for speedy action. For his supply of
money was running low and there was now barely enough remaining
to carry him through the month of travel he had planned to take
at Stanton's side. What would happen to him when that
momentous trip was over was of no consequence. He would have
done the work as far as his small share in it lay, he would have
set in motion a great power that was to move Congress and the
people of the United States to action. If he could but do that,
what became of him counted for nothing.
But at the end of the week his fears and misgivings were
scattered gloriously and a single line from the senator set his
heart leaping and brought him to his knees in gratitude and
thanksgiving. On returning one afternoon to the mean lodging
into which he had moved to save his money, he found a telegram
from Stanton and he tore it open trembling between hope and fear.
"Have arranged to leave for Tampa with you Monday, at midnight"
it read. "Call for me at ten o'clock same evening.--STANTON."
Arkwright read the message three times. There was a heavy,
suffocating pressure at his heart as though it had ceased
beating. He sank back limply upon the edge of his bed and
clutching the piece of paper in his two hands spoke the words
aloud triumphantly as though to assure himself that they
were true. Then a flood of unspeakable relief, of happiness and
gratitude, swept over him, and he turned and slipped to the
floor, burying his face in the pillow, and wept out his thanks
upon his knees.
A man so deeply immersed in public affairs as was Stanton and
with such a multiplicity of personal interests, could not prepare
to absent himself for a month without his intention becoming
known, and on the day when he was to start for Tampa the morning
newspapers proclaimed the fact that he was about to visit Cuba.
They gave to his mission all the importance and display that
Arkwright had foretold. Some of the newspapers stated that he
was going as a special commissioner of the President to study and
report; others that he was acting in behalf of the Cuban legation
in Washington and had plenipotentiary powers. Opposition organs
suggested that he was acting in the interests of the sugar trust,
and his own particular organ declared that it was his intention
to free Cuba at the risk of his own freedom, safety, and even
life.
The Spanish minister in Washington sent a cable for
publication to Madrid, stating that a distinguished American
statesman was about to visit Cuba, to investigate, and, later, to
deny the truth of the disgraceful libels published concerning the
Spanish officials on the island by the papers of the United
States. At the same time he cabled in cipher to the captain-
general in Havana to see that the distinguished statesman was
closely spied upon from the moment of his arrival until his
departure, and to place on the "suspect" list all Americans and
Cubans who ventured to give him any information.
The afternoon papers enlarged on the importance of the visit and
on the good that would surely come of it. They told that Senator
Stanton had refused to be interviewed or to disclose the object
of his journey. But it was enough, they said, that some one in
authority was at last to seek out the truth, and added that no
one would be listened to with greater respect than would the
Southern senator. On this all the editorial writers were agreed.
The day passed drearily for Arkwright. Early in the morning he
packed his valise and paid his landlord, and for the
remainder of the day walked the streets or sat in the hotel
corridor waiting impatiently for each fresh edition of the
papers. In them he read the signs of the great upheaval of
popular feeling that was to restore peace and health and plenty
to the island for which he had given his last three years of
energy and life.
He was trembling with excitement, as well as with the cold, when
at ten o'clock precisely he stood at Senator Stanton's door. He
had forgotten to eat his dinner, and the warmth of the dimly lit
hall and the odor of rich food which was wafted from an inner
room touched his senses with tantalizing comfort.
"The senator says you are to come this way, sir," the servant
directed. He took Arkwright's valise from his hand and parted
the heavy curtains that hid the dining-room, and Arkwright
stepped in between them and then stopped in some embarrassment.
He found himself in the presence of a number of gentlemen seated
at a long dinner-table, who turned their heads as he entered and
peered at him through the smoke that floated in light layers
above the white cloth. The dinner had been served, but the
senator's guests still sat with their chairs pushed back from a
table lighted by candles under yellow shades, and covered with
beautiful flowers and with bottles of varied sizes in stands of
quaint and intricate design. Senator Stanton's tall figure
showed dimly through the smoke, and his deep voice hailed
Arkwright cheerily from the farther end of the room. "This way,
Mr. Arkwright," he said. "I have a chair waiting for you here."
He grasped Arkwright's hand warmly and pulled him into the vacant
place at his side. An elderly gentleman on Arkwright's other
side moved to make more room for him and shoved a liqueur glass
toward him with a friendly nod and pointed at an open box of
cigars. He was a fine-looking man, and Arkwright noticed that he
was regarding him with a glance of the keenest interest. All of
those at the table were men of twice Arkwright's age, except
Livingstone, whom he recognized and who nodded to him pleasantly
and at the same time gave an order to a servant, pointing at
Arkwright as he did so. Some of the gentlemen wore their
business suits, and one opposite Arkwright was still in his
overcoat, and held his hat in his hand. These latter seemed to
have arrived after the dinner had begun, for they formed a second
line back of those who had places at the table; they all seemed
to know one another and were talking with much vivacity and
interest.
Stanton did not attempt to introduce Arkwright to his guests
individually, but said: "Gentlemen, this is Mr. Arkwright, of
whom I have been telling you, the young gentleman who has done
such magnificent work for the cause of Cuba." Those who caught
Arkwright's eye nodded to him, and others raised their glasses at
him, but with a smile that he could not understand. It was as
though they all knew something concerning him of which he was
ignorant. He noted that the faces of some were strangely
familiar, and he decided that he must have seen their portraits
in the public prints. After he had introduced Arkwright, the
senator drew his chair slightly away from him and turned in what
seemed embarrassment to the man on his other side. The
elderly gentleman next to Arkwright filled his glass, a servant
placed a small cup of coffee at his elbow, and he lit a cigar and
looked about him.
"You must find this weather very trying after the tropics," his
neighbor said.
Arkwright assented cordially. The brandy was flowing through his
veins and warming him; he forgot that he was hungry, and the
kind, interested glances of those about him set him at his ease.
It was a propitious start, he thought, a pleasant leave-taking
for the senator and himself, full of good will and good wishes.
He turned toward Stanton and waited until he had ceased speaking.
"The papers have begun well, haven't they?" he asked, eagerly.
He had spoken in a low voice, almost in a whisper, but those
about the table seemed to have heard him, for there was silence
instantly and when he glanced up he saw the eyes of all turned
upon him and he noticed on their faces the same smile he had seen
there when he entered.
"Yes," Stanton answered constrainedly. "Yes, I--" he
lowered his voice, but the silence still continued. Stanton had
his eyes fixed on the table, but now he frowned and half rose
from his chair.
"I want to speak with you, Arkwright," he said. "Suppose we go
into the next room. I'll be back in a moment," he added, nodding
to the others.
But the man on his right removed his cigar from his lips and said
in an undertone, "No, sit down, stay where you are;" and the
elderly gentleman at Arkwright's side laid his hand detainingly
on his arm. "Oh, you won't take Mr. Arkwright away from us,
Stanton?" he asked, smiling.
Stanton shrugged his shoulders and sat down again, and there was
a moment's pause. It was broken by the man in the overcoat, who
laughed.
"He's paying you a compliment, Mr. Arkwright," he said. He
pointed with his cigar to the gentleman at Arkwright's side.
"I don't understand," Arkwright answered doubtfully.
"It's a compliment to your eloquence--he's afraid to leave you
alone with the senator. Livingstone's been telling us that
you are a better talker than Stanton." Arkwright turned a
troubled countenance toward the men about the table, and then
toward Livingstone, but that young man had his eyes fixed gravely
on the glasses before him and did not raise them.
Arkwright felt a sudden, unreasonable fear of the circle of
strong-featured, serene and confident men about him. They seemed
to be making him the subject of a jest, to be enjoying something
among themselves of which he was in ignorance, but which
concerned him closely. He turned a white face toward Stanton.
"You don't mean," he began piteously, "that--that you are not
going? Is that it--tell me--is that what you wanted to say?"
Stanton shifted in his chair and muttered some words between his
lips, then turned toward Arkwright and spoke quite clearly and
distinctly.
"I am very sorry, Mr. Arkwright," he said, "but I am afraid I'll
have to disappoint you. Reasons I cannot now explain have arisen
which make my going impossible--quite impossible," he added
firmly--"not only now, but later," he went on quickly, as
Arkwright was about to interrupt him.
Arkwright made no second attempt to speak. He felt the muscles
of his face working and the tears coming to his eyes, and to hide
his weakness he twisted in his chair and sat staring ahead of him
with his back turned to the table. He heard Livingstone's voice
break the silence with some hurried question, and immediately his
embarrassment was hidden in a murmur of answers and the moving of
glasses as the men shifted in their chairs and the laughter and
talk went on as briskly as before. Arkwright saw a sideboard
before him and a servant arranging some silver on one of the
shelves. He watched the man do this with a concentrated interest
as though the dull, numbed feeling in his brain caught at the
trifle in order to put off, as long as possible, the
consideration of the truth.
And then beyond the sideboard and the tapestry on the wall above
it, he saw the sun shining down upon the island of Cuba, he saw
the royal palms waving and bending, the dusty columns of
Spanish infantry crawling along the white roads and leaving
blazing huts and smoking cane-fields in their wake; he saw
skeletons of men and women seeking for food among the refuse of
the street; he heard the order given to the firing squad, the
splash of the bullets as they scattered the plaster on the prison
wall, and he saw a kneeling figure pitch forward on its face,
with a useless bandage tied across its sightless eyes.
Senator Stanton brought him back with a sharp shake of the
shoulder. He had also turned his back on the others, and was
leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. He spoke rapidly,
and in a voice only slightly raised above a whisper.
"I am more than sorry, Arkwright," he said earnestly. "You
mustn't blame me altogether. I have had a hard time of it this
afternoon. I wanted to go. I really wanted to go. The thing
appealed to me, it touched me, it seemed as if I owed it to
myself to do it. But they were too many for me," he added with a
backward toss of his head toward the men around his table.
"If the papers had not told on me I could have got well away," he
went on in an eager tone, "but as soon as they read of it, they
came here straight from their offices. You know who they are,
don't you?" he asked, and even in his earnestness there was an
added touch of importance in his tone as he spoke the name of his
party's leader, of men who stood prominently in Wall Street and
who were at the head of great trusts.
"You see how it is," he said with a shrug of his shoulders.
"They have enormous interests at stake. They said I would drag
them into war, that I would disturb values, that the business
interests of the country would suffer. I'm under obligations to
most of them, they have advised me in financial matters, and they
threatened--they threatened to make it unpleasant for me." His
voice hardened and he drew in his breath quickly, and laughed.
"You wouldn't understand if I were to tell you. It's rather
involved. And after all, they may be right, agitation may be bad
for the country. And your party leader after all is your party
leader, isn't he, and if he says 'no' what are you to do?
My sympathies are just as keen for these poor women and children
as ever, but as these men say, 'charity begins at home,' and we
mustn't do anything to bring on war prices again, or to send
stocks tumbling about our heads, must we?" He leaned back in his
chair again and sighed. "Sympathy is an expensive luxury, I
find," he added.
Arkwright rose stiffly and pushed Stanton away from him with his
hand. He moved like a man coming out of a dream.
"Don't talk to me like that," he said in a low voice. The noise
about the table ended on the instant, but Arkwright did not
notice that it had ceased. "You know I don't understand that,"
he went on; "what does it matter to me!" He put his hand up to
the side of his face and held it there, looking down at Stanton.
He had the dull, heavy look in his eyes of a man who has just
come through an operation under some heavy drug. "'Wall Street,'
'trusts,' 'party leaders,'" he repeated, "what are they to me?
The words don't reach me, they have lost their meaning, it is a
language I have forgotten, thank God!" he added. He turned
and moved his eyes around the table, scanning the faces of the
men before him.
"Yes, you are twelve to one," he said at last, still speaking
dully and in a low voice, as though he were talking to himself.
"You have won a noble victory, gentlemen. I congratulate you.
But I do not blame you, we are all selfish and self-seeking. I
thought I was working only for Cuba, but I was working for
myself, just as you are. I wanted to feel that it was I who had
helped to bring relief to that plague-spot, that it was through
my efforts the help had come. Yes, if he had done as I asked, I
suppose I would have taken the credit."
He swayed slightly, and to steady himself caught at the back of
his chair. But at the same moment his eyes glowed fiercely and
he held himself erect again. He pointed with his finger at the
circle of great men who sat looking up at him in curious silence.
"You are like a ring of gamblers around a gaming table," he cried
wildly, "who see nothing but the green cloth and the wheel and
the piles of money before them, who forget in watching the
money rise and fall, that outside the sun is shining, that human
beings are sick and suffering, that men are giving their lives
for an idea, for a sentiment, for a flag. You are the money-
changers in the temple of this great republic and the day will
come, I pray to God, when you will be scourged and driven out
with whips. Do you think you can form combines and deals that
will cheat you into heaven? Can your 'trusts' save your souls--
is 'Wall Street' the strait and narrow road to salvation?"
The men about the table leaned back and stared at Arkwright in as
great amazement as though he had violently attempted an assault
upon their pockets, or had suddenly gone mad in their presence.
Some of them frowned, and others appeared not to have heard, and
others smiled grimly and waited for him to continue as though
they were spectators at a play.
The political leader broke the silence with a low aside to
Stanton. "Does the gentleman belong to the Salvation Army?" he
asked.
Arkwright whirled about and turned upon him fiercely.
"Old gods give way to new gods," he cried. "Here is your
brother. I am speaking for him. Do you ever think of him? How
dare you sneer at me?" he cried. "You can crack your whip over
that man's head and turn him from what in his heart and
conscience he knows is right; you can crack your whip over the
men who call themselves free-born American citizens and who have
made you their boss--sneer at them if you like, but you have no
collar on my neck. If you are a leader, why don't you lead your
people to what is good and noble? Why do you stop this man in
the work God sent him here to do? You would make a party hack of
him, a political prostitute, something lower than the woman who
walks the streets. She sells her body--this man is selling his
soul."
He turned, trembling and quivering, and shook his finger above
the upturned face of the senator.
"What have you done with your talents, Stanton?" he cried. "What
have you done with your talents?"
The man in the overcoat struck the table before him with his
fist so that the glasses rang.
"By God," he laughed, "I call him a better speaker than Stanton!
Livingstone's right, he IS better than Stanton--but he lacks
Stanton's knack of making himself popular," he added. He looked
around the table inviting approbation with a smile, but no one
noticed him, nor spoke to break the silence.
Arkwright heard the words dully and felt that he was being
mocked. He covered his face with his hands and stood breathing
brokenly; his body was still trembling with an excitement he
could not master.
Stanton rose from his chair and shook him by the shoulder. "Are
you mad, Arkwright?" he cried. "You have no right to insult my
guests or me. Be calm--control yourself."
"What does it matter what I say?" Arkwright went on desperately.
"I am mad. Yes, that is it, I am mad. They have won and I have
lost, and it drove me beside myself. I counted on you. I knew
that no one else could let my people go. But I'll not
trouble you again. I wish you good-night, sir, and good-bye. If
I have been unjust, you must forget it."
He turned sharply, but Stanton placed a detaining hand on his
shoulder. "Wait," he commanded querulously; "where are you
going? Will you, still--?"
Arkwright bowed his head. "Yes," he answered. "I have but just
time now to catch our train--my train, I mean."
He looked up at Stanton and taking his hand in both of his, drew
the man toward him. All the wildness and intolerance in his
manner had passed, and as he raised his eyes they were full of a
firm resolve.
"Come," he said simply; "there is yet time. Leave these people
behind you. What can you answer when they ask what have you done
with your talents?"
"Good God, Arkwright," the senator exclaimed angrily, pulling his
hand away; "don't talk like a hymn-book, and don't make another
scene. What you ask is impossible. Tell me what I can do to
help you in any other way, and--"
"Come," repeated the young man firmly.
"The world may judge you by what you do to-night."
Stanton looked at the boy for a brief moment with a strained and
eager scrutiny, and then turned away abruptly and shook his head
in silence, and Arkwright passed around the table and on out of
the room.
A month later, as the Southern senator was passing through the
reading-room of the Union Club, Livingstone beckoned to him, and
handing him an afternoon paper pointed at a paragraph in silence.
The paragraph was dated Sagua la Grande, and read:
"The body of Henry Arkwright, an American civil engineer, was
brought into Sagua to-day by a Spanish column. It was found
lying in a road three miles beyond the line of forts. Arkwright
was surprised by a guerilla force while attempting to make his
way to the insurgent camp, and on resisting was shot. The body
has been handed over to the American consul for interment. It is
badly mutilated."
Stanton lowered the paper and stood staring out of the window at
the falling snow and the cheery lights and bustling energy
of the avenue.
"Poor fellow," he said, "he wanted so much to help them. And he
didn't accomplish anything, did he?"
Livingstone stared at the older man and laughed shortly.
"Well, I don't know," he said. "He died. Some of us only
live."
THE VAGRANT
His Excellency Sir Charles Greville, K. C M. G., Governor of the
Windless Islands, stood upon the veranda of Government House
surveying the new day with critical and searching eyes. Sir
Charles had been so long absolute monarch of the Windless Isles
that he had assumed unconsciously a mental attitude of suzerainty
over even the glittering waters of the Caribbean Sea, and the
coral reefs under the waters, and the rainbow skies that floated
above them. But on this particular morning not even the critical
eye of the Governor could distinguish a single flaw in the
tropical landscape before him.
The lawn at his feet ran down to meet the dazzling waters of the
bay, the blue waters of the bay ran to meet a great stretch of
absinthe green, the green joined a fairy sky of pink and
gold and saffron. Islands of coral floated on the sea of
absinthe, and derelict clouds of mother-of-pearl swung low above
them, starting from nowhere and going nowhere, but drifting
beautifully, like giant soap-bubbles of light and color. Where
the lawn touched the waters of the bay the cocoanut-palms reached
their crooked lengths far up into the sunshine, and as the sea-
breeze stirred their fronds they filled the hot air with whispers
and murmurs like the fluttering of many fans. Nature smiled
boldly upon the Governor, confident in her bountiful beauty, as
though she said, "Surely you cannot but be pleased with me to-
day." And, as though in answer, the critical and searching
glance of Sir Charles relaxed.
The crunching of the gravel and the rattle of the sentry's musket
at salute recalled him to his high office and to the duties of
the morning. He waved his hand, and, as though it were a wand,
the sentry moved again, making his way to the kitchen-garden, and
so around Government House and back to the lawn-tennis court,
maintaining in his solitary pilgrimage the dignity of her
Majesty's representative, as well as her Majesty's power
over the Windless Isles.
The Governor smiled slightly, with the ease of mind of one who
finds all things good. Supreme authority, surroundings of
endless beauty, the respectful, even humble, deference of his
inferiors, and never even an occasional visit from a superior,
had in four years lowered him into a bed of ease and self-
satisfaction. He was cut off from the world, and yet of it.
Each month there came, via Jamaica, the three weeks' old copy
of The Weekly Times; he subscribed to Mudie's Colonial Library;
and from the States he had imported an American lawn-mower, the
mechanism of which no one as yet understood. Within his own
borders he had created a healthy, orderly seaport out of what had
been a sink of fever and a refuge for all the ne'er-do-wells and
fugitive revolutionists of Central America.
He knew, as he sat each evening on his veranda, looking across
the bay, that in the world beyond the pink and gold sunset men
were still panting, struggling, and starving; crises were rising
and passing; strikes and panics, wars and the rumors of
wars, swept from continent to continent; a plague crept through
India; a filibuster with five hundred men at his back crossed an
imaginary line and stirred the world from Cape Town to London;
Emperors were crowned; the good Queen celebrated the longest
reign; and a captain of artillery imprisoned in a swampy island
in the South Atlantic caused two hemispheres to clamor for his
rescue, and lit a race war that stretched from Algiers to the
boulevards.
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