The Lost Road, etc.

R >> Richard Harding Davis >> The Lost Road, etc.

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Of the foreign colony in Camaguay some fifty were Americans, and
from the rest of the world they were as hopelessly separated as the
crew of a light-ship. From the Pacific they were cut off by the
Cordilleras, from the Caribbean by a nine-day mule-ride. To the
north and south, jungle, forests, swamp-lands, and mountains
hemmed them in.

Of the fifty Americans, one-half were constantly on the trail;
riding to the coast to visit their plantations, or into the mountains
to inspect their mines. When Everett arrived, of those absent
the two most important were Chester Ward and Colonel Goddard.
Indeed, so important were these gentlemen that Everett was made
to understand that, until they approved, his recognition as the
American minister was in a manner temporary.

Chester Ward, or "Chet," as the exiles referred to him, was one of
the richest men in Amapala, and was engaged in exploring the ruins
of the lost city of Cobre, which was a one-hour ride from the capital.
Ward possessed the exclusive right to excavate that buried city and
had held it against all comers. The offers of American universities,
of archaeological and geographical societies that also wished to dig
up the ancient city and decipher the hieroglyphs on her walls, were
met with a curt rebuff. That work, the government of Amapala would
reply, was in the trained hands of Senor Chester Ward. In his chosen
effort the government would not disturb him, nor would it permit others
coming in at the eleventh hour to rob him of his glory. This Everett
learned from the consul, Garland.

"Ward and Colonel Goddard," the consul explained, "are two of
five countrymen of ours who run the American colony, and, some
say, run the government. The others are Mellen, who has the
asphalt monopoly; Jackson, who is building the railroads, and
Major Feiberger, of the San Jose silver-mines. They hold
monopolies and pay President Mendoza ten per cent of the
earnings, and, on the side, help him run the country. Of the
five, the Amapalans love Goddard best, because he's not trying
to rob them. Instead, he wants to boost Amapala. His ideas are
perfectly impracticable, but he doesn't know that, and neither do
they. He's a kind of Colonel Mulberry Sellers and a Southerner.
Not the professional sort, that fight elevator-boys because they're
colored, and let off rebel yells in rathskellers when a Hungarian
band plays 'Dixie,' but the sort you read about and so seldom see.
He was once State Treasurer of Alabama."

"What's he doing down here?" asked the minister.

"Never the same thing two months together," the consul told him;
"railroads, mines, rubber. He says all Amapala needs is developing."

As men who can see a joke even when it is against themselves, the
two exiles smiled ruefully.

"That's all it needs," said Everett.

For a moment the consul regarded him thoughtfully.

"I might as well tell you," he said, "you'll learn it soon enough
anyway, that the men who will keep you from getting your treaty
are these five, especially old man Goddard and Ward."

Everett exclaimed indignantly:

"Why should they interfere?"

"Because," explained the consul, "they are fugitives from justice,
and they don't want to go home. Ward is wanted for forgery or
some polite crime, I don't know which. And Colonel Goddard
for appropriating the State funds of Alabama. Ward knew what
he was doing and made a lot out of it. He's still rich. No one's
weeping over him. Goddard's case is different. He was imposed
on and made a catspaw. When he was State treasurer the men
who appointed him came to him one night and said they must
have some of the State's funds to show a bank examiner in the
morning. They appealed to him on the ground of friendship, as
the men who'd given him his job. They would return the money
the next evening. Goddard believed they would. They didn't,
and when some one called for a show-down the colonel was shy
about fifty thousand dollars of the State's money. He lost his head,
took the boat out of Mobile to Porto Cortez, and hid here. He's
been here twenty years and all the Amapalans love him. He's the
adopted father of their country. They're so afraid he'll be taken
back and punished that they'll never consent to an extradition
treaty even if the other Americans, Mellen, Jackson, and Feiberger,
weren't paying them big money not to consent. President Mendoza
himself told me that as long as Colonel Goddard honored his
country by remaining in it, he was his guest, and he would never
agree to extradition. 'I could as soon,' he said, 'sign his
death-warrant.'"

Everett grinned dismally.

"That's rather nice of them," he said, "but it's hard on me. But," he
demanded, "why Ward? What has he done for Amapala? Is it because
of Cobre, because of his services as an archaeologist?"

The consul glanced around the patio and dragged his chair nearer
to Everett.

"This is my own dope," he whispered; "it may be wrong. Anyway,
it's only for your private information."

He waited until, with a smile, Everett agreed to secrecy.

"Chet Ward," protested the consul, "is no more an archaeologist
than I am! He talks well about Cobre, and he ought to, because
every word he speaks is cribbed straight from Hauptmann's
monograph, published in 1855. And he has dug up something at
Cobre; something worth a darned sight more than stone monkeys
and carved altars. But his explorations are a bluff. They're a blind
to cover up what he's really after; what I think he's found!"

As though wishing to be urged, the young man paused, and Everett
nodded for him to continue. He was wondering whether life in
Amapala might not turn out to be more interesting than at first
it had appeared, or whether Garland was not a most charming liar.

"Ward visits the ruins every month," continued Garland. "But he
takes with him only two mule-drivers to cook and look after the
pack-train, and he doesn't let even the drivers inside the ruins.
He remains at Cobre three or four days and, to make a show, fills
his saddle-bags with broken tiles and copper ornaments. He turns
them over to the government, and it dumps them in the back yard
of the palace. You can't persuade me that he holds his concession
with that junk. He's found something else at Cobre and he shares
it with Mendoza, and I believe it's gold."

The minister smiled delightedly.

"What kind of gold?

"Maybe in the rough," said the consul. "But I prefer to think
it's treasure. The place is full of secret chambers, tombs, and
passage-ways cut through the rock, deep under the surface. I
believe Ward has stumbled on some vault where the priests used
to hide their loot. I believe he's getting it out bit by bit and
going shares with Mendoza."

"If that were so," ventured Everett, "why wouldn't Mendoza take
it all?"

"Because Ward," explained the consul, "is the only one who knows
where it is. The ruins cover two square miles. You might search
for years. They tried to follow and spy on him, but Ward was too
clever for them. He turned back at once. If they don't take what
he gives, they get nothing. So they protect him from real explorers
and from extradition. The whole thing is unfair. A real archaeologist
turned up here a month ago. He had letters from the Smithsonian
Institute and several big officials at Washington, but do you suppose
they would let him so much as smell of Cobre? Not they! Not even
when I spoke for him as consul. Then he appealed to Ward, and Ward
turned him down hard. You were arriving, so he's hung on here hoping
you may have more influence. His name is Peabody; he's a professor,
but he's young and full of 'get there,' and he knows more about the ruins
of Cobre now than Ward does after having them all to himself for two
years. He's good people and I hope you'll help him."

Everett shook his head doubtfully.

"If the government has given the concession to him," he pointed
out, "no matter who Ward may be, or what its motives were for
giving it to him, I can't ask it to break its promise. As an
American citizen Ward is as much entitled to my help--
officially--as Professor Peabody, whatever his standing."

"Ward's a forger," protested Garland, "a fugitive from justice; and
Peabody is a scholar and a gentleman. I'm not keen about dead
cities myself--this one we're in now is dead enough for me--but if
civilization is demanding to know what Cobre was like eight
hundred years ago, civilization is entitled to find out, and
Peabody seems the man for the job. It's a shame to turn him
down for a gang of grafters."

"Tell him to come and talk to me," said the minister.

"He rode over to the ruins of Copan last week," explained Garland,
"where the Harvard expedition is. But he's coming back to-morrow
on purpose to see you."

The consul had started toward the door when he suddenly returned.

"And there's some one else coming to see you," he said. "Some
one," he added anxiously, "you want to treat right. That's Monica
Ward. She's Chester Ward's sister, and you mustn't get her mixed
up with anything I told you about her brother. She's coming to
ask you to help start a Red Cross Society. She was a volunteer
nurse in the hospital in the last two revolutions, and what she
saw makes her want to be sure she won't see it again. She's
taught the native ladies the 'first aid' drill, and they expect
you to be honorary president of the society. You'd better
accept."

Shaking his head, Garland smiled pityingly upon the new minister.

"You've got a swell chance to get your treaty," he declared.
"Monica is another one who will prevent it."

Everett sighed patiently.

"What," he demanded, "might her particular crime be; murder,
shoplifting, treason--"

"If her brother had to leave this country," interrupted Garland,
"she'd leave with him. And the people don't want that. Her pull
is the same as old man Goddard's. Everybody loves him and
everybody loves her. I love her," exclaimed the consul
cheerfully; "the President loves her, the sisters in the hospital,
the chain-gang in the street, the washerwomen in the river,
the palace guard, everybody in this flea-bitten, God-forsaken
country loves Monica Ward--and when you meet her you
will, too."

Garland had again reached the door to the outer hall before
Everett called him back.

"If it is not a leading question," asked the minister, "what
little indiscretion in your life brought you to Amapala?"

Garland grinned appreciatively.

"I know they sound a queer lot," he assented, "but when you get
to know 'em, you like 'em. My own trouble," he added, "was a
horse. I never could see why they made such a fuss about him. He
was lame when I took him."

Disregarding Garland's pleasantry, for some time His Excellency
sat with his hands clasped behind his head, frowning up from the
open patio into the hot, cloudless sky. On the ridge of his tiled
roof a foul buzzard blinked at him from red-rimmed eyes, across
the yellow wall a lizard ran for shelter, at his elbow a macaw
compassing the circle of its tin prison muttered dreadful oaths.
Outside, as the washerwomen beat their linen clubs upon the flat
rocks of the river, the hot, stale air was spanked with sharp reports.
In Camaguay theirs was the only industry, the only sign of
cleanliness; and recognizing that another shirt had been thrashed
into subjection and rags, Everett winced. No less visibly did his
own thoughts cause him to wince. Garland he had forgotten,
and he was sunk deep in self-pity. His thoughts were of London,
with its world politics, its splendid traditions, its great and gracious
ladies; of Paris in the spring sunshine, when he cantered through the
Bois; of Madrid, with its pomp and royalty, and the gray walls of its
galleries proclaiming Murillo and Velasquez. These things he had
forsaken because he believed he was ambitious; and behold into
what a cul-de-sac his ambition had led him! A comic-opera country
that was not comic, but dead and buried from the world; a savage
people, unread, unenlightened, unclean; and for society of his
countrymen, pitiful derelicts in hiding from the law. In his soul
he rebelled. In words he exploded bitterly.

"This is one hell of a hole, Garland," cried the diplomat. His
jaws and his eyes hardened. "I'm going back to Europe. And
the only way I can go is to get that treaty. I was sent here to get
it. Those were my orders. And I'll get it if I have to bribe them
out of my own pocket; if I have to outbid Mr. Ward, and send
him and your good Colonel Goddard and all the rest of the crew
to the jails where they belong!"

Garland heard him without emotion. From long residence near the
equator he diagnosed the outbreak as a case of tropic choler,
aggravated by nostalgia and fleas.

"I'll bet you don't," he said.

"I'll bet you your passage-money home," shouted Everett, "against
my passage-money to Europe."

"Done!" said Garland. "How much time do you want--two years?"

The diplomat exclaimed mockingly:

"Two months!"

"I win now, "said the consul. "I'll go home and pack."

The next morning his clerk told Everett that in the outer office
Monica Ward awaited him.

Overnight Everett had developed a prejudice against Miss Ward.
What Garland had said in her favor had only driven him the wrong
way. Her universal popularity he disliked. He argued that to gain
popularity one must concede and capitulate. He felt that the sister
of an acknowledged crook, no matter how innocent she might be,
were she a sensitive woman, would wish to efface herself. And
he had found that, as a rule, women who worked in hospitals and
organized societies bored him. He did not admire the militant,
executive sister. He pictured Miss Ward as probably pretty, but
with the coquettish effrontery of the village belle and with the
pushing, "good-fellow" manners of the new school. He was prepared
either to have her slap him on the back or, from behind tilted
eye-glasses, make eyes at him. He was sure she wore eye-glasses,
and was large, plump, and Junoesque. With reluctance he entered
the outer office. He saw, all in white, a girl so young that she
was hardly more than a child, but with the tall, slim figure of a
boy. Her face was lovely as the face of a violet, and her eyes
were as shy. But shy not through lack of confidence in Everett,
nor in any human being, but in herself. They seemed to say, "I am
a very unworthy, somewhat frightened young person; but you, who
are so big and generous, will overlook that, and you are going to
be my friend. Indeed, I see you are my friend."

Everett stood quite still. He nodded gloomily.

"Garland was right," he exclaimed; "I do!"

The young lady was plainly distressed.

"Do what?" she stammered.

"Some day I will tell you," said the young man. "Yes," he added,
without shame, "I am afraid I will." He bowed her into the inner
office.

"I am sorry," apologized Monica, "but I am come to ask a favor--
two favors; one of you and one of the American minister."

Everett drew his armchair from his desk and waved Monica into it.

"I was sent here," he said, "to do exactly what you want. The
last words the President addressed to me were, 'On arriving at
your post report to Miss Monica Ward."'

Fearfully, Monica perched herself on the edge of the armchair; as
though for protection she clasped the broad table before her.

"The favor I want," she hastily assured him, "is not for myself."

"I am sorry," said Everett, "for it is already granted."

"You are very good," protested Monica.

"No," replied Everett, "I am only powerful. I represent ninety-five
million Americans, and they are all entirely at your service. So is
the army and navy."

Monica smiled and shook her head. The awe she felt was due an
American minister was rapidly disappearing, and in Mr. Everett
himself her confidence was increasing. The other ministers
plenipotentiary she had seen at Camaguay had been old, with
beards like mountain-goats, and had worn linen dusters. They
always were very red in the face and very damp. Monica decided
Mr. Everett also was old; she was sure he must be at least
thirty-five; but in his silk pongee and pipe-clayed tennis-shoes
he was a refreshing spectacle. Just to look at him turned one
quite cool.

"We have a very fine line of battle-ships this morning at
Guantanamo," urged Everett; "if you want one I'll cable for it."

Monica laughed softly. It was good to hear nonsense spoken. The
Amapalans had never learned it, and her brother said just what he
meant and no more.

"Our sailors were here once," Monica volunteered. She wanted
Mr. Everett to know he was not entirely cut off from the world.
"During the revolution," she explained. "We were so glad to see
them; they made us all feel nearer home. They set up our flag in
the plaza, and the color-guard let me photograph it, with them
guarding it. And when they marched away the archbishop stood
on the cathedral steps and blessed them, and we rode out along the
trail to where it comes to the jungle. And then we waved good-by,
and they cheered us. We all cried."

For a moment, quite unconsciously, Monica gave an imitation of
how they all cried. It made the appeal of the violet eyes even more
disturbing.
"Don't you love our sailors?" begged Monica.

Fearful of hurting the feelings of others, she added hastily,
"And, of course, our marines, too."

Everett assured her if there was one thing that meant more to him
than all else, it was an American bluejacket, and next to him an
American leatherneck.

It took a long time to arrange the details of the Red Cross
Society. In spite of his reputation for brilliancy, it seemed to
Monica Mr. Everett had a mind that plodded. For his benefit it
was necessary several times to repeat the most simple proposition.
She was sure his inability to fasten his attention on her League
of Mercy was because his brain was occupied with problems of
state. It made her feel selfish and guilty. When his visitor
decided that to explain further was but to waste his valuable
time and had made her third effort to go, Everett went with her.
He suggested that she take him to the hospital and introduce him
to the sisters. He wanted to talk to them about the Red Cross
League. It was a charming walk. Every one lifted his hat to
Monica; the beggars, the cab-drivers, the barefooted policemen,
and the social lights of Camaguay on the sidewalks in front of
the cafes rose and bowed.

"It is like walking with royalty!" exclaimed Everett.

While at the hospital he talked to the Mother Superior--his eyes
followed Monica. As she moved from cot to cot he noted how
the younger sisters fluttered happily around her, like bridesmaids
around a bride, and how as she passed, the eyes of those in the
cots followed her jealously, and after she had spoken with them
smiled in content.

"She is good," the Mother Superior was saying, "and her brother,
too, is very good."

Everett had forgotten the brother. With a start he lifted his eyes
and found the Mother Superior regarding him.

"He is very good," she repeated. "For us, he built this wing of
the hospital. It was his money. We should be very sorry if any
harm came to Mr. Ward. Without his help we would starve." She
smiled, and with a gesture signified the sick. "I mean they would
starve; they would die of disease and fever." The woman fixed
upon him grave, inscrutable eyes. "Will Your Excellency
remember?" she said. It was less of a question than a command.
"Where the church can forgive--" she paused.

Like a real diplomat Everett sought refuge in mere words.

"The church is all-powerful, Mother," he said. "Her power to
forgive is her strongest weapon. I have no such power. It lies
beyond my authority. I am just a messenger-boy carrying the
wishes of the government of one country to the government of
another."

The face of the Mother Superior remained grave, but undisturbed.

"Then, as regards our Mr. Ward," she said, "the wishes of your
government are--"

Again she paused; again it was less of a question than a command.
With interest Everett gazed at the whitewashed ceiling.

"I have not yet," he said, "communicated them to any one."

That night, after dinner in the patio, he reported to Garland the
words of the Mother Superior.

"That was my dream, 0 Prophet," concluded Everett; "you who can
read this land of lotus-eaters, interpret! What does it mean?"

"It only means what I've been telling you," said the consul. "It means
that if you're going after that treaty, you've only got to fight the
Catholic Church. That's all it means!"

Later in the evening Garland said: "I saw you this morning crossing
the plaza with Monica. When I told you everybody in this town
loved her, was I right?"

"Absolutely!" assented Everett. "But why didn't you tell me she
was a flapper?"

"I don't know what a flapper is," promptly retorted Garland. "And
if I did, I wouldn't call Monica one."

"A flapper is a very charming person," protested Everett. "I used
the term in its most complimentary sense. It means a girl between
fourteen and eighteen. It's English slang, and in England at the
present the flapper is very popular. She is driving her sophisticated
elder sister, who has been out two or three seasons, and the predatory
married woman to the wall. To men of my years the flapper is really
at the dangerous age."

In his bamboo chair Garland tossed violently and snorted.

"I sized you up," he cried, "as a man of the finest perceptions. I was
wrong. You don't appreciate Monica! Dangerous! You might as
well say God's sunshine is dangerous, or a beautiful flower is
dangerous."

Everett shook his head at the other man reproachfully:

"Did you ever hear of a sunstroke?" he demanded. "Don't you know
if you smell certain beautiful flowers you die? Can't you grasp any
other kind of danger than being run down by a trolley-car? Is the
danger of losing one's peace of mind nothing, of being unfaithful
to duty, nothing! Is--"

Garland raised his arms.

"Don't shoot!" he begged. "I apologize. You do appreciate Monica.
You have your consul's permission to walk with her again."

The next day young Professor Peabody called and presented his
letters. He was a forceful young man to whom the delays of
diplomacy did not appeal, and one apparently accustomed to riding
off whatever came in his way. He seemed to consider any one who
opposed him, or who even disagreed with his conclusions, as
offering a personal affront. With indignation he launched into
his grievance.

"These people," he declared, "are dogs in the manger, and Ward is
the worst of the lot. He knows no more of archaeology than a
congressman. The man's a faker! He showed me a spear-head of
obsidian and called it flint; and he said the Aztecs borrowed from
the Mayas, and that the Toltecs were a myth. And he got the Aztec
solar calendar mixed with the Ahau. He's as ignorant as that."

"I can't believe it!" exclaimed Everett.

"You may laugh," protested the professor, "but the ruins of Cobre
hold secrets the students of two continents are trying to solve.
They hide the history of a lost race, and I submit it's not proper
one man should keep that knowledge from the world, certainly
not for a few gold armlets!"

Everett raised his eyes.

"What makes you say that?"' he demanded.

"I've been kicking my heels in this town for a month," Peabody
told him, "and I've talked to the people here, and to the Harvard
expedition at Copan, and everybody tells me this fellow has found
treasure." The archaeologist exclaimed with indignation: "What's
gold," he snorted, "compared to the discovery of a lost race?"

"I applaud your point of view," Everett assured him. "I am to see the
President tomorrow, and I will lay the matter before him. I'll ask him
to give you a look in."

To urge his treaty of extradition was the reason for the audience with
the President, and with all the courtesy that a bad case demanded
Mendoza protested against it. He pointed out that governments
entered into treaties only when the ensuing benefits were mutual.
For Amapala in a treaty of extradition he saw no benefit. Amapala
was not so far "advanced" as to produce defaulting bank presidents,
get-rich-quick promoters, counterfeiters, and thieving cashiers. Her
fugitives were revolutionists who had fought and lost, and every one
was glad to have them go, and no one wanted them back.

"Or," suggested the President, "suppose I am turned out by a
revolution, and I seek asylum in your country? My enemies desire
my life. They would ask for my extradition--"

"If the offense were political," Everett corrected, "my government
would surrender no one."

"But my enemies would charge me with murder," explained the
President. "Remember Castro. And by the terms of the treaty your
government would be forced to surrender me. And I am shot against
the wall." The President shrugged his shoulders. "That treaty would
not be nice for me!"

"Consider the matter as a patriot," said the diplomat. "Is it good that
the criminals of my country should make their home in yours? When
you are so fortunate as to have no dishonest men of your own, why
import ours? We don't seek the individual. We want to punish him
only as a warning to others. And we want the money he takes with
him. Often it is the savings of the very poor."

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