_ A year before Mrs. Porter's dinner a tramp steamer on her way to
the capital of Brazil had steered so close to the shores of
Olancho that her solitary passenger could look into the caverns
the waves had tunnelled in the limestone cliffs along the coast.
The solitary passenger was Robert Clay, and he made a guess that
the white palisades which fringed the base of the mountains along
the shore had been forced up above the level of the sea many
years before by some volcanic action. Olancho, as many people
know, is situated on the northeastern coast of South America, and
its shores are washed by the main equatorial current. From the
deck of a passing vessel you can obtain but little idea of
Olancho or of the abundance and tropical beauty which lies hidden
away behind the rampart of mountains on her shore. You can see
only their desolate dark-green front, and the white caves at
their base, into which the waves rush with an echoing roar, and
in and out of which fly continually thousands of frightened bats.
The mining engineer on the rail of the tramp steamer observed
this peculiar formation of the coast with listless interest,
until he noted, when the vessel stood some thirty miles north of
the harbor of Valencia, that the limestone formation had
disappeared, and that the waves now beat against the base of the
mountains themselves. There were five of these mountains which
jutted out into the ocean, and they suggested roughly the five
knuckles of a giant hand clenched and lying flat upon the surface
of the water. They extended for seven miles, and then the
caverns in the palisades began again and continued on down the
coast to the great cliffs that guard the harbor of Olancho's
capital.
``The waves tunnelled their way easily enough until they ran up
against those five mountains,'' mused the engineer, ``and then
they had to fall back.'' He walked to the captain's cabin and
asked to look at a map of the coast line. ``I believe I won't go
to Rio,'' he said later in the day; ``I think I will drop off
here at Valencia.''
So he left the tramp steamer at that place and disappeared into
the interior with an ox-cart and a couple of pack-mules, and
returned to write a lengthy letter from the Consul's office to a
Mr. Langham in the United States, knowing he was largely
interested in mines and in mining. ``There are five mountains
filled with ore,'' Clay wrote, ``which should be extracted by
open-faced workings. I saw great masses of red hematite lying
exposed on the side of the mountain, only waiting a pick and
shovel, and at one place there were five thousand tons in plain
sight. I should call the stuff first-class Bessemer ore, running
about sixty-three per cent metallic iron. The people know it is
there, but have no knowledge of its value, and are too lazy to
ever work it themselves. As to transportation, it would only be
necessary to run a freight railroad twenty miles along the sea-
coast to the harbor of Valencia and dump your ore from your own
pier into your own vessels. It would not, I think, be possible
to ship direct from the mines themselves, even though, as I say,
the ore runs right down into the water, because there is no place
at which it would be safe for a large vessel to touch. I will
look into the political side of it and see what sort of a
concession I can get for you. I should think ten per cent of the
output would satisfy them, and they would, of course, admit
machinery and plant free of duty.''
Six months after this communication had arrived in New York City,
the Valencia Mining Company was formally incorporated, and a man
named Van Antwerp, with two hundred workmen and a half-dozen
assistants, was sent South to lay out the freight railroad, to
erect the dumping-pier, and to strip the five mountains of
their forests and underbrush. It was not a task for a holiday,
but a stern, difficult, and perplexing problem, and Van Antwerp
was not quite the man to solve it. He was stubborn, self-
confident, and indifferent by turns. He did not depend upon his
lieutenants, but jealously guarded his own opinions from the
least question or discussion, and at every step he antagonized
the easy-going people among whom he had come to work. He had no
patience with their habits of procrastination, and he was
continually offending their lazy good-nature and their pride. He
treated the rich planters, who owned the land between the mines
and the harbor over which the freight railroad must run, with as
little consideration as he showed the regiment of soldiers which
the Government had farmed out to the company to serve as laborers
in the mines. Six months after Van Antwerp had taken charge at
Valencia, Clay, who had finished the railroad in Mexico, of which
King had spoken, was asked by telegraph to undertake the work of
getting the ore out of the mountains he had discovered, and
shipping it North. He accepted the offer and was given the title
of General Manager and Resident Director, and an enormous salary,
and was also given to understand that the rough work of
preparation had been accomplished, and that the more
important service of picking up the five mountains and
putting them in fragments into tramp steamers would continue
under his direction. He had a letter of recall for Van Antwerp,
and a letter of introduction to the Minister of Mines and
Agriculture. Further than that he knew nothing of the work
before him, but he concluded, from the fact that he had been paid
the almost prohibitive sum he had asked for his services, that it
must be important, or that he had reached that place in his
career when he could stop actual work and live easily, as an
expert, on the work of others.
Clay rolled along the coast from Valencia to the mines in a
paddle-wheeled steamer that had served its usefulness on the
Mississippi, and which had been rotting at the levees in New
Orleans, when Van Antwerp had chartered it to carry tools and
machinery to the mines and to serve as a private launch for
himself. It was a choice either of this steamer and landing in a
small boat, or riding along the line of the unfinished railroad
on horseback. Either route consumed six valuable hours, and
Clay, who was anxious to see his new field of action, beat
impatiently upon the rail of the rolling tub as it wallowed in
the sea.
He spent the first three days after his arrival at the mines in
the mountains, climbing them on foot and skirting their base on
horseback, and sleeping where night overtook him. Van
Antwerp did not accompany him on his tour of inspection through
the mines, but delegated that duty to an engineer named
MacWilliams, and to Weimer, the United States Consul at Valencia,
who had served the company in many ways and who was in its
closest confidence.
For three days the men toiled heavily over fallen trunks and
trees, slippery with the moss of centuries, or slid backward on
the rolling stones in the waterways, or clung to their ponies'
backs to dodge the hanging creepers. At times for hours together
they walked in single file, bent nearly double, and seeing
nothing before them but the shining backs and shoulders of the
negroes who hacked out the way for them to go. And again they
would come suddenly upon a precipice, and drink in the soft cool
breath of the ocean, and look down thousands of feet upon the
impenetrable green under which they had been crawling, out to
where it met the sparkling surface of the Caribbean Sea. It was
three days of unceasing activity while the sun shone, and of
anxious questionings around the camp-fire when the darkness fell,
and when there were no sounds on the mountain-side but that of
falling water in a distant ravine or the calls of the night-
birds.
On the morning of the fourth day Clay and his attendants
returned to camp and rode to where the men had just begun to
blast away the sloping surface of the mountain.
As Clay passed between the zinc sheds and palm huts of the
soldier-workmen, they came running out to meet him, and one, who
seemed to be a leader, touched his bridle, and with his straw
sombrero in his hand begged for a word with el Senor the
Director.
The news of Clay's return had reached the opening, and the throb
of the dummy-engines and the roar of the blasting ceased as the
assistant-engineers came down the valley to greet the new
manager. They found him seated on his horse gazing ahead of him,
and listening to the story of the soldier, whose fingers, as he
spoke, trembled in the air, with all the grace and passion of his
Southern nature, while back of him his companions stood humbly,
in a silent chorus, with eager, supplicating eyes. Clay answered
the man's speech curtly, with a few short words, in the Spanish
patois in which he had been addressed, and then turned and smiled
grimly upon the expectant group of engineers. He kept them
waiting for some short space, while he looked them over
carefully, as though he had never seen them before.
``Well, gentlemen,'' he said, ``I'm glad to have you here all
together. I am only sorry you didn't come in time to hear
what this fellow has had to say. I don't as a rule listen that
long to complaints, but he told me what I have seen for myself
and what has been told me by others. I have been here three days
now, and I assure you, gentlemen, that my easiest course would be
to pack up my things and go home on the next steamer. I was sent
down here to take charge of a mine in active operation, and I
find--what? I find that in six months you have done almost
nothing, and that the little you have condescended to do has been
done so badly that it will have to be done over again; that you
have not only wasted a half year of time--and I can't tell how
much money--but that you have succeeded in antagonizing all the
people on whose good-will we are absolutely dependent; you have
allowed your machinery to rust in the rain, and your workmen to
rot with sickness. You have not only done nothing, but you
haven't a blue print to show me what you meant to do. I have
never in my life come across laziness and mismanagement and
incompetency upon such a magnificent and reckless scale. You
have not built the pier, you have not opened the freight road,
you have not taken out an ounce of ore. You know more of
Valencia than you know of these mines; you know it from the
Alameda to the Canal. You can tell me what night the band
plays in the Plaza, but you can't give me the elevation of
one of these hills. You have spent your days on the pavements in
front of cafe's, and your nights in dance-halls, and you have
been drawing salaries every month. I've more respect for these
half-breeds that you've allowed to starve in this fever-bed than
I have for you. You have treated them worse than they'd treat a
dog, and if any of them die, it's on your heads. You have put
them in a fever-camp which you have not even taken the trouble to
drain. Your commissariat is rotten, and you have let them drink
all the rum they wanted. There is not one of you--''
The group of silent men broke, and one of them stepped forward
and shook his forefinger at Clay.
``No man can talk to me like that,'' he said, warningly, ``and
think I'll work under him. I resign here and now.''
``You what--'' cried Clay, ``you resign?''
He whirled his horse round with a dig of his spur and faced them.
``How dare you talk of resigning? I'll pack the whole lot of you
back to New York on the first steamer, if I want to, and I'll
give you such characters that you'll be glad to get a job
carrying a transit. You're in no position to talk of resigning
yet--not one of you. Yes,'' he added, interrupting himself,
``one of you is MacWilliams, the man who had charge of the
railroad. It's no fault of his that the road's not working. I
understand that he couldn't get the right of way from the people
who owned the land, but I have seen what he has done, and his
plans, and I apologize to him--to MacWilliams. As for the rest
of you, I'll give you a month's trial. It will be a month before
the next steamer could get here anyway, and I'll give you that
long to redeem yourselves. At the end of that time we will have
another talk, but you are here now only on your good behavior and
on my sufferance. Good-morning.''
As Clay had boasted, he was not the man to throw up his position
because he found the part he had to play was not that of leading
man, but rather one of general utility, and although it had been
several years since it had been part of his duties to oversee the
setting up of machinery, and the policing of a mining camp, he
threw himself as earnestly into the work before him as though to
show his subordinates that it did not matter who did the work, so
long as it was done. The men at first were sulky, resentful, and
suspicious, but they could not long resist the fact that Clay was
doing the work of five men and five different kinds of work, not
only without grumbling, but apparently with the keenest pleasure.
He conciliated the rich coffee planters who owned the land
which he wanted for the freight road by calls of the most formal
state and dinners of much less formality, for he saw that the
iron mine had its social as well as its political side. And with
this fact in mind, he opened the railroad with great ceremony,
and much music and feasting, and the first piece of ore taken out
of the mine was presented to the wife of the Minister of the
Interior in a cluster of diamonds, which made the wives of the
other members of the Cabinet regret that their husbands had not
chosen that portfolio. Six months followed of hard, unremitting
work, during which time the great pier grew out into the bay from
MacWilliams' railroad, and the face of the first mountain was
scarred and torn of its green, and left in mangled nakedness,
while the ringing of hammers and picks, and the racking blasts of
dynamite, and the warning whistles of the dummy-engines drove
away the accumulated silence of centuries.
It had been a long uphill fight, and Clay had enjoyed it
mightily. Two unexpected events had contributed to help it. One
was the arrival in Valencia of young Teddy Langham, who came
ostensibly to learn the profession of which Clay was so
conspicuous an example, and in reality to watch over his father's
interests. He was put at Clay's elbow, and Clay made him learn
in spite of himself, for he ruled him and MacWilliams of both
of whom he was very fond, as though, so they complained, they
were the laziest and the most rebellious members of his entire
staff. The second event of importance was the announcement made
one day by young Langham that his father's physician had ordered
rest in a mild climate, and that he and his daughters were coming
in a month to spend the winter in Valencia, and to see how the
son and heir had developed as a man of business.
The idea of Mr. Langham's coming to visit Olancho to inspect his
new possessions was not a surprise to Clay. It had occurred to
him as possible before, especially after the son had come to join
them there. The place was interesting and beautiful enough in
itself to justify a visit, and it was only a ten days' voyage
from New York. But he had never considered the chance of Miss
Langham's coming, and when that was now not only possible but a
certainty, he dreamed of little else. He lived as earnestly and
toiled as indefatigably as before, but the place was utterly
transformed for him. He saw it now as she would see it when she
came, even while at the same time his own eyes retained their
point of view. It was as though he had lengthened the focus of a
glass, and looked beyond at what was beautiful and picturesque,
instead of what was near at hand and practicable. He found
himself smiling with anticipation of her pleasure in the orchids
hanging from the dead trees, high above the opening of the mine,
and in the parrots hurling themselves like gayly colored missiles
among the vines; and he considered the harbor at night with its
colored lamps floating on the black water as a scene set for her
eyes. He planned the dinners that he would give in her honor on
the balcony of the great restaurant in the Plaza on those nights
when the band played, and the senoritas circled in long lines
between admiring rows of officers and caballeros. And he
imagined how, when the ore-boats had been filled and his work had
slackened, he would be free to ride with her along the rough
mountain roads, between magnificent pillars of royal palms, or to
venture forth in excursions down the bay, to explore the caves
and to lunch on board the rolling paddle-wheel steamer, which he
would have re painted and gilded for her coming. He pictured
himself acting as her guide over the great mines, answering her
simple questions about the strange machinery, and the crew of
workmen, and the local government by which he ruled two thousand
men. It was not on account of any personal pride in the mines
that he wanted her to see them, it was not because he had
discovered and planned and opened them that he wished to show
them to her, but as a curious spectacle that he hoped would
give her a moment's interest.
But his keenest pleasure was when young Langham suggested that
they should build a house for his people on the edge of the hill
that jutted out over the harbor and the great ore pier. If this
were done, Langham urged, it would be possible for him to see
much more of his family than he would be able to do were they
installed in the city, five miles away.
``We can still live in the office at this end of the railroad,''
the boy said, ``and then we shall have them within call at night
when we get back from work; but if they are in Valencia, it will
take the greater part of the evening going there and all of the
night getting back, for I can't pass that club under three hours.
It will keep us out of temptation.''
``Yes, exactly,'' said Clay, with a guilty smile, ``it will keep
us out of temptation.''
So they cleared away the underbrush, and put a double force of
men to work on what was to be the most beautiful and comfortable
bungalow on the edge of the harbor. It had blue and green and
white tiles on the floors, and walls of bamboo, and a red roof of
curved tiles to let in the air, and dragons' heads for water-
spouts, and verandas as broad as the house itself. There was an
open court in the middle hung with balconies looking down
upon a splashing fountain, and to decorate this patio, they
levied upon people for miles around for tropical plants and
colored mats and awnings. They cut down the trees that hid the
view of the long harbor leading from the sea into Valencia, and
planted a rampart of other trees to hide the iron-ore pier, and
they sodded the raw spots where the men had been building, until
the place was as completely transformed as though a fairy had
waved her wand above it.
It was to be a great surprise, and they were all--Clay,
MacWilliams, and Langham--as keenly interested in it as though
each were preparing it for his honeymoon. They would be walking
together in Valencia when one would say, ``We ought to have that
for the house,'' and without question they would march into the
shop together and order whatever they fancied to be sent out to
the house of the president of the mines on the hill. They
stocked it with wine and linens, and hired a volante and six
horses, and fitted out the driver with a new pair of boots that
reached above his knees, and a silver jacket and a sombrero that
was so heavy with braid that it flashed like a halo about his
head in the sunlight, and he was ordered not to wear it until the
ladies came, under penalty of arrest. It delighted Clay to find
that it was only the beautiful things and the fine things of
his daily routine that suggested her to him, as though she could
not be associated in his mind with anything less worthy, and he
kept saying to himself, ``She will like this view from the end of
the terrace,'' and ``This will be her favorite walk,'' or ``She
will swing her hammock here,'' and ``I know she will not fancy
the rug that Weimer chose.''
While this fairy palace was growing the three men lived as
roughly as before in the wooden hut at the terminus of the
freight road, three hundred yards below the house, and hidden
from it by an impenetrable rampart of brush and Spanish bayonet.
There was a rough road leading from it to the city, five miles
away, which they had extended still farther up the hill to the
Palms, which was the name Langham had selected for his father's
house. And when it was finally finished, they continued to live
under the corrugated zinc roof of their office building, and
locking up the Palms, left it in charge of a gardener and a
watchman until the coming of its rightful owners.
It had been a viciously hot, close day, and even now the air came
in sickening waves, like a blast from the engine-room of a
steamer, and the heat lightning played round the mountains over
the harbor and showed the empty wharves, and the black outlines
of the steamers, and the white front of the Custom-House, and
the long half-circle of twinkling lamps along the quay.
MacWilliams and Langham sat panting on the lower steps of the
office-porch considering whether they were too lazy to clean
themselves and be rowed over to the city, where, as it was Sunday
night, was promised much entertainment. They had been for the
last hour trying to make up their minds as to this, and appealing
to Clay to stop work and decide for them. But he sat inside at a
table figuring and writing under the green shade of a student's
lamp and made no answer. The walls of Clay's office were of
unplaned boards, bristling with splinters, and hung with blue
prints and outline maps of the mine. A gaudily colored portrait
of Madame la Presidenta, the noble and beautiful woman whom
Alvarez, the President of Olancho, had lately married in Spain,
was pinned to the wall above the table. This table, with its
green oil-cloth top, and the lamp, about which winged insects
beat noisily, and an earthen water-jar--from which the water
dripped as regularly as the ticking of a clock--were the only
articles of furniture in the office. On a shelf at one side of
the door lay the men's machetes, a belt of cartridges, and a
revolver in a holster.
Clay rose from the table and stood in the light of the open door,
stretching himself gingerly, for his joints were sore and
stiff with fording streams and climbing the surfaces of rocks.
The red ore and yellow mud of the mines were plastered over his
boots and riding-breeches, where he had stood knee-deep in the
water, and his shirt stuck to him like a wet bathing-suit,
showing his ribs when he breathed and the curves of his broad
chest. A ring of burning paper and hot ashes fell from his
cigarette to his breast and burnt a hole through the cotton
shirt, and he let it lie there and watched it burn with a grim
smile.
``I wanted to see,'' he explained, catching the look of listless
curiosity in MacWilliams's eye, ``whether there was anything
hotter than my blood. It's racing around like boiling water in a
pot.''
``Listen,'' said Langham, holding up his hand. ``There goes the
call for prayers in the convent, and now it's too late to go to
town. I am glad, rather. I'm too tired to keep awake, and
besides, they don't know how to amuse themselves in a civilized
way--at least not in my way. I wish I could just drop in at home
about now; don't you, MacWilliams? Just about this time up in
God's country all the people are at the theatre, or they've just
finished dinner and are sitting around sipping cool green mint,
trickling through little lumps of ice. What I'd like--'' he
stopped and shut one eye and gazed, with his head on one side, at
the unimaginative MacWilliams--``what I'd like to do now,''
he continued, thoughtfully, ``would be to sit in the front row at
a comic opera, ON THE AISLE. The prima donna must be very,
very beautiful, and sing most of her songs at me, and there must
be three comedians, all good, and a chorus entirely composed of
girls. I never could see why they have men in the chorus,
anyway. No one ever looks at them. Now that's where I'd like to
be. What would you like, MacWilliams?''
MacWilliams was a type with which Clay was intimately familiar,
but to the college-bred Langham he was a revelation and a joy.
He came from some little town in the West, and had learned what
he knew of engineering at the transit's mouth, after he had first
served his apprenticeship by cutting sage-brush and driving
stakes. His life had been spent in Mexico and Central America,
and he spoke of the home he had not seen in ten years with the
aggressive loyalty of the confirmed wanderer, and he was known to
prefer and to import canned corn and canned tomatoes in
preference to eating the wonderful fruits of the country, because
the former came from the States and tasted to him of home. He
had crowded into his young life experiences that would have
shattered the nerves of any other man with a more sensitive
conscience and a less happy sense of humor; but these same
experiences had only served to make him shrewd and self-
confident and at his ease when the occasion or difficulty came.
He pulled meditatively on his pipe and considered Langham's
question deeply, while Clay and the younger boy sat with their
arms upon their knees and waited for his decision in thoughtful
silence.
``I'd like to go to the theatre, too,'' said MacWilliams, with an
air as though to show that he also was possessed of artistic
tastes. ``I'd like to see a comical chap I saw once in '80--oh,
long ago--before I joined the P. Q. & M. He WAS funny. His
name was Owens; that was his name, John E. Owens--''
``Oh, for heaven's sake, MacWilliams,'' protested Langham, in
dismay; ``he's been dead for five years.''
``Has he?'' said MacWilliams, thoughtfully. ``Well--'' he
concluded, unabashed, ``I can't help that, he's the one I'd like
to see best.''
``You can have another wish, Mac, you know,'' urged Langham,
``can't he, Clay?''
Clay nodded gravely, and MacWilliams frowned again in thought.
``No,'' he said after an effort, ``Owens, John E. Owens; that's
the one I want to see.''
``Well, now I want another wish, too,'' said Langham. ``I
move we can each have two wishes. I wish--''
``Wait until I've had mine,'' said Clay. ``You've had one turn.
I want to be in a place I know in Vienna. It's not hot like
this, but cool and fresh. It's an open, out-of-door concert-
garden, with hundreds of colored lights and trees, and there's
always a breeze coming through. And Eduard Strauss, the son, you
know, leads the orchestra there, and they play nothing but
waltzes, and he stands in front of them, and begins by raising
himself on his toes, and then he lifts his shoulders gently--and
then sinks back again and raises his baton as though he were
drawing the music out after it, and the whole place seems to rock
and move. It's like being picked up and carried on the deck of a
yacht over great waves; and all around you are the beautiful
Viennese women and those tall Austrian officers in their long,
blue coats and flat hats and silver swords. And there are cool
drinks--'' continued Clay, with his eyes fixed on the coming
storm--``all sorts of cool drinks--in high, thin glasses, full of
ice, all the ice you want--''
``Oh, drop it, will you?'' cried Langham, with a shrug of his
damp shoulders. ``I can't stand it. I'm parching.''
``Wait a minute,'' interrupted MacWilliams, leaning forward
and looking into the night. ``Some one's coming.'' There was a
sound down the road of hoofs and the rattle of the land-crabs as
they scrambled off into the bushes, and two men on horseback came
suddenly out of the darkness and drew rein in the light from the
open door. The first was General Mendoza, the leader of the
Opposition in the Senate, and the other, his orderly. The
General dropped his Panama hat to his knee and bowed in the
saddle three times.
``Good-evening, your Excellency,'' said Clay, rising. ``Tell
that peon to get my coat, will you?'' he added, turning to
Langham. Langham clapped his hands, and the clanging of a guitar
ceased, and their servant and cook came out from the back of the
hut and held the General's horse while he dismounted. ``Wait
until I get you a chair,'' said Clay. ``You'll find those steps
rather bad for white duck.''
``I am fortunate in finding you at home,'' said the officer,
smiling, and showing his white teeth. ``The telephone is not
working. I tried at the club, but I could not call you.''
``It's the storm, I suppose,'' Clay answered, as he struggled
into his jacket. ``Let me offer you something to drink.'' He
entered the house, and returned with several bottles on a tray
and a bundle of cigars. The Spanish-American poured himself
out a glass of water, mixing it with Jamaica rum, and said,
smiling again, ``It is a saying of your countrymen that when a
man first comes to Olancho he puts a little rum into his water,
and that when he is here some time he puts a little water in his
rum.''
``Yes,'' laughed Clay. ``I'm afraid that's true.''
There was a pause while the men sipped at their glasses, and
looked at the horses and the orderly. The clanging of the guitar
began again from the kitchen. ``You have a very beautiful view
here of the harbor, yes,'' said Mendoza. He seemed to enjoy the
pause after his ride, and to be in no haste to begin on the
object of his errand. MacWilliams and Langham eyed each other
covertly, and Clay examined the end of his cigar, and they all
waited.
``And how are the mines progressing, eh?'' asked the officer,
genially. ``You find much good iron in them, they tell me.''
``Yes, we are doing very well,'' Clay assented; ``it was
difficult at first, but now that things are in working order, we
are getting out about ten thousand tons a month. We hope to
increase that soon to twenty thousand when the new openings are
developed and our shipping facilities are in better shape.''
``So much!'' exclaimed the General, pleasantly.
``Of which the Government of my country is to get its share of
ten per cent--one thousand tons! It is munificent!'' He laughed
and shook his head slyly at Clay, who smiled in dissent.
``But you see, sir,'' said Clay, ``you cannot blame us. The
mines have always been there, before this Government came in,
before the Spaniards were here, before there was any Government
at all, but there was not the capital to open them up, I suppose,
or--and it needed a certain energy to begin the attack. Your
people let the chance go, and, as it turned out, I think they
were very wise in doing so. They get ten per cent of the output.
That's ten per cent on nothing, for the mines really didn't
exist, as far as you were concerned, until we came, did they?
They were just so much waste land, and they would have remained
so. And look at the price we paid down before we cut a tree.
Three millions of dollars; that's a good deal of money. It will
be some time before we realize anything on that investment.''
Mendoza shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. ``I will be
frank with you,'' he said, with the air of one to whom
dissimulation is difficult. ``I come here to-night on an
unpleasant errand, but it is with me a matter of duty, and I am a
soldier, to whom duty is the foremost ever. I have come to tell
you, Mr. Clay, that we, the Opposition, are not satisfied
with the manner in which the Government has disposed of these
great iron deposits. When I say not satisfied, my dear friend, I
speak most moderately. I should say that we are surprised and
indignant, and we are determined the wrong it has done our
country shall be righted. I have the honor to have been chosen
to speak for our party on this most important question, and on
next Tuesday, sir,'' the General stood up and bowed, as though he
were before a great assembly, ``I will rise in the Senate and
move a vote of want of confidence in the Government for the
manner in which it has given away the richest possessions in the
storehouse of my country, giving it not only to aliens, but for a
pittance, for a share which is not a share, but a bribe, to blind
the eyes of the people. It has been a shameful bargain, and I
cannot say who is to blame; I accuse no one. But I suspect, and
I will demand an investigation; I will demand that the value not
of one-tenth, but of one-half of all the iron that your company
takes out of Olancho shall be paid into the treasury of the
State. And I come to you to-night, as the Resident Director, to
inform you beforehand of my intention. I do not wish to take you
unprepared. I do not blame your people; they are business men,
they know how to make good bargains, they get what they best
can. That is the rule of trade, but they have gone too far, and
I advise you to communicate with your people in New York and
learn what they are prepared to offer now--now that they have to
deal with men who do not consider their own interests but the
interests of their country.''
Mendoza made a sweeping bow and seated himself, frowning
dramatically, with folded arms. His voice still hung in the air,
for he had spoken as earnestly as though he imagined himself
already standing in the hall of the Senate championing the cause
of the people.
MacWilliams looked up at Clay from where he sat on the steps
below him, but Clay did not notice him, and there was no sound,
except the quick sputtering of the nicotine in Langham's pipe, at
which he pulled quickly, and which was the only outward sign the
boy gave of his interest. Clay shifted one muddy boot over the
other and leaned back with his hands stuck in his belt.
``Why didn't you speak of this sooner?'' he asked.
``Ah, yes, that is fair,'' said the General, quickly. ``I know
that it is late, and I regret it, and I see that we cause you
inconvenience; but how could I speak sooner when I was ignorant
of what was going on? I have been away with my troops. I am a
soldier first, a politician after. During the last year I
have been engaged in guarding the frontier. No news comes to a
General in the field moving from camp to camp and always in the
saddle; but I may venture to hope, sir, that news has come to you
of me?''
Clay pressed his lips together and bowed his head.
``We have heard of your victories, General, yes,'' he said; ``and
on your return you say you found things had not been going to
your liking?''
``That is it,'' assented the other, eagerly. ``I find that
indignation reigns on every side. I find my friends complaining
of the railroad which you run across their land. I find that
fifteen hundred soldiers are turned into laborers, with picks and
spades, working by the side of negroes and your Irish; they have
not been paid their wages, and they have been fed worse than
though they were on the march; sickness and--''
Clay moved impatiently and dropped his boot heavily on the porch.
``That was true at first,'' he interrupted, ``but it is not so
now. I should be glad, General, to take you over the men's
quarters at any time. As for their not having been paid, they
were never paid by their own Government before they came to us
and for the same reason, because the petty officers kept back the
money, just as they have always done. But the men are paid
now. However, this is not of the most importance. Who is it
that complains of the terms of our concession?''
``Every one!'' exclaimed Mendoza, throwing out his arms, ``and
they ask, moreover, this: they ask why, if this mine is so rich,
why was not the stock offered here to us in this country? Why
was it not put on the market, that any one might buy? We have
rich men in Olancho, why should not they benefit first of all
others by the wealth of their own lands? But no! we are not
asked to buy. All the stock is taken in New York, no one
benefits but the State, and it receives only ten per cent. It is
monstrous!''
``I see,'' said Clay, gravely. ``That had not occurred to me
before. They feel they have been slighted. I see.'' He paused
for a moment as if in serious consideration. ``Well,'' he added,
``that might be arranged.''
He turned and jerked his head toward the open door. ``If you
boys mean to go to town to-night, you'd better be moving,'' he
said. The two men rose together and bowed silently to their
guest.
``I should like if Mr. Langham would remain a moment with us,''
said Mendoza, politely. ``I understand that it is his father who
controls the stock of the company. If we discuss any arrangement
it might be well if he were here.''
Clay was sitting with his chin on his breast, and he did not look
up, nor did the young man turn to him for any prompting. ``I'm
not down here as my father's son,'' he said, ``I am an employee
of Mr. Clay's. He represents the company. Good-night, sir.''
``You think, then,'' said Clay, ``that if your friends were given
an opportunity to subscribe to the stock they would feel less
resentful toward us? They would think it was fairer to all?''
``I know it,'' said Mendoza; ``why should the stock go out of the
country when those living here are able to buy it?''
``Exactly,'' said Clay, ``of course. Can you tell me this,
General? Are the gentlemen who want to buy stock in the mine the
same men who are in the Senate? The men who are objecting to the
terms of our concession?''
``With a few exceptions they are the same men.''
Clay looked out over the harbor at the lights of the town, and
the General twirled his hat around his knee and gazed with
appreciation at the stars above him.
``Because if they are,'' Clay continued, ``and they succeed in
getting our share cut down from ninety per cent to fifty per
cent, they must see that the stock would be worth just forty per
cent less than it is now.''
``That is true,'' assented the other. ``I have thought of that,
and if the Senators in Opposition were given a chance to
subscribe, I am sure they would see that it is better wisdom to
drop their objections to the concession, and as stockholders
allow you to keep ninety per cent of the output. And, again,''
continued Mendoza, ``it is really better for the country that the
money should go to its people than that it should be stored up in
the vaults of the treasury, when there is always the danger that
the President will seize it; or, if not this one, the next one.''
``I should think--that is--it seems to me,'' said Clay with
careful consideration, ``that your Excellency might be able to
render us great help in this matter yourself. We need a friend
among the Opposition. In fact--I see where you could assist us
in many ways, where your services would be strictly in the line
of your public duty and yet benefit us very much. Of course I
cannot speak authoritatively without first consulting Mr.
Langham; but I should think he would allow you personally to
purchase as large a block of the stock as you could wish, either
to keep yourself or to resell and distribute among those of your
friends in Opposition where it would do the most good.''
Clay looked over inquiringly to where Mendoza sat in the light of
the open door, and the General smiled faintly, and emitted a
pleased little sigh of relief. ``Indeed,'' continued Clay, ``I
should think Mr. Langham might even save you the formality of
purchasing the stock outright by sending you its money
equivalent. I beg your pardon,'' he asked, interrupting himself,
``does your orderly understand English?''
``He does not,'' the General assured him, eagerly, dragging his
chair a little closer.
``Suppose now that Mr. Langham were to put fifty or let us say
sixty thousand dollars to your account in the Valencia Bank, do
you think this vote of want of confidence in the Government on
the question of our concession would still be moved?''
``I am sure it would not,'' exclaimed the leader of the
Opposition, nodding his head violently.
``Sixty thousand dollars,'' repeated Clay, slowly, ``for
yourself; and do you think, General, that were you paid that sum
you would be able to call off your friends, or would they make a
demand for stock also?''
``Have no anxiety at all, they do just what I say,'' returned
Mendoza, in an eager whisper. ``If I say `It is all right, I am
satisfied with what the Government has done in my absence,' it is
enough. And I will say it, I give you the word of a soldier, I
will say it. I will not move a vote of want of confidence on
Tuesday. You need go no farther than myself. I am glad that I
am powerful enough to serve you, and if you doubt me''--he struck
his heart and bowed with a deprecatory smile--``you need not pay
in the money in exchange for the stock all at the same time. You
can pay ten thousand this year, and next year ten thousand more
and so on, and so feel confident that I shall have the interests
of the mine always in my heart. Who knows what may not happen in
a year? I may be able to serve you even more. Who knows how
long the present Government will last? But I give you my word of
honor, no matter whether I be in Opposition or at the head of the
Government, if I receive every six months the retaining fee of
which you speak, I will be your representative. And my friends
can do nothing. I despise them. _I_ am the Opposition. You
have done well, my dear sir, to consider me alone.''
Clay turned in his chair and looked back of him through the
office to the room beyond.
``Boys,'' he called, ``you can come out now.''
He rose and pushed his chair away and beckoned to the orderly who
sat in the saddle holding the General's horse. Langham and
MacWilliams came out and stood in the open door, and Mendoza rose
and looked at Clay.
``You can go now,'' Clay said to him, quietly. ``And you can
rise in the Senate on Tuesday and move your vote of want of
confidence and object to our concession, and when you have
resumed your seat the Secretary of Mines will rise in his turn
and tell the Senate how you stole out here in the night and tried
to blackmail me, and begged me to bribe you to be silent, and
that you offered to throw over your friends and to take all that
we would give you and keep it yourself. That will make you
popular with your friends, and will show the Government just what
sort of a leader it has working against it.''
Clay took a step forward and shook his finger in the officer's
face. ``Try to break that concession; try it. It was made by
one Government to a body of honest, decent business men, with a
Government of their own back of them, and if you interfere with
our conceded rights to work those mines, I'll have a man-of-war
down here with white paint on her hull, and she'll blow you and
your little republic back up there into the mountains. Now you
can go.''
Mendoza had straightened with surprise when Clay first began to
speak, and had then bent forward slightly as though he meant to
interrupt him. His eyebrows were lowered in a straight line, and
his lips moved quickly.
``You poor--'' he began, contemptuously. ``Bah,'' he exclaimed,
``you're a fool; I should have sent a servant to talk with you.
You are a child--but you are an insolent child,'' he cried,
suddenly, his anger breaking out, ``and I shall punish you. You
dare to call me names! You shall fight me, you shall fight me
to-morrow. You have insulted an officer, and you shall meet me
at once, to-morrow.''
``If I meet you to-morrow,'' Clay replied, ``I will thrash you
for your impertinence. The only reason I don't do it now is
because you are on my doorstep. You had better not meet me
tomorrow, or at any other time. And I have no leisure to fight
duels with anybody.''
``You are a coward,'' returned the other, quietly, ``and I tell
you so before my servant.''
Clay gave a short laugh and turned to MacWilliams in the doorway.
``Hand me my gun, MacWilliams,'' he said, ``it's on the shelf to
the right.''
MacWilliams stood still and shook his head. ``Oh, let him
alone,'' he said. ``You've got him where you want him.''
``Give me the gun, I tell you,'' repeated Clay. ``I'm not going
to hurt him, I'm only going to show him how I can shoot.''
MacWilliams moved grudgingly across the porch and brought back
the revolver and handed it to Clay. ``Look out now,'' he said,
``it's loaded.''
At Clay's words the General had retreated hastily to his horse's
head and had begun unbuckling the strap of his holster, and the
orderly reached back into the boot for his carbine. Clay told
him in Spanish to throw up his hands, and the man, with a
frightened look at his officer, did as the revolver suggested.
Then Clay motioned with his empty hand for the other to desist.
``Don't do that,'' he said, ``I'm not going to hurt you; I'm only
going to frighten you a little.''
He turned and looked at the student lamp inside, where it stood
on the table in full view. Then he raised his revolver. He did
not apparently hold it away from him by the butt, as other men
do, but let it lie in the palm of his hand, into which it seemed
to fit like the hand of a friend. His first shot broke the top
of the glass chimney, the second shattered the green globe around
it, the third put out the light, and the next drove the lamp
crashing to the floor. There was a wild yell of terror from the
back of the house, and the noise of a guitar falling down a
flight of steps. ``I have probably killed a very good cook,''
said Clay, ``as I should as certainly kill you, if I were to
meet you. Langham,'' he continued, ``go tell that cook to come
back.''
The General sprang into his saddle, and the altitude it gave him
seemed to bring back some of the jauntiness he had lost.
``That was very pretty,'' he said; ``you have been a cowboy, so
they tell me. It is quite evident by your manners. No matter,
if we do not meet to-morrow it will be because I have more
serious work to do. Two months from to-day there will be a new
Government in Olancho and a new President, and the mines will
have a new director. I have tried to be your friend, Mr. Clay.
See how you like me for an enemy. Goodnight, gentlemen.''
``Good-night,'' said MacWilliams, unmoved. ``Please ask your man
to close the gate after you.''
When the sound of the hoofs had died away the men still stood in
an uncomfortable silence, with Clay twirling the revolver around
his middle finger. ``I'm sorry I had to make a gallery play of
that sort,'' he said. ``But it was the only way to make that
sort of man understand.''
Langham sighed and shook his head ruefully.
``Well,'' he said, ``I thought all the trouble was over, but it
looks to me as though it had just begun. So far as I can see
they're going to give the governor a run for his money yet.''
Clay turned to MacWilliams.
``How many of Mendoza's soldiers have we in the mines, Mac?'' he
asked.
``About fifteen hundred,'' MacWilliams answered. ``But you ought
to hear the way they talk of him.''
``They do, eh?'' said Clay, with a smile of satisfaction.
``That's good. `Six hundred slaves who hate their masters.'
What do they say about me?''
``Oh, they think you're all right. They know you got them their
pay and all that. They'd do a lot for you.''
``Would they fight for me?'' asked Clay.
MacWilliams looked up and laughed uneasily. ``I don't know,'' he
said. ``Why, old man? What do you mean to do?''
``Oh, I don't know,'' Clay answered. ``I was just wondering
whether I should like to be President of Olancho.'' _