The Filibusters, Charles John Cutcliffe Hyne [best book clubs .TXT] 📗
- Author: Charles John Cutcliffe Hyne
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“On the contrary,” said the General, ” she caught the Southampton steamer at Los Angeles a week after our compact, and did the work in person in the middle of a London season. Maxillo sent word to the Sacaronduca Embassy in town to watch her movements; and they did it carefully; and sent him a dozen cuttings from the papers, which stated that she was quite the most popular person of the season, and that in the near future she would certainly become Baroness Hoistein. I know for a fact that the man proposed to her; and I know also that she warned him openly before he did it that she would not marry him, because (she was good enough to say) she was engaged already; yet in spite of that she brought her business off successfully. She got the final promise during a royal ball after dancing with the Baron for half the evening.”
“After which she returned to Sacaronduca?” “Not at all. She stayed on, and enjoyed herself, and was taken into the Marlborough House set. She had promised Maxillo, if you remember, to provide a complete set of movements for his inspection, and I think that she did it pretty completely. No one would have guessed that the woman who was dazzling London with her charms and brilliancy could be plotting revolution in an obscure Central American Republic. The only person to connect her with Sacaronduca was myself; and I kept out of the way. I was nominally in England to procure quartz-crushing stamps for a gold mine on my own estate, and we had communication together twice only during the whole time. Once she wrote to say that the night before she had secured Baron Holstein’s promise of aid; and once I met her in person. You fellows will remember the date. It was the evening of the day when you signed your contracts in the Metropole to serve me and the Republic.”
“Her work was done in England then; and because the London season was at an end, she had a good excuse for going away. She sailed for Los Angeles within a week of your setting out to find recruits, and then began a time for her of infinitely more personal danger than any awkward minutes we men may have gone through. She was forwarding the cause in Sacaronduca itself; gaining adherents in the very heart of the enemy’s country; with the fine foreknowledge that if any one betrayed her (as was almost certain to happen amongst so many confidants) she would promptly be killed by one means or other. Maxillo, as you have heard for yourselves, had a strong notion of nipping opposition in the bud, and of doing it so firmly that there was only need to nip once. ‘
“He had the reputation of a merciless scoundrel, even in Europe,” said Davis.
“He was reported to act very much like a Sacaronducan/ said Carew, drily.
“Suspicion came out of the man like his breath,” continued the General. ” He knew that he was hated, and felt that the country was full of unrest, and he and his spies were peering in every direction to pitch upon the leaders of the movement against him. So Delicia’s was the most dangerous kind of part to play. But she went through with it steadily and cleverly, and she never made a mistake. She posed as a leader of society here in Dolores, and one imagines she must have found it more exciting than receiving admiration in London. It is not every woman who has the nerve to give a series of balls and dinners with always the consciousness that next moment may see her a prisoner, and next day a dishonoured corpse.”
Carew hit the table with his shut hand. ” No, by God,” he cried. ” She’s about the only one in the world, I should say. I know if I had found another, I should be a married man this minute.”
“She had a large party organised before we came to the coast, and with it she twice saved our expedition from destruction. She heard that the Clarindella was going to be attacked at Tortuga Key. She sent off a well-armed, well-manned steamer, and you know what took place in that vicious fight amongst the sandhills in the darkness. She heard that another blow was to be struck at the vessel which was collecting our recruits, and although she could not save the ship from being torpedoed, and could not rescue her people the day they came ashore, she chartered the Silas Bloomer, brought her to the place, and at the same time partly by diplomacy, partly by open fighting contrived that the guard on the church should be taken away. As you know, she directed that operation herself.”
“And looked prettier at the back of a mask than most women I’ve seen in front of one,” said Coffin. ” She’d a way of usin’ her voice, too, that was mighty taking.”
“By a marvel of dexterity she did not openly exhibit her partisanship, but it seemed almost impossible that the matter should remain hidden many more hours. Yet she did not hesitate. With consummate daring she went back again to Los Angeles, and continued there her work for the cause, and, as you know, she remained in the city doing her utmost. It was not till she stood up in her box that night at the ball in the operahouse, and spoke of her adherence aloud, that it was openly known that she had cut herself loose from the old regime. “You saw for yourselves,” the General concluded, ” the enthusiasm she raised. I have told you what we all owe to her, and I ask you, outside any personal feeling to myself, to do your utmost to bring her back to Dolores unharmed.”
The four of us stood up with a simultaneous movement, and thrust out eager right hands. It was Davis who spoke, and he did it with his usual stilted earnestness. We usually laughed at Davis, but somehow it never occurred to any one of us to raise so much as a smile then. ” Sir,” he said, “you honour us by asking us to serve such a lady. If by laying down my life I could save her from any serious harm, I should feel rewarded by the opportunity.”
“That’s about the size of it,” said Carew, ” but it strikes me the first matter to find out is, where has she got to? Till we know that no one can say what has been done to her, and whether she is to be rescued or avenged. Even supposing
Maxillo has got the lady, it doesn’t follow that he has illtreated her. I know I shouldn’t, under the circumstances. I should do something quite different.”
“And what’s that, Billy?” Coffin asked.
“Why, marry her, of course, you little owl.”
The General started violently. ” My God,” he muttered, ” I never thought of that!”
“Doesn’t it stand to reason?” Carew went on. “With all due deference to you, General, Madame Delicia is the most popular person in Sacaronduca this minute. Three-quarters of the people idolise her, and if the balance doesn’t, it’s because they haven’t seen her, and because it’s an attractive amusement to disagree from a majority. Maxillo is no damned fool to bring down the country permanently about his ears for the sake of venting a passing spite.
“But,” I ventured, ” Maxillo refused to marry her before.”
“My good Birch,” Carew retorted, ” he’s got a fresh inducement now. He didn’t see that Madame was of any particular value then; he can’t avoid putting a much more accurate price on her now, and he’s far too commercial a man to chuck such a good thing away. I’d bet heavily she’s ceased to be a widow, even by now. Only thing is, if you catch old Maxillo, you can very quickly put her into complimentary mourning again.”
IT was in the evening of this very day that accurate news first came to us concerning the adverse influence which on two occasions had so industriously tried to wreck our enterprise. It arrived in the shape of a cablegram from Hoisteins’, in London, and it was handed in to me as I was smoking ” en tete-a-tete ” with Carew in my quarters.
“We learn,” it ran, ” on undeniable authority, that the active agent of our opponents in Sacaronduca is Sir William Carew.”
That was all. And enough too. Without knowing it, my face must have shown the shock it gave me, and Carew’s nerves, iron though they were, had been too much on the strain for the last month to let him pass over the sign.
“That’s about me,” he said, coolly enough.
I nodded.
“You may as well let me see it.”
I hesitated a moment, and then handed the flimsy paper across to him.
“Well, Birch,” he said, ” it’ s a marvel to me how the thing’s been kept dark so long. But, still, I’d give something to know how it’s come out at last. Is this all you’ve heard?”
“Do you think,” I retorted, “that if we’d got wind of the matter before you’d be here now?”
“No, that’s right enough. There’s nothing soft about Briggs. He’d have shot me within the hour. Quite the proper thing for him to do. By the way, how do you propose to act, old man?”
“The only thing,” I answered stiffly, ” that I can do on my own responsibility is to arrest you at once.” I got up and walked towards the bell. “And if you want my private opinion, you’re a damned scoundrel. So you may put that in your pipe and smoke it.”
“Halt, there. I say, Birch, bring-to; I’m covering you. If you move off the puma skin you’re on now, I’ll shoot you dead.”
I turned smartly round. The man’s hand was gripped on a small-bored revolver, and his wrist was steadied on the mouth of the decanter. The muzzle of the weapon seemed to grow into a great black ring hanging in the air. I saw that, and one brown eye which glittered above it. And above all things, I remembered what manner of man Carew was. I take to myself no shame in owning that I stopped smartly and stood there facing him on the mottled skin. No man but a fool chucks away his life without scoring.
“If you’ll give me your word of honour not to ring that bell,” he said, quietly, ” or raise any alarm till I give you leave, you may come back to your seat.”
“Very well,” I said, and went across the room again, and threw myself into the long cane chair.
Carew helped himself to a small tot of whisky, and ” Will you split a soda?” he asked.
“No,” I said, ” I will not. I’ve told you what kind of man I consider you, and I don’t drink with that sort.”
“Very well,” he said, coolly, ” suit yourself. I don’t suppose I shall ask you again for some time, because after this it may be healthier forme to clear out for a while. Not that your small ‘ coup ‘ makes any special alteration in my plans, because, to tell the truth, I was going some time this week anyway.”
I stared. ” What for, pray?”
“Because, my good Birch, this game here is an unwholesome fraud. A man can’t so much as pay expenses out of it. I told Briggs in the first instance exactly what I was after; that I came to him solely for the sake of loot, and
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