The Lost Road, etc.

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

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The President frowned. It was apparent that both the subject and
Everett bored him.

"I name no names," exclaimed Mendoza, "but to those who come
here we owe the little railroads we possess. They develop our mines
and our coffee plantations. In time they will make this country very
modern, very rich. And some you call criminals we have learned to
love. Their past does not concern us. We shut our ears. We do not
spy. They have come to us as to a sanctuary, and so long as they claim
the right of sanctuary, I will not violate it."

As Everett emerged from the cool, dark halls of the palace into
the glare of the plaza he was scowling; and he acknowledged the
salute of the palace guard as though those gentlemen had offered
him an insult.

Garland was waiting in front of a cafe and greeted him with a
mocking grin.

"Congratulations," he shouted.

"I have still twenty-two days," said Everett
.

The aristocracy of Camaguay invited the new minister to formal
dinners of eighteen courses, and to picnics less formal. These
latter Everett greatly enjoyed, because while Monica Ward was too
young to attend the state dinners, she was exactly the proper age
for the all-day excursions to the waterfalls, the coffee plantations,
and the asphalt lakes. The native belles of Camaguay took no
pleasure in riding farther afield than the military parade-ground.
Climbing a trail so steep that you viewed the sky between the ears
of your pony, or where with both hands you forced a way through
hanging vines and creepers, did not appeal. But to Monica, with
the seat and balance of a cowboy, riding astride, with her leg straight
and the ball of her foot just feeling the stirrup, these expeditions were
the happiest moments in her exile. So were they to Everett; and that
on the trail one could ride only in single file was a most poignant
regret. In the column the place of honor was next to whoever rode
at the head, but Everett relinquished this position in favor of Monica.
By this manoeuvre she always was in his sight, and he could call
upon her to act as his guide and to explain what lay on either hand.
His delight and wonder in her grew daily. He found that her mind
leaped instantly and with gratitude to whatever was most fair. Just
out of reach of her pony's hoofs he pressed his own pony forward,
and she pointed out to him what in the tropic abundance about them
she found most beautiful. Sometimes it was the tumbling waters of
a cataract; sometimes, high in the topmost branches of a ceiba-tree,
a gorgeous orchid; sometimes a shaft of sunshine as rigid as a
search-light, piercing the shadow of the jungle. At first she would
turn in the saddle and call to him, but as each day they grew to know
each other better she need only point with her whip-hand and he would
answer, "Yes," and each knew the other understood.

As a body, the exiles resented Everett. They knew his purpose in
regard to the treaty, and for them he always must be the enemy.
Even though as a man they might like him, they could not forget
that his presence threatened their peace and safety. Chester Ward
treated him with impeccable politeness; but, although his house
was the show-place of Camaguay, he never invited the American
minister to cross the threshold. On account of Monica, Everett
regretted this and tried to keep the relations of her brother and
himself outwardly pleasant. But Ward made it difficult. To no
one was his manner effusive, and for Monica only he seemed to
hold any real feeling. The two were alone in the world; he was
her only relative, and to the orphan he had been father and mother.
When she was a child he had bought her toys and dolls; now, had
the sisters permitted, he would have dressed her in imported frocks,
and with jewels killed her loveliness. He seemed to understand
how to spend his money as little as did the gossips of Camaguay
understand from whence it came.

That Monica knew why her brother lived in Camaguay Everett was
uncertain. She did not complain of living there, but she was not
at rest, and constantly she was asking Everett of foreign lands.
As Everett was homesick for them, he was most eloquent.

"I should like to see them for myself," said Monica, "but until my
brother's work here is finished we must wait. And I am young,
and after a few years Europe will be just as old. When my brother
leaves Amapala, he promises to take me wherever I ask to go: to
London, to Paris, to Rome. So I read and read of them; books of
history, books about painting, books about the cathedrals. But
the more I read the more I want to go at once, and that is disloyal."

"Disloyal?" asked Everett.

"To my brother," explained Monica. "He does so much for me.
I should think only of his work. That is all that really counts.
For the world is waiting to learn what he has discovered. It is
like having a brother go in search of the North Pole. You are
proud of what he is doing, but you want him back to keep him
to yourself. Is that selfish?"

Everett was a trained diplomat, but with his opinion of Chester Ward
he could not think of the answer. Instead, he was thinking of Monica
in Europe; of taking her through the churches and galleries which she
had seen only in black and white. He imagined himself at her side
facing the altar of some great cathedral, or some painting in the Louvre,
and watching her face lighten and the tears come to her eyes, as they
did now, when things that were beautiful hurt her. Or he imagined her
rid of her half-mourning and accompanying him through a cyclonic
diplomatic career that carried them to Japan, China, Persia; to Berlin,
Paris, and London. In these imaginings Monica appeared in pongee
and a sun-hat riding an elephant, in pearls and satin receiving
royalty, in tweed knickerbockers and a woollen jersey coasting
around the hairpin curve at Saint Moritz.

Of course he recognized that except as his wife Monica could not
accompany him to all these strange lands and high diplomatic posts.
And of course that was ridiculous. He had made up his mind for
the success of what he called his career, that he was too young to
marry; but he was sure, should he propose to marry Monica, every
one would say he was too old. And there was another consideration.
What of the brother? Would his government send him to a foreign
post when his wife was the sister of a man they had just sent to the
penitentiary?

He could hear them say in London, "We know your first secretary,
but who is Mrs. Everett?" And the American visitor would explain:
"She is the sister of 'Inky Dink,' the forger. He is bookkeeping
in Sing Sing."

Certainly it would be a handicap. He tried to persuade himself
that Monica so entirely filled his thoughts because in Camaguay
there was no one else; it was a case of propinquity; her loneliness
and the fact that she lay under a shadow for which she was not to
blame appealed to his chivalry. So, he told himself, in thinking of
Monica except as a charming companion, he was an ass. And then,
arguing that in calling himself an ass he had shown his saneness
and impartiality, he felt justified in seeing her daily.

One morning Garland came to the legation to tell Everett that
Peabody was in danger of bringing about international
complications by having himself thrust into the cartel.

"If he qualifies for this local jail," said Garland, "you will have
a lot of trouble setting him free. You'd better warn him it's
easier to keep out than to get out."

"What has he been doing?" asked the minister.

"Poaching on Ward's ruins," said the consul. "He certainly is a
hustler. He pretends to go to Copan, but really goes to Cobre.
Ward had him followed and threatened to have him arrested.
Peabody claims any tourist has a right to visit the ruins so long
as he does no excavating. Ward accused him of exploring the place
by night and taking photographs by flash-light of the hieroglyphs.
He's put an armed guard at the ruins, and he told Peabody they are
to shoot on sight. So Peabody went to Mendoza and said if anybody
took a shot at him he'd bring warships down here and blow Amapala
off the map."

"A militant archaeologist," said Everett, "is something new. Peabody
is too enthusiastic. He and his hieroglyphs are becoming a bore."

He sent for Peabody and told him unless he curbed his spirit his
minister could not promise to keep him out of a very damp and
dirty dungeon.

"I am too enthusiastic," Peabody admitted, "but to me this fellow
Ward is like a red flag to the bull. His private graft is holding
up the whole scientific world. He won't let us learn the truth,
and he's too ignorant to learn it himself. Why, he told me Cobre
dated from 1578, when Palacio wrote of it to Philip the Second,
not knowing that in that very letter Palacio states that he found
Cobre in ruins. Is it right a man as ignorant--"

Everett interrupted by levelling his finger.

"You," he commanded, "keep out of those ruins! My dear professor,"
he continued reproachfully, "you are a student, a man of peace.
Don't try to wage war on these Amapalans. They're lawless, they're
unscrupulous. So is Ward. Besides, you are in the wrong, and if
they turn ugly, your minister cannot help you." He shook his head
and smiled doubtfully. "I can't understand," he exclaimed, "why
you're so keen. It's only a heap of broken pottery. Sometimes I
wonder if your interest in Cobre is that only of the archaeologist."

"What other interest--" demanded Peabody.

"Doesn't Ward's buried treasure appeal at all?" asked the
minister. "I mean, of course, to your imagination. It does to
mine."

The young professor laughed tolerantly.

"Buried treasure!" he exclaimed. "If Ward has found treasure, and
I think he has, he's welcome to it. What we want is what you call
the broken pottery. It means nothing to you, but to men like
myself, who live eight hundred years behind the times, it is much
more precious than gold."

A few moments later Professor Peabody took his leave, and it was
not until he had turned the corner of the Calle Morazan that he
halted and, like a man emerging from water, drew a deep breath.

"Gee!" muttered the distinguished archeologist, "that was a close
call!"

One or two women had loved Everett, and after five weeks, in
which almost daily he had seen Monica, he knew she cared for him.
This discovery made him entirely happy and filled him with dismay.
It was a complication he had not foreseen. It left him at the parting
of two ways, one of which he must choose. For his career he was
willing to renounce marriage, but now that Monica loved him, even
though he had consciously not tried to make her love him, had he
the right to renounce it for her also? He knew that the difference
between Monica and his career lay in the fact that he loved Monica
and was in love with his career. Which should he surrender? Of this
he thought long and deeply, until one night, without thinking at all,
he chose.

Colonel Goddard had given a dance, and, as all invited were
Americans, the etiquette was less formal than at the gatherings
of the Amapalans. For one thing, the minister and Monica were
able to sit on the veranda overlooking the garden without his
having to fight a duel in the morning.

It was not the moonlight, or the music, or the palms that made
Everett speak. It was simply the knowledge that it was written,
that it had to be. And he heard himself, without prelude or
introduction, talking easily and assuredly of the life they would
lead as man and wife. From this dream Monica woke him. The
violet eyes were smiling at him through tears.

"When you came," said the girl, "and I loved you, I thought that
was the greatest happiness. Now that I know you love me I ask
nothing more. And I can bear it."

Everett felt as though an icy finger had moved swiftly down his
spine. He pretended not to understand.

"Bear what?" he demanded roughly.

"That I cannot marry you," said the girl. "Even had you not asked
me, in loving you I would have been happy. Now that I know you
thought of me as your wife, I am proud. I am grateful. And the
obstacle--"

Everett laughed scornfully.

"There is no obstacle."

Monica shook her head. Unafraid, she looked into his eyes, her
own filled with her love for him.

"Don't make it harder," she said. "My brother is hiding from the
law. What he did I don't know. When it happened I was at the
convent, and he did not send for me until he had reached Amapala.
I never asked why we came, but were I to marry you, with your name
and your position, every one else would ask. And the scandal would
follow you; wherever you went it would follow; it would put an end
to your career."

His career, now that Monica urged it as her rival, seemed to
Everett particularly trivial.

"I don't know what your brother did either," he said. "His sins
are on his own head. They're not on yours, nor on mine. I don't
judge him; neither do I intend to let him spoil my happiness. Now
that I have found you I will never let you go."

Sadly Monica shook her head and smiled.

"When you leave here," she said, "for some new post, you won't
forget me, but you'll be grateful that I let you go alone; that I was
not a drag on you. When you go back to your great people and
your proud and beautiful princesses, all this will seem a strange
dream, and you will be glad you are awake--and free."

"The idea of marrying you, Monica," said Everett, "is not new. It did
not occur to me only since we moved out here into the moonlight.
Since I first saw you I've thought of you, and only of you. I've
thought of you with me in every corner of the globe, as my wife,
my sweetheart, my partner, riding through jungles as we ride here,
sitting opposite me at our own table, putting the proud and beautiful
princesses at their ease. And in all places, at all moments, you make
all other women tawdry and absurd. And I don't think you are the
most wonderful person I ever met because I love you, but I love you
because you are the most wonderful person I ever met."

"I am young," said Monica, "but since I began to love you I am
very old. And I see clearly that it cannot be."

"Dear heart," cried Everett, "that is quite morbid. What the
devil do I care what your brother has done! I am not marrying
your brother."

For a long time, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees and
her face buried in her hands, the girl sat silent. It was as though she
were praying. Everett knew it was not of him, but of her brother,
she was thinking, and his heart ached for her. For him to cut the
brother out of his life was not difficult; what it meant to her he
could guess.

When the girl raised her eyes they were eloquent with distress.

"He has been so good to me," she said; "always so gentle. He has
been mother and father to me. He is the first person I can remember.
When I was a child he put me to bed, he dressed me, and comforted
me. When we became rich there was nothing he did not wish to give
me. I cannot leave him. He needs me more than ever I needed him. I
am all he has. And there is this besides. Were I to marry, of all the
men in the world it would be harder for him if I married you. For if
you succeed in what you came here to do, the law will punish him,
and he will know it was through you he was punished. And even
between you and me there always would be that knowledge, that
feeling."

"That is not fair," cried Everett. "I am not an individual fighting
less fortunate individuals. I am an insignificant wheel in a great
machine. You must not blame me because I-"

With an exclamation the girl reproached him.

"Because you do your duty!" she protested. "Is that fair to me?
If for my sake or my brother you failed in your duty, if you were
less vigilant, less eager, even though we suffer, I could not
love you."

Everett sighed happily.

"As long as you love me," he said, "neither your brother nor any
one else can keep us apart."

"My brother," said the girl, as though she were pronouncing a
sentence, "always will keep us apart, and I will always love
you."

It was a week before he again saw her, and then the feeling he
had read in her eyes was gone--or rigorously concealed. Now her
manner was that of a friend, of a young girl addressing a man
older than herself, one to whom she looked up with respect and
liking, but with no sign of any feeling deeper or more intimate.

It upset Everett completely. When he pleaded with her, she asked:

"Do you think it is easy for me? But--" she protested, "I know I
am doing right. I am doing it to make you happy."

"You are succeeding," Everett assured her, "in making us both
damned miserable."

For Everett, in the second month of his stay in Amapala, events
began to move quickly. Following the example of two of his
predecessors, the Secretary of State of the United States was
about to make a grand tour of Central America. He came on a
mission of peace and brotherly love, to foster confidence and
good-will, and it was secretly hoped that, in the wake of his
escort of battle-ships, trade would follow fast. There would
be salutes and visits of ceremony, speeches, banquets, reviews.
But in these rejoicings Amapala would have no part.

For, so Everett was informed by cable, unless, previous to the
visit of the Secretary, Amapala fell into line with her sister
republics and signed a treaty of extradition, from the itinerary
of the great man Amapala would find herself pointedly excluded.
It would be a humiliation. In the eyes of her sister republics it
would place her outside the pale. Everett saw that in his hands
his friend the Secretary had placed a powerful weapon; and lost
no time in using it. He caught the President alone, sitting late at
his dinner, surrounded by bottles, and read to him the Secretary's
ultimatum. General Mendoza did not at once surrender. Before he
threw over the men who fed him the golden eggs that made him rich,
and for whom he had sworn never to violate the right of sanctuary,
he first, for fully half an hour, raged and swore. During that time,
while Everett sat anxiously expectant, the President paced and
repaced the length of the dining-hall. When to relight his cigar,
or to gulp brandy from a tumbler, he halted at the table, his great
bulk loomed large in the flickering candle-flames, and when he
continued his march, he would disappear into the shadows, and
only his scabbard clanking on the stone floor told of his presence.
At last he halted and shrugged his shoulders so that the tassels of
his epaulets tossed like wheat.

"You drive a hard bargain, sir," he said. "And I have no choice.
To-morrow bring the treaty and I will sign."

Everett at once produced it and a fountain pen.

"I should like to cable to-night," he urged, "that you have signed.
They are holding back the public announcement of the Secretary's
route until hearing from Your Excellency. This is only tentative,"
he pointed out; "the Senate must ratify. But our Senate will ratify
it, and when you sign now, it is a thing accomplished."

Over the place at which Everett pointed, the pen scratched harshly;
and then, throwing it from him, the President sat in silence. With
eyes inflamed by anger and brandy he regarded the treaty venomously.
As though loath to let it go, his hands played with it, as a cat plays
with the mouse between her paws. Watching him breathlessly,
Everett feared the end was not yet. He felt a depressing premonition
that if ever the treaty were to reach Washington he best had snatch it
and run. Even as he waited, the end came. An orderly, appearing
suddenly in the light of the candles, announced the arrival, in the
room adjoining, of "the Colonel Goddard and Senor Mellen." They
desired an immediate audience. Their business with the President
was most urgent. Whether from Washington their agents had warned
them, whether in Camaguay they had deciphered the cablegram from
the State Department, Everett could only guess, but he was certain the
cause of their visit was the treaty. That Mendoza also believed this
was most evident.

Into the darkness, from which the two exiles might emerge, he
peered guiltily. With an oath he tore the treaty in half. Crushing
the pieces of paper into a ball, he threw it at Everett's feet. His
voice rose to a shriek. It was apparent he intended his words to
carry to the men outside. Like an actor on a stage he waved his
arms.

"That is my answer!" he shouted. "Tell your Secretary the choice
he offers is an insult! It is blackmail. We will not sign his treaty.
We do not desire his visit to our country." Thrilled by his own
bravado, his voice rose higher. "Nor," he shouted, "do we desire
the presence of his representative. Your usefulness is at an end.
You will receive your passports in the morning."

As he might discharge a cook, he waved Everett away. His hand,
trembling with excitement, closed around the neck of the brandy-
bottle. Everett stooped and secured the treaty. On his return to
Washington, torn and rumpled as it was, it would be his
justification. It was his "Exhibit A."

As he approached the legation he saw drawn up in front of it three
ponies ready saddled. For an instant he wondered if Mendoza
intended further to insult him, if he planned that night to send
him under guard to the coast. He determined hotly sooner than
submit to such an indignity he would fortify the legation, and
defend himself. But no such heroics were required of him. As he
reached the door, Garland, with an exclamation of relief, hailed
him, and Monica, stepping from the shadow, laid an appealing
hand upon his sleeve.

"My brother!" she exclaimed. "The guard at Cobre has just sent
word that they found Peabody prowling in the ruins and fired on
him. He fired back, and he is still there hiding. My brother and
others have gone to take him. I don't know what may happen if he
resists. Chester is armed, and he is furious; he is beside himself;
he would not listen to me. But he must listen to you. Will you
go," the girl begged, "and speak to him; speak to him, I mean,"
she added, "as the American minister?"

Everett already had his foot in the stirrup. "I'm the American minister
only until to-morrow," he said. "I've got my walking-papers. But I'll
do all I can to stop this to-night. Garland," he asked, "will you take
Miss Ward home, and then follow me?"

"If I do not go with you," said Monica, "I will go alone."

Her tone was final. With a clatter of hoofs that woke alarmed
echoes in the sleeping streets the three horses galloped abreast
toward Cobre. In an hour they left the main trail and at a walk
picked their way to where the blocks of stone, broken columns,
and crumbling temples of the half-buried city checked the jungle.

The moon made it possible to move in safety, and at different
distances the lights of torches told them the man-hunt still was
in progress.

"Thank God," breathed Monica, "we are in time."

Everett gave the ponies in care of one of the guards. He turned
to Garland.

"Catch up with those lights ahead of us," he said, "and we will
join this party to the right. If you find Ward, tell him I forbid
him taking the law into his own hands; tell him I will protect
his interests. If you meet Peabody, make him give up his gun,
and see that the others don't harm him!"

Everett and the girl did not overtake the lights they had seen
flashing below them. Before they were within hailing distance,
that searching party had disappeared, and still farther away
other torches beckoned.

Stumbling and falling, now in pursuit of one will-o'-the-wisp,
now of another, they scrambled forward. But always the lights
eluded them. From their exertions and the moist heat they were
breathless, and their bodies dripped with water. Panting, they
halted at the entrance of what once had been a tomb. From its
black interior came a damp mist; above them, alarmed by their
intrusion, the vampire bats whirled blindly in circles. Monica,
who by day possessed some slight knowledge of the ruins, had,
in the moonlight, lost all sense of direction.

"We're lost," said Monica, in a low tone. Unconsciously both were
speaking in whispers. "I thought we were following what used to
be the main thoroughfare of the city; but I have never seen this place
before. From what I have read I think we must be among the tombs
of the kings."

She was silenced by Everett placing one hand quickly on her arm,
and with the other pointing. In the uncertain moonlight she saw
moving cautiously away from them, and unconscious of their
presence, a white, ghostlike figure.

"Peabody," whispered Everett.

"Call him," commanded Monica.

"The others might hear," objected Everett. "We must overtake him.
If we're with him when they meet, they wouldn't dare--"

With a gasp of astonishment, his words ceased.

Like a ghost, the ghostlike figure had vanished.

"He walked through that rock!" cried Monica.

Everett caught her by the wrist. "Come!" he commanded.

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