He moved to replace the bottle upon the table and found the table overturned, with Peter, his clothes dripping and his eyes aflame, emerging from beneath it.
Further up the path the young Venezuelan was struggling in the arms of his friends. Fearful that he might still be in danger they were restraining him, and he, eager to pursue the man who had fired on him, was crying aloud his protests. Others of his friends were racing3 down the different paths, breaking through the bushes, and often, in their excitement, seizing upon one another. Huddled4 [Pg 73]together in a group, the waiters and coachmen explained, gesticulated, shrieked5.
But above the clamor of all, the voice of Peter was the most insistent6. Leaping from a wreck7 of plates and glasses, his clothing splashed with claret, with coffee, with salad dressing8, with the tablecloth9 wound like a kilt about his legs, he jumped at Roddy and Roddy retreated before him. Raging, and in the name of profane10 places, Peter demanded what Roddy “meant” by it.
“Look at me!” he commanded. “Look what you did! Look at me!”
Roddy did not look. If he looked he knew he would laugh. And he knew Peter was hoping he would laugh so that, at that crowning insult, he might fall upon him.
In tones of humble11, acute regret Roddy protested.
“I did it, Peter,” he stammered12 hastily. “I did it—to save you. I was afraid he would hit you. I had to act quickly——”
“Afraid he’d hit me!” roared Peter. “You hit me! Hit me with a table! Look at my new white flannel14 suit! And look at this!” With his fingers he gingerly parted his wet, disheveled hair. “Look at the bump on the back of my head. Is that your idea of saving me? I wish,” he exploded savagely15, “I wish he’d shot you full of holes!”
[Pg 74]The violent onslaught of Peter was interrupted by one hardly less violent from the young Venezuelan. He had freed himself from his friends, and, as it now was evident the man who had attempted his life had escaped, and that to search further was useless, he ran to thank the stranger who had served him. Extravagantly17, but with real feeling, he wrung18 both of Roddy’s hands. In the native fashion he embraced him, shook him by the shoulders, patted him affectionately on the back. Eloquently19 but incoherently in Spanish, French and English he poured forth20 his thanks. He hailed Roddy as his preserver, his bon amigo, his brav camarad. In expressing their gratitude21 his friends were equally voluble and generous. They praised, they applauded, they admired; in swift, graceful22 gestures they reënacted for each other the blow upon the chin, the struggle for the revolver, the escape of the would-be assassin.
Even Peter, as the only one who had suffered, became a heroic figure.
It was many minutes before the Americans could depart, and then only after every one had drunk to them in warm, sweet champagne23.
When the glasses were filled the young Venezuelan turned to those standing24 about him on the grass and commanded silence. He now spoke25 in excellent[Pg 75] English, but Roddy noted26 that those of the older men who could not understand regarded him with uneasiness.
“I ask you, my friends,” cried the Venezuelan, “to drink to the name of Forrester. How much,” he exclaimed, “does not that name mean to my unhappy country. I—myself—that my life should be taken—it is nothing; but that it should be saved for my country by one of that name is for us an omen27—a lucky omen. It means,” he cried, the soft, liquid eyes flashing, “it means success. It means—” As though suddenly conscious of the warning frowns of his friends, he paused abruptly28, and with a graceful bow, and waving his glass toward Roddy, said quietly, “Let us drink to the son of a good friend of Venezuela—to Mr. Forrester.”
Not until the landau was well on its way to Willemstad did Roddy deem it wise to make a certain inquiry29.
“What,” he asked of the driver, “is the name of the gentleman that the other gentleman tried to shoot?”
The driver turned completely in his seat. His eyes were opened wide in amazement30.
“You don’t know that gentleman!” he exclaimed.“I think everybody know that gentleman. [Pg 76]He be very brave Venezuela gentleman; he be Colonel Vega.”
As though sure of the effect of that name, the driver paused dramatically, but, except that the two Americans looked inquiringly at each other, they made no sign.
“Mebbe I better call that gentleman—Pino?” the driver suggested. “Everybody call him Pino, just like he be everybody’s brother.” The man showed his teeth broadly, in a delighted grin. “The market womens, the sailor mens, the police mens, the black peoples, and the white gentlemens, everybodys—call him Pino. Pino he be exiled. If he go to his country that President Alvarez he say he shoot him. So Pino go over that way,” with his whip he pointed31 to the east. “They say he go live in Paris. But yesterday he come in that steamer, and all the peoples be waiting at that wharf32. Everybody be glad to see Pino.”
“Everybody but that man with that gun,” suggested Roddy.
The driver rolled his eyes darkly and pursed his lips. “That be bad man,” he said.
“Did President Alvarez,” inquired Roddy pleasantly, “send that bad man over here to shoot the too popular Pino?”
Peter uttered a sudden growl33 of indignation.
[Pg 77]“Look where you are driving!” he ordered.
When the negro had turned to his horses Peter stared at Roddy long and steadily34.
“What that parrot said of you,” he declared grimly, “was true.”
Those Venezuelans who at once had set forth on their ponies36 to overtake the would-be assassin already had brought word of the attempt upon Colonel Vega to Willemstad, and the repose37 of the peaceful burgh was greatly ruffled38. The arrival of the young men increased the excitement, and, though they fled to their rooms, from their balcony overlooking the wharf they could hear their driver, enthroned upon his box seat, describing the event to an intent and eager audience.
As Peter was changing into dry clothes he held his watch so that Roddy could note the hour.
“How long would you have said we have been living on this island?” he asked.
“Oh, at least a week!” exclaimed Roddy. “I have had more excitement than I could get in New York in a year, and we haven’t been here twelve hours!”
“But it is all over now,” Peter announced. “We can’t stay here. We’re getting too chummy with this Venezuelan crowd, thanks to you.”
“What have I done now?” complained Roddy.
[Pg 78]“You can’t help being who you are,” admitted Peter, “but you can see that this town is a red-hot incubator for revolutions. Every one in it thinks of nothing else, and every one thinks you are in deep with your father against Alvarez, and if we linger here Alvarez will think so, too. We’ve got to get back to Porto Cabello where we have a clean bill of health.”
Roddy had stretched himself upon his cot, in preparation for his afternoon siesta39, but he sat upright, his face filled with dismay.
“And not see the Rojas family?” he cried.
Peter growled40 indignantly.
“See them! How can you see them?” he demanded. “We only drove past their house, along a public road, and already everybody in town has a flashlight picture of us doing it.”
“But,” objected Roddy, “we haven’t got our credentials41.”
“We’ll have to do without them,” declared Peter. “I tell you, if you get mixed up with Brother Pino when you get back to Porto Cabello you’ll go to jail. And what chance will we have then of saving General Rojas? He will stay in prison and die there. As White Mice,” announced Peter firmly, “we have our work to do, and we must not be turned aside by anybody’s revolution,[Pg 79] your father’s, or Pino Vega’s, or anybody’s. We’re White Mice, first, last and all the time. Our duty isn’t to take life but to save it.” As though suddenly surprised by a new idea Peter halted abruptly.
“I suppose,” he demanded scornfully, “you think you prevented a murder this morning, and you will be claiming the White Mice medal for saving life?”
“I certainly will,” declared Roddy cheerfully, “and you will have to certify43 I earned it, because you saw me earn it.”
“But I didn’t,” declared Peter. “I was under the table.”
Roddy closed his eyes and again fell back upon the cot. For so long a time was he silent that Peter, who had gone out upon the balcony, supposed him asleep, when Roddy suddenly raised himself on his elbow.
“Anyway,” he began abruptly, “we can’t leave here until the boat takes us away, three days from now. I’ll bet in three days I’ll get all the credentials we want.”
Roddy had been awake since sunrise, the heat was soporific, the events of the morning exhausting, and in two minutes, unmindful of revolutions, indifferent to spies, to plots and counter-plots, he was [Pg 80]sleeping happily. But as he slumbered44, in two lands, at great distances apart, he and his affairs were being earnestly considered. On the twenty-seventh floor of the Forrester Building his father, with perplexed45 and frowning brows, studied a cablegram; in the Casa Blanca, Señora Rojas and her daughters listened in amazement to a marvelous tale. Had it not been their faithful friend and jealous guardian46, the American Consul47, who was speaking, they could not have credited it.
At the Forrester Building the cablegram had been just translated from the secret code of the company and placed upon the desk of Mr. Forrester. It was signed by Von Amberg, and read: “To-day at meeting your party, unknown man fired three shots Vega; Young Forrester overpowered man; Vega unhurt; man escaped. Understand young Forrester not in our confidence. Please instruct.”
Three times Mr. Forrester read the cablegram, and then, laying it upon his knee, sat staring out of the open window.
Before his physical eyes were deep cañons of office buildings like his own, towering crag above crag, white curling columns of smoke from busy tugboats, and the great loom49 of the Brooklyn Bridge with its shuttles of clattering50 cable-cars. [Pg 81]But what he saw was his son, alone in a strange land, struggling with an unknown man, a man intent on murder. With a hand that moved unsteadily the Light-house King lifted the desk telephone and summoned the third vice-president, and when Mr. Sam Caldwell had entered, silently gave him the cablegram.
Sam Caldwell read it and exclaimed with annoyance51:
“Looks to me,” he commented briskly, “as though they know why Pino came back. Looks as though they had sent this fellow to do him up, before we can——”
In a strange, thin voice, Mr. Forrester stopped him sharply.
“If the boy’d been hurt—they’d have said so, wouldn’t they?” he demanded.
Sam Caldwell recognized his error. Carefully he reread the cablegram.
“Why, of course,” he assented52 heartily53. “It says here he overpowered the other fellow: says ‘Vega unhurt.’”
In the same unfamiliar54, strained tone Mr. Forrester interrupted. “It doesn’t say Roddy is unhurt,” he objected.
The young man laughed reassuringly55.
“But the very fact they don’t say so shows—why, they’d know that’s what you most want to hear. I wouldn’t worry about Roddy. Not for a minute.”
Embarrassed by his own feeling, annoyed that Sam Caldwell should have discovered it, Mr. Forrester answered, “You wouldn’t. He isn’t your son.”
He reached for a cable form, and wrote rapidly:
“Von Amberg. Willemstad, Curaçao, W. I. Forrester most certainly not in our confidence. Return him Cabello. Is he”—the pen hesitated and then again moved swiftly—“unhurt?”
He drew another blank toward him and addressing it to McKildrick, wrote: “Why is Forrester in Curaçao? Cable him return. Keep him on job, or lose yours.”
For a moment Mr. Forrester sat studying the two messages, then he raised his eyes.
“I have half a mind,” he said, “to order him home. I would, if he weren’t doing so well down there.” With an effort to eliminate from his voice any accent of fatherly pride, Mr. Forrester asked coldly: “McKildrick reports that he is doing well, doesn’t he?”
The third vice-president nodded affirmatively.
“If he comes back here,” argued Mr. Forrester, “he’ll do nothing but race his car, and he’ll learn nothing of the business. And then, again,” he added doubtfully, “while he’s down there I don’t want him to learn too much of the business, not this Pino Vega end of it, or he might want to take a hand, and that might embarrass us. Perhaps I had better cable him, too.”
He looked inquiringly at the third vice-president, but that gentleman refused to be drawn56.
“He isn’t my son,” he remarked.
“I am not speaking of him as my son,” snapped Mr. Forrester warmly. “Speaking of him, not as my son, but as an employee of the company, what would you do with him?”
“I’d cable him to mind his own business,” answered Sam Caldwell.
For the fraction of a second, under levelled eyebrows57, Mr. Forrester stared at young Mr. Caldwell, and then, as a sign that the interview was at an end, swung in his swivel chair and picked up his letters. Over his shoulder he said, “Cable him that.”
While Roddy in Willemstad was slumbering58 under his mosquito-net, and Sam Caldwell in New York was concocting59 a cablegram, which, he calculated, would put Roddy in his proper place, but which, instead, put him in a very bad temper, [Pg 84]Captain Codman, at Casa Blanca, had just finished relating his marvelous tale.
It was the story of how young Forrester, without letters of introduction, without credentials, had that morning walked into the consulate60 and announced that, without asking advice, he intended to liberate61 the Lion of Valencia.
Upon the members of the Rojas household the marvelous tale had a widely different effect.
To understand why this should be so it is necessary to know something of the three women who formed the Rojas household.
Señora Rojas was an American. When she was very young her father, a professor at one of the smaller universities in New England, in order to study the archives of the Spanish rulers of Venezuela, had visited that country, and taken his daughter with him. She was spirited, clever, and possessed62 of the particular type of beauty the Spaniard admires. Young Rojas saw her, and at once fell in love with her, and, after the death of her father, which occurred in the North, followed her there and married her. She then was very young and he an attaché in the diplomatic service. Since their marriage, unlike many of his countrymen, Rojas had not looked with interest upon any other woman, and, with each year of their life together, their affection had grown stronger, their dependence64 upon each other had increased.
In wisdom, in experience, in honors, Rojas had grown rich. In countries where his own was only a spot upon the map, Rojas himself, the statesman, the diplomat63, the man who spoke and read in many languages, the charming host with the brilliant wife, was admired, sought after. There were three children: the two girls, and a son, a lieutenant65 of artillery66, whose death during the revolution of Andreda had brought to the family its first knowledge of grief.
Of the two sisters, Lolita, the elder, was like her father—grave, gracious, speaking but seldom and, in spite of the years spent in foreign capitals, still a Spanish-American. Her interests were in her church, her music and the duties of the household.
Of all the names given at her christening to the younger sister, the one that survived was Inez. Inez was a cosmopolitan67. She had been permitted to see too much of the world to make it possible for her ever again to sit down tamely behind the iron bars of the Porto Cabello drawing-room. She was too much like her American mother; not as her mother was now, after thirty years in a Venezuelan’s household, but as her mother had been when she left the New England [Pg 86]college town. Unlike her sister, she could not be satisfied with the cloister-like life of the young girls of Spanish-America. During the time her father had served as minister to Paris she had been at school in the convent at Neuilly, but at the time he was transferred to London she was of an age to make her bow at court, and old enough to move about with a freedom which, had it been permitted her at home, would have created public scandal. She had been free to ride in the Row, to play tennis, to walk abroad, even through public streets and parks, even when it rained, even unattended. She had met men, not always as prospective68 suitors, but as friends and companions.
And there had been a wonderful visit to her mother’s country and her mother’s people, when for a summer she had rejoiced in the friendly, inconsequent, out-of-door life of a Massachusetts’ seaside colony. Once on the North Shore, and later on Cape16 Cod48, she had learned to swim, to steer69 a knockabout, to dance the “Boston,” even in rubber-soled shoes, to “sit out” on the Casino balcony and hear young men, with desperate anxiety, ask if there were any more in South America like her. To this question she always replied that there were not; and that, in consequence, if the young man had any thoughts on the [Pg 87]subject, she was the person to whom they should be addressed.
Then, following the calm, uneventful life of the convent, of London and its gayeties, of the Massachusetts coast with its gray fogs and open, drift-wood fires, came the return to her own country. There, with her father, she rode over his plantations70 among the wild cattle, or with her mother and sister sat in the patio72 and read novels in three languages, or sleepily watched the shadow of the tropical sun creep across the yellow wall.
And then, suddenly, all of these different, happy lives were turned into memories, shadows, happenings of a previous and unreal existence. There came a night, which for months later in terrified dreams returned to haunt her, a night when she woke to find her bed surrounded by soldiers, to hear in the court-yard the sobs73 of her mother and the shrieks74 of the serving-women, to see her father—concerned only for his wife and daughters—in a circle of the secret police, to see him, before she could speak with him, hurried to a closed carriage and driven away.
Then had begun the two years of exile in Willemstad, the two years of mourning, not of quiet grief for one at rest, but anxious, unending distress75 for one alive, one dearly loved, one tortured in mind, enduring petty indignities76, bodily
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