XI
Brainard did not follow the old plainsman’s advice to stick to the railroad for his travels. Instead, he induced Gunnison to leave his dugout and guide his chance guest across the Mexican border.
It was not as easy as it looks on the map in the railroad folder to get from Phantom, Arizona—which was the name of the water tank where he had dropped from the train—into the State of Chihuahua; but Brainard did not feel pressed for time. Indeed he judged it might be as well for him to remain out of all possible contact with civilized centers for several weeks, to “let things settle down,” as he phrased it. Pursuit would naturally relax after the first unsuccessful attempts and would probably concentrate upon New York where it might be supposed that he would ultimately turn up. Moreover, every day of delay made it less likely that some observing busybody would recall the sensational newspaper story and identify him and his bag with the description of the robber who had left San Francisco on the evening of April 26. Gunnison asked no questions. The virtue of reticence, Brainard found, was admirably cultivated in these sparsely habited parts of the earth. The old man seemed to have no pressing duties to recall him to his dugout, and so they followed the trail leisurely, making a few miles each day and occasionally stopping for a day or two to rest while Gunnison procured supplies from one of the small mining towns.
Those weeks on the trail with old Gunnison and the pack train of two horses and a mule were full of joy to the city-bred man, who had rarely escaped the pavements. The high altitudes, the vivid desert colors, the beauty and the savage wildness of this little-known part of the world filled him with ecstatic happiness as well as abounding health. He became hard and rugged, losing the pallor of the city man and all the petty physical weakness that had contributed largely to his fits of depression. Health made a new man of him in mind as well as in body. He hardly recognized himself when he awoke in the morning. Never before had he known what it was to be heartily in love with life, thoroughly vital, eager to act, to plan, to embrace the struggle of living; so light and free from distressing doubts, so willing to test what destiny held in store for him! Just as the exciting events of his sudden journey and his hours in Krutzmacht’s office had awakened his will and his self-reliance, so these weeks of wandering free through the desert and the mountains were the best sort of preparation for a strong, active manhood. Fortunately they had come to him before it was too late, before his character had finally settled into its groove, and new powers were evoked in him, even physical possibilities, that he might never have suspected to be his.
The nights under the glittering cover of the Arizona heavens, the long days of peaceful activity in the sunlight, the silence and the majesty of these vast desert spaces appealed to him strongly, satisfied that love of beauty and of mystery that had been crushed hitherto. Lying awake beneath the stars, his head pillowed on his bag, which had rapidly lost its suspicious appearance of newness, he speculated upon much that had never before entered his head. And his feeling about Krutzmacht and the accident that had brought them together changed. It was no longer a mere wild jaunt, something unreal, like an adventure in piracy. It was part of the great enfolding mystery of the universe that had touched him and enlisted his life. It seemed that he had embarked upon a mission that must end in a great experience.
At this time of life, with the blood flowing actively through his body, his mind awake to all the voices of the earth, it was but natural that woman should enter into the affair. Krutzmacht’s last mumbled word,—that dubious “Melody,”—served him as point of departure for romantic dreams. Forgetting altogether his reasonable hypothesis that it might prove to be the name of some firm of German bankers he assumed that “Melody” must be the name of a woman. A queer name, doubtless, especially for one in any way connected with the old German, who seemed to have no affinity for fine art or even womanhood, other than the common stenographer of his office. Nevertheless, in obedience to the desire of his heart, Brainard created a person to fit the name, and thought of Melody as a woman.
From this his thoughts wandered occasionally to the little girl who had guided him to old Gunnison’s. He saw her slight, wistful figure as she stood motionless watching the procession of trains, heard her soft voice and gurgling laugh. He resolved to return some day to this wonderful country, his mission fulfilled, and discover that abandoned mining town of Monument, and find there the little girl on the pony who had come to his rescue in the darkness. He had probed old Gunnison for more exact information about the girl, but either he knew nothing more than that “she belonged up Moniment way” or did not care to tell what he knew.
On other matters he was more communicative. He had been long in the country, knew it in the old days before it had been invaded by railroads and large mining companies. He had prospected from the Colorado River south to Chihuahua in old Mexico. He had driven cattle from Texas to Nebraska, and latterly worked on the railroad. He knew Indians, “greasers,” miners, cowboys, and for hour after hour he talked of what he had seen “before it got so dern ceevilized in these parts.” In other words, before there was a railroad line two hundred miles to the east and another three or four hundred miles west! He knew where to camp and where supplies could be got without arousing undue curiosity. He knew horses and mules and men. And he taught the young man some of these useful things that he knew so that when they parted in the city of Guadalajara Brainard felt more grateful to him than to any one of the regular instructors of youth, who had given him his so-called “education.” He paid him liberally for his services, and the old man, sticking the bills beneath the band of his felt hat, made a few final remarks to his patron:
“I don’t know where you come from, my son,—hain’t asked yer, and I don’ want to know. You’ve treated me right, and I’ve treated you right. I guess if you keep free of cards, and drink, and women, and keep on agoin’ due saouth, you’ll likely strike the City of Mexico, before you be much older, and keep your belongin’s with yer,” he added, smiling upon the bag that Brainard had so carefully guarded.
“I think I’ll try the railroad for a change,” Brainard laughed back.
“It’s quicker—sometimes,” the old man admitted, “if you don’t find too many troublesome persons traveling the same way!”
With this last hint he waved farewell and started northwards for the States.
XII
The next day Brainard entered the City of Mexico, lean and brown and hard, with a very much travel-stained valise. So far as he could learn from the few American newspapers he had come across, there had been no further excitement over Krutzmacht’s death, and the robbery of his safe. If a pursuit had been undertaken, the fact had been carefully kept from the press; and he felt confident that by this time either it had been given up, or the persons interested were watching the wrong places.
There was a steamer sailing for Havre from Vera Cruz sometime towards the end of the month, and he resolved to take it, meanwhile resting and making a few preparations for his voyage. It was the first time in his life that he had been outside his own country, and every sight and sound in this bastard Spanish metropolis filled him with curiosity and pleasure. He secured his cabin on the Toulouse, and then set out to do the sights.
The second evening, as he was resting after a busy day in the cool courtyard of the old Hotel Iturbide, a little man in a bedraggled linen duster hitched his chair across the stones toward Brainard.
“Just come down from the States?” he inquired. Brainard nodded.
With this slight encouragement, the stranger launched forth upon a rambling talk about himself. He had come to Mexico, several years before, to manage a rubber-planting enterprise, and the “dirty dagoes” had done him out of his last cent. Soon he proposed having a drink with his compatriot, “in honor of the greatest country in God’s world.” When Brainard refused, saying that he was tired and was going to bed, the American shambled along by his side through the corridors.
Judging that his fellow countryman was a harmless dead-beat, Brainard put his hand into his pocket, and drew forth a bill, as the easiest way of ridding himself of an unwelcome companion. At sight of the money, the man’s eyes filled with tears. Taking his benefactor’s arm, he poured forth a flood of personal confession and thanks that lasted until they were at the door of Brainard’s room.
“Let me come in and talk to you a minute,” the stranger begged. “Ain’t often I see a decent man from God’s country, and I get lonely down here,” he whimpered.
“All right,” Brainard replied reluctantly, wondering how he could rid himself of the fellow.
When he turned on the electric light, the stranger’s eyes roamed carelessly over the room. It seemed to Brainard that his guest exhibited much more keenness than his forlorn and lachrymose state warranted.
As Brainard turned to the wardrobe to fetch a box of cigars, he caught the man’s eyes fastened on the valise which was shoved under the bed. Brainard gave him a cigar, but did not invite him to sit down, and after a little while he left, thanking Brainard profusely for his hospitality. As he went out of the door, his eyes rested once more on the bag beneath the bed.
After his visitor had left, Brainard prepared to undress. First he placed his watch and pocketbook on the night table. Over them he laid his revolver, which he had purchased in his wanderings, and, under Gunnison’s directions, had learned to use. Now that he was outside the States, whoever might dispute with him the possession of Krutzmacht’s property would have to make good his demands. He had lost every trace of that nervous fear which had made miserable the day after his departure from San Francisco.
Before turning out his light, he glanced into the courtyard, and caught sight of his recent acquaintance skulking behind a pillar. For several minutes Brainard stood behind his curtain, looking into the courtyard, and in all this time the man did not move from his post.
There was no reason, Brainard said to himself, why this dead-beat should not spend the night in the courtyard of the Hotel Iturbide. Turning out the light, he got into bed; but he could not sleep, and presently he rose and peered cautiously out into the dark. The courtyard, faintly lighted by the lamps in the office, was empty. This disturbed him rather more than the skulking presence of the American, although he could give no reason for his suspicion beyond the stranger’s apparent interest in his valise.
He got back into bed, but not to sleep. After tossing restlessly for another hour, he rose and dressed. As soon as the first light appeared, he took his bag and groped his way through the dark corridors to the office. He inquired of the night porter about trains and found that there was an early morning train to the North. Saying that he had had a bad night and thought he would go to the railroad station and wait there for the train, he paid his bill, not forgetting to add a good tip. The man offered to get him a cab, but he refused, saying that he could easily pick up one in the street. As the porter who had been roused to something like animation by his pour boire unbarred the great door, Brainard asked him casually:
“Do you know that Gringo who was talking to me last evening—the one who was hanging about here all the evening?”
“No, señor,” the man replied. “He’s been in and out at the hotel for a week. Just come from the States, and lost all his money at cards so soon. A bad lot!” with a final shrug of the shoulders.
“He told me he had been here several years!” Brainard exclaimed.
“No, señor, that cannot be. He knows no Spanish. Probably he wished money from you to go back to the States.”
“Very likely—well, he didn’t get much!”
After a short walk Brainard came out upon the plaza in front of the cathedral. The cracked bells of that great edifice were clanging inharmoniously for the early mass. Already country people had arrived with market produce, and there was considerable stir in the beautiful May morning. Brainard walked about the plaza until he found an old, muddy diligence drawn by four little mules that was about to start for some village of an unpronounceable Indian name. Brainard took a place inside and waited for it to fill with passengers. At last the driver climbed into his perch, and the diligence rattled off through the square over the stone streets just as the sun was rising into a clear sky. A regiment of rurales came galloping down the narrow street, with its band playing a lively air. The diligence pulled to one side, then turned off towards the west, and soon it was out in the flowering fields of the great plateau. As he left the city pavements, Brainard smiled to himself at the disappointment his acquaintance of the night before might be having at the railroad station. Of course, he might be nothing worse than a stranded dead-beat anxious to sponge a few dollars from a good-natured compatriot who appeared to be in funds.
But Brainard would take no chances! If the contents of his battered valise were as valuable as he thought they must be, the persons interested in securing them would spare no effort or expense in tracking him. Although he had grown brown from the sun and much stouter and had discarded his spectacles, still it would not be difficult for a good detective to identify him from a description furnished by the stenographer.
And if this fellow were really after him, it was not likely that he was alone. So it was important that he should find some small place where he could spend the remaining days before the departure of the French line boat. It was a pity that the diligence he had chosen at random should apparently be making in the opposite direction from Vera Cruz. But the morning was too brilliant, and Brainard’s nerves were too sound to let anything worry him. Thus, with the few words of Spanish which he had acquired while he was with old Gunnison, he launched himself again gayly upon the unknown in Mexico.
“The world is full of ways,” he said to himself. “All you have to do is to take one!”
XIII
If there was a spot on the round earth where a somewhat weary fugitive might spend a few quiet days in absolute retirement, undisturbed by inquisitive intruders, it must surely be the little Mexican town of Jalapa. Situated on a gentle hill not far from the snowy dome of Orizaba, about midway between the hot coast and the lofty central plateau, Jalapa is a mass of green verdure and possesses a delightful climate. All about on the slopes of Orizaba and in the green valleys are extensive coffee plantations, watered by delightful streams. Everywhere great umbrageous trees, tropical in their luxuriance, shade the approaches to the old town. Jalapa itself consists of a few streets of white buildings with irregular tile roofs, a squat cathedral of the Spanish-American type, fertile green gardens carefully walled in, and of course a plaza, which at this season of the year was abloom with fragrant lilies.
To Brainard, after a week of circuitous wandering through Mexican villages, sleeping and eating in filthy places, it seemed a veritable oasis. As the mule cart in which he had completed the last part of his erratic journey slowly dragged him up the shady hill, he had visions of a good bath and a day or two of complete idleness before moving on to Vera Cruz, to take the boat for Havre. His clothes sadly needed attention, and he was uncomfortably aware that in addition to a useful acquaintance with the Spanish language he had also acquired a miscellaneous assortment of vermin from his recent wandering. The somnolent streets in the hot May afternoon were nearly deserted, so that his arrival in the town aroused little attention. As the mule cart drew up in the courtyard of a clean-looking hotel next to the cathedral and opposite the pretty plaza, he congratulated himself thoroughly on his luck. Having seen his bag deposited carefully in one of the enormous bedrooms that faced the plaza, and accomplished the desired bath, he descended to the patio on an exploring expedition. Near the trickling fountain in the center of the patio a well-dressed man was seated, reading a book. Brainard instinctively felt that he must be an American from the appearance of his clothes, although his face was hidden by the book. On the small iron table by his side an iced drink was standing. The stranger reached for this and dropped his book long enough to perceive Brainard.
“Hello!” he said calmly, “when did you arrive?”
Brainard recognized the fight-trust magnate whom he had met on the Overland Limited.
“You here too!” he exclaimed. “What brings you down here?”
Hollinger sipped his drink and eyed the young man as though to say,—“we don’t ask that sort of question in these parts—it is very crude of you.”
“Oh, business and pleasure,—that combination which carries us mortals most everywhere,” he observed and with a slight stress added,—“the same I judge that brought you to Mexico.”
“Exactly,” Brainard laughed. “I can’t say how much is business and how much pleasure.”
“And possibly a dash of—something else?” Hollinger suggested genially. “Well, let’s have another drink on it. Mozo! . . . A southern gentleman who resides in Jalapa has taught these people how to make his favorite form of booze. It is cooled by snow brought from the mountains on mule back—and is very refreshing.”
When the waiter had brought two high glasses filled with the crystal flakes of snow, the fight-trust magnate grew more expansive.
“Yes, shortly after I had the pleasure of making your acquaintance I found the climate of California uncongenial to my nerves, for the first time in my life, and having business interests in Mexico I took a little vacation. Delightful time of the year here, don’t you think?”
Brainard agreed enthusiastically.
“You didn’t make a long stay with us on the Coast,” Hollinger remarked, with the shadow of a smile. Brainard knew that the fight-trust man suspected his story, but judged it wiser to avoid personal confidences. For this reason he refrained from inquiring whether the American’s business had to do with some notable encounter that was to be staged in Mexico in order to avoid the laws in the States. Hollinger’s next remark seemed to indicate that such was his “business interest” in this country.
“We are apt to look down upon Mexico,” he said sententiously. “But it is a great country. We say that it is not civilized. That is just why it is a great country. It is not civilized in our peculiar, narrow way, and hence we deny that it has any civilization.”
“It certainly has fleas,” Brainard threw in flippantly.
“Exactly, young man—it has fleas and therefore you think it is barbarous. You have been brought up among a people that regards cleanliness as above godliness and the other fellow’s godliness of more importance than his own! That is what is called Puritanism. You understand me?”
Brainard nodded. He began to comprehend the results of Hollinger’s reading on the Overland.
“Now,” continued Hollinger, clearing his throat, “I have nothing to say against Puritanism. It’s a very good thing for some people. It did some mighty fine work in the world.”
“Discovered Plymouth Rock, for instance.”
“Yes, and created the nicest lot of little hypocritical tight-wads there in New England the world has ever seen. We needed those tight-wads out west—we needed their bank accounts, I mean to say. But we don’t need ’em any longer, only they can’t understand it and keep shoving their morals in our faces. That’s the trouble with America all over at the present date. Puritanism breaks out here, there, and everywhere, like the measles. And it always means trying to make the other feller as good as you think he oughter be—and a damn sight better than you are yourself!”
He paused to send for another drink. Brainard wondered what the august author of the great epic would have thought of this twentieth century criticism of his theory.
“Now Mexico is free from all that sort of cant, and that is why I said Mexico was destined to be a great country. In Mexico they let the individual alone. You see, the Church is supposed to look after the morals of the community. That is a great relief—it simplifies life and makes it much more honest. The Church does the best it can, and the State helps it out when necessary. But the Church don’t expect too much, the Catholic Church I mean, of human beings, and so it isn’t disappointed. It all works beautifully! You’ll never find in Mexico such a fool performance as that going on in San Francisco to-day. They’re no puritans in California either. They don’t want reform—they don’t want to shut up the cafés and French restaurants and prevent the city council from getting its little rakeoff—not a bit of it! It’s only this puritan bug has got hold of some ‘better than thous’ among us, and they are raising hell.”
He paused to finish his drink and wipe his brow.
“It always heats me to think,” he explained. “But I was saying that for this reason Mexico has a great part to play in the future. For one thing, it furnishes us Americans a possible place to live in when our own country has one of these righteous attacks and is cleaning house. Lovely country, lovely climate, lovely people—if you know how to handle ’em right. No, sir, I hope they’ll never civilize Mexico in my time any more than it is civilized at present. The natural man needs a country, and Mexico is his country. . . . Come on—let’s have a look at the town. The band will be playing in the square a little later, and you will see some of the prettiest girls you ever saw in your life.”
The fight-trust man lighted another cigar, put on his panama hat, and tucked an arm under Brainard’s elbow, and thus they sallied forth to explore Jalapa. Brainard might not agree with his friend’s anti-puritanism, but he heartily agreed with his praise of Mexico. At this gentle hour of the late afternoon soft rosy clouds hovered about the white head of old Orizaba. The gardens, glimpses of which might be caught through iron-barred gates, were fragrant with flowering trees, in which the birds sang madly. After a short ramble about the outskirts of the town, they returned to the plaza, which was now fairly filled with men and women and children, gathered to hear the military band and to enjoy the fragrant coolness of the dying day. Many of the brown peon girls were pretty, and the Spanish women, pallid and black-haired, with white mantillas, quite fascinated the young American. A fountain shot a lively jet of water into the sunlight. The great white lilies drooped their golden chalices under shining leaves. The band of Indians at the other end of the square played operatic music that came through the soft air languorously in harmony with the atmosphere.
“Where in America, the land of the puritan, can you get so much for your money?” Hollinger demanded. “It is only in the lands of license that the people delight in innocent things.”
He flung a copper coin to a beggar woman, who crossed herself and blessed him.
“It is even pleasant to give to the beggars, instead of subscribing to an orphan asylum! We make virtue so dull and inhuman.” . . .
As they strolled towards the hotel for dinner, they were joined by a tall, lean, lank fellow countryman, whom Hollinger introduced to Brainard as Major Calloway,—“from Alabama, superintendent of the Jalapa-Vera Cruz branch of the railroad.” The three dined together in the patio with a young German, who was the agent for a firm of coffee merchants in Hamburg. They had an extraordinary Mexican dinner, consisting of the most fiery condiments that Brainard had ever put into his mouth. His eyes were constantly watering, and he drank quantities of water, much to the amusement of the others, who swallowed the pungent food with relish. They sat for a long time over their coffee and some very black cigars that Calloway produced, listening to the stories the Southerner told. It seemed that he had been in the country forty years, in fact ever since the close of the Civil War, in which Calloway had gained his title. Until recently the railroad had been but a mule tramway and Jalapa not even a “spot on the map.” He regarded it now as a metropolis. Mexico according to this old resident was hopelessly tame and civilized under the firm rule of Diaz and the influx of money-making Americans and Germans. “You should have seen it in the old days when a man could live as he liked. Why, they have even got extradition laws for most things now,” he complained.
“But they don’t use ’em,” the fight-trust man put in suavely.
Listening to the regrets expressed by the railroad manager, Brainard perceived that the perfect era of freedom and joy was always somewhat removed from the present time and place. Calloway was most friendly to the young American.
“I’ll show your young friend one of the old-time places to-morrow. It isn’t far from here—just a pleasant ride of a couple of hours.”
So a party was arranged for the early morning, and then Brainard excused himself because of his fatigue, while the others went out to a café for the rest of the evening.
Before sinking into his clean, inviting bed Brainard stepped to the balcony to look once more at the snowy crown of Orizaba that shone softly in the starlight across the valley. The plaza and the street beneath the balcony were deserted except for an occasional figure that slouched along, covered even to the head with a long cloak. At the next corner he saw a young man leaning against the window of a house, talking to some one within, doing his courting in the manner of the country. A sharp call rose into the night from the distance, answered by another, and then all was silence. From the plaza across the street came the sweet scent of lilies. It was the rich, languorous night of the semitropics, full of perfume and mystery,—romance for youth,—a bit crude, perhaps, and elementary, but appealing to every sense.
Brainard sank asleep to dream of a land of enchantment, full of hidden gardens, the sound of swaying trees and falling water, the scent of lilies, the sweet glances of dark women.
XIV
Very early the next morning after the usual deep cup of chocolate Brainard joined Hollinger and Major Calloway, and the little party set forth on horseback. They rode through the silent town, between high walls jealously guarding the privacy of large gardens, out into the fields which were drenched with a heavy dew like rain. The birds sang in the arching trees above the road. The sun came up from a golden mist in the lowlands below and touched the hoary crest of Orizaba. Brainard had never seen such an incarnation of spring upon the earth as this glorious May morning, and his heart sang joyously, free of care, forgetful of the burden of his heavy bag and all the coil of events that had brought him hither. Like a schoolboy he was resolved to have his holiday. The lively chestnut horse with which Calloway had mounted him danced mincingly, chafing at the heavy bit. The magnate of the fight trust in a short jacket and leather breeches, a broad straw sombrero on his head, a long black cigar in his mouth, had the appearance of a bull fighter on parade. He too seemed gay in mood, and called Brainard’s attention to the richness of the land, the varied specimens of tropical trees beneath which they rode, the beauty of the landscape, always dominated by the symmetrical snow-crowned mountain. Calloway and the German took the expedition more phlegmatically, discussing the prospects of the new coffee yield.
From the shaded hill road they emerged upon a fertile valley where the peons were already at work in the fields. And they also began to meet the country population moving towards Jalapa for the weekly fair. Hollinger, who seemed to have a fair command of Spanish, joked with men and women along the road.
“You couldn’t do that in the States!” he remarked to Brainard. “They’d just give you a couple of sour looks and vote for no license.” . . .
The little party rode up to the Haçienda di Rosas in time for the second breakfast. The old Englishman seemed delighted to welcome Calloway’s friends and presented them to his placid Mexican wife and his two daughters. The younger of these fell to Brainard at the breakfast, which was served in the cool patio shaded by a thick canopy of rose vines. Señorita Marie was very small, very pretty, and very naïve,—just home from a convent near Madrid, she told the young American. She spoke English daintily, mixed occasionally with French and Spanish phrases and some very modern American slang whose meaning she seemed scarcely to understand. She was so unlike the few American girls that Brainard had known, so little able “to look out for herself” as they were, so appealing with shy glances from her black eyes, that from the first moment he scarce remembered where he was or heard the conversation at the other end of the table. She was exquisitely small and dainty, like one of those Spanish beauties by Goya that Brainard had seen in the Metropolitan Museum. Her black hair was drawn close about her delicate head, concealing her ears and setting off the fairness of her skin, which had an underglow of faint rose. Her voice was a murmur and a whisper, at times like broken bird notes, as if meant for one ear alone. They talked of the nothings that mean much to youth. She told him of her life in the convent, her one winter in the City of Mexico with its formal parties, her brother studying to be an engineer in a New York school.
After the siesta they went into the plantation, and Brainard lingered while the others drifted on discussing the culture of coffee and its future. Señorita Marie showed him her favorite walk with a view of Orizaba across the valley, told him that her favorite poet was Tennyson, the flower she loved best was the rose, the time of the year spring, the time of the day twilight. And she asked him if he had brothers and sisters and was a good Catholic. The time might come, and shortly perhaps, when the childishness of this little mind would be apparent to Brainard, but on this heavenly May afternoon with the birds singing in the thickets and lazy white clouds floating across the snowy summit of the volcano, their talk seemed quite wonderful and the girl herself the most exquisite and adorable creature he had ever known.
“American girls do not talk like that, no?” she murmured, appealing to him.
“No, they don’t!”
“Ah, but you see it’s different down here—we have only little things to think about, we women, all day long.”
“It is very pleasant down here,” the young American sighed.
“You like it?” she responded eagerly. “But you would not like it for always. . . . You American men are like that. You come to see the plantation and drink coffee and talk—maybe you flirt a little, no?—and then you ride away and say you will write. But you never write, and you never come back!”
“I shall write, and I shall come back.”
The small lady shook her head with a demure smile. They returned slowly through the fields. Yes, this girl was utterly different from the women of his own race, and her difference appealed to him. She seemed, even in her simplicity, more womanly, more as women were meant to be, the protected and the adored. His imagination built up a pretty picture of a dreamy existence in a beautiful country with such a trusting, simple, lovable creature as companion.
“Why do you go away so soon?” she demanded as they neared the house.
“I must take the boat for Europe,” he replied.
“There will be another boat in a month.”
“Would you like me to stay?”
“Of course! Don’t you know that?” . . . Calloway and Hollinger were already on horse-back in the courtyard, about to start without him.
“Are you coming with us?” the fight-trust man asked with an ironical smile.
The Englishman and his wife gave the young stranger a cordial invitation to remain and make a long visit. Brainard was about to accept when he remembered his bag left unguarded in the hotel room.
“I shall have to return to the hotel for to-night,” he said reluctantly.
“Well, I’ll drive over for you and your luggage to-morrow,” the Englishman insisted cordially.
And Señorita Marie whispered demurely, “Au revoir—there’s another steamer—in a month!”
So Brainard rode off with the others, very much pleased with himself and life, lightly putting aside his settled purpose of taking the Toulouse two days hence. What urgent reason for haste, when life was so full of promise and of beauty? Another month would do as well for Krutzmacht’s business. . . .
“You didn’t see much of the plantation,” the Southerner drawled to Brainard as the young man’s horse drew up abreast.
“He saw a great deal of something more to his liking,” Hollinger observed, a little ironical smile on his lips.
“I had a very good day,” Brainard responded simply, wishing to avoid further reference to the girl.
The daylight quickly faded, and before they reached the hill on which Jalapa lies, the moon was up, flooding the valley and the mountains. Calloway became confidential, and for the first time told the full story of their recent host. Years before, the Englishman had arrived in Mexico and bought this plantation. He was a young man then and single. He never went home. It seems that he had absconded from a shipping firm in Liverpool where he was employed and had taken ten thousand pounds. Later he married a Mexican woman of good family and had prospered.
“But he never leaves the country. The woman and the girls go—the son is being educated in the States—but the old man has never been beyond the line.”
“It must be hard on them—the girls,” Brainard said.
“What do they care? Harlow is rich and respected in this country. The women are Mexican, though the girls have been well educated. It was a long time ago when he took the money, and as you see he lives like a perfect gentleman with his own wife and family. There are a good many citizens here who have better antecedents than Harlow and aren’t as respectable.”
He looked suddenly at Brainard. The young man did not reply. He was thinking that even if the Englishman had been a thief, there was no reason why he should not like the daughter,—yes, and visit the Haçienda di Rosas, if he so desired! He supposed that Calloway had told him Harlow’s story for a purpose.
“After you have lived here awhile,” the Southerner continued, “you don’t ask questions about newcomers, so long as they play fair and don’t try to borrow money of you. Live and let live—that’s a good motto, young man. You never can tell when you will need the same charity for yourself that you hand out to another fellow!”
That philosophy seemed a bit specious, and Brainard felt an instinctive repugnance to the morals of his new acquaintances. He suspected that the Southerner might have his own story, which would explain why he was living a lonely old age so far from his native Alabama. Hollinger added nothing to the conversation. It was a somewhat delicate subject with him also. But all the young man’s chivalry rose in behalf of the little Mexican girl. This was the reason why young Americans never wrote and never came back! Well, he would show her that there was one who had the courage to forget that her father was an embezzler.
When they reached the hotel Calloway said good night and went to his room. Brainard was about to follow him when Hollinger yawningly suggested having a drink of pulque.
“Ever tried it? It’s not so bad; like the sort of yeast mother used to make out of potatoes,” and as Brainard demurred, he said more urgently, “Oh, come on! If you’re going to live on a Mexican haçienda, better get acquainted with the national drink—though that was pretty good claret the Englishman put up.”
They went across the way to a café that was still open and ordered pulque. Brainard, after tasting the sirupy, yeasty stuff put his glass down with a grimace. Hollinger drained his and ordered another.
“All you have to do with most things is to get used to ’em. The question is,” he added, looking meaningly at Brainard, “whether you want to get used to ’em! . . . Young man,” he remarked, as they turned back to the hotel, “I don’t want to butt into your business—I am not that kind. I don’t know whether you are traveling for your health, the same as I am, or for some other fellow’s health. But, in any case,—” here his voice became quietly emphatic, “all is, if you’ve got a job to do, do it! Whether it’s cracking a safe or running a city mission, my young friend, go at it and finish with it.”
Brainard threw up his head with all the haughtiness of the young man who considers that he has thus far done very well without outside assistance.
“Just cut out any woman business until the job’s done,” Hollinger continued. “Women are likely to upset most business—they distract the mind, you know. Pardon me for calling your attention to the fact that you seem still young and somewhat inexperienced in life, in spite of your achievements. Have you fully made up your mind to join the exiles down here for good and all? Better think it over first far away from the señorita’s eyes, out at sea. . . . Well, here endeth the first lesson, and good night, and pleasant dreams!”
“Good night!” Brainard replied stuffily.
The porter handed them both candles, and by way of ingratiating himself with his generous patrons announced that two more gringos had arrived late that afternoon. Brainard, who was smarting under the fight-trust magnate’s moral advice, paid little attention to the servant’s chatter and went directly to his room. He undressed slowly, thinking of the charming girl at the Haçienda di Rosas and the happy day he had spent with her. Hollinger’s frank warning to get to his “job” and let women alone rankled all the more because he felt the good sense of it. But something within him tempted him to rebel at good sense. He was young, and he had been through a series of strenuous weeks, living a lonely, rough life. There seemed nothing unpardonably weak in allowing himself a bit of good time here in this lovely place. Of course Hollinger’s idea that he would straightway marry the embezzler’s daughter and settle down in Jalapa for life was needlessly exaggerated. Probably there would be another steamer in less than a month. And so forth, as youth under such circumstances reasons with itself!
Continuing this debate he went out to the balcony for a last look at the beautiful moonlight night. He lingered there, charmed by the stillness of the deserted streets, by the soft scented air, by the beauty of the white peak towering into the southern heavens. The pleasant murmur of the girl’s voice sounded in his ears. He was not in love, he said to himself,—that would be quite ridiculous! But he was, without knowing it, in a state where a young man soon thinks himself into love.
All his experience since leaving New York led up, as a matter of fact, to this very state. Señorita Marie need not be so extraordinarily fascinating, nor Jalapa so wonderfully picturesque, to set the stage for the eternal drama. He was just repeating to himself one of the girl’s naïve remarks when he became conscious of low voices above him. English was being spoken, and by a woman. He remembered what the porter had said about new arrivals at the hotel, and strained his ears to hear what was said. But the speaker was evidently seated within the room overhead, and her voice was too low to reach out and down with any distinctness. There was something in the timbre of it, or the accent, that seemed to Brainard familiar,—perhaps nothing more than its Americanism. A man’s voice, rather guttural and entirely unfamiliar, broke in on the woman’s speech. The man must be standing nearer the balcony, for Brainard could hear distinctly what he said.
“I don’t see how Mossy let him slip through his fingers in Mexico City, do you?”
An unintelligible answer came from within the room.
“Anyway, it was clear luck our stopping off here to send that wire.”
And then suddenly in perfectly distinct though low tones came the sentence:
“You didn’t see the grip?”
Brainard knew that voice! The pert, crisp twist to the words might resemble a thousand other stenographers in style, but he knew only one that hissed her final words slightly. He held his breath and listened. The woman came out on the balcony, and Brainard noiselessly glided back into the shadow of his dark room. He had seen the profile of the figure above and knew beyond doubt that she was Krutzmacht’s former stenographer. The man said:
“I wish I knew which way he meant to jump next. He’s just fool enough to go back North.”
“We’ll get him, either way,” the woman replied with a snap and retreated into the room, closing the French window.
XV
Brainard stood without moving until his muscles ached. Then he dropped to the floor, crawled over to the bed, and felt beneath the bolster, where he had taken the precaution to conceal his bag when he had left that morning. It was still there. The room had been casually searched, or possibly his pursuers had only just arrived by a delayed train.
At any rate, he had until the next morning. The woman and her companion would not be likely to make a disturbance that night, feeling that they had him and his plunder safe within grasp. They knew as well as he that all escape from Jalapa was impossible before the early morning train for the North. It must be said that from the moment Brainard first heard the stenographer’s voice, every thought of Señorita Marie and of the Haçienda di Rosas dropped from his mind. Danger was a panacea for the early symptoms of love!
While he thought, Brainard took off his shoes, tied them together by the laces, and slung them around his neck, as he had done as a boy, when he wished to make an early escape from the parental house. Then, placing his precious bag on his shoulders, he crept inch by inch toward the open window. It was hazardous, but it was his only chance. He was morally certain that he could not enter the hall without making sufficient noise to attract attention.
When he reached the balcony, he listened. Not hearing any sound from the next room, he stepped out into the moonlight, and walked as rapidly as he could along the open balcony to the corner of the building, and around to the other side. He knew that the fight-trust man’s room was somewhere in the rear wing, and his plan was to make an exit through his room. But the balcony did not extend to this wing, and he was brought to a halt. He looked over the rail to the street, thinking to drop his bag and follow it as best he could. It was a good fifteen feet from the balcony to the hard pavement beneath. As Brainard debated the chances of breaking a leg, he saw approaching the spot the figure of a night officer on his rounds. Instinctively he drew back, felt for the nearest window, and pushed it open. He prayed that it might be an empty room; but he was no sooner within than he heard the loud snoring of a man.
Perplexed, Brainard listened for a few moments, then quietly crossed to the bed. Feeling about over the night table, he secured the pistol that he suspected might lie there, then boldly struck a match. With a snort, the sleeper sat bolt upright. Luckily it was Calloway, the manager of the railroad. Brainard whispered tensely:
“It’s all right, but don’t speak! There’s your gun—only don’t shoot!”
“What’s the matter?” the Southerner demanded coolly, now wide awake.
“You said,” Brainard whispered, “that there was always a time when a man might need charity. Well, I want your help. I have a bag here that contains valuable papers belonging to some other person. I’m trying to get them to a safe place, as I was told to. I haven’t stolen anything, you understand, but of course you won’t believe that. I’ve been followed here by some enemies of the man who owned the stuff. They’d kill me as quickly as they would a fly to get possession of this bag. If they can’t murder me, and take it that way, they will probably put me in prison to-morrow and keep me there. I must get out of town to-night!”
“You can’t do that before to-morrow morning,” the Southerner replied, yawning, as if he wished Brainard would take himself off to bed and let him alone.
“I must get out of this hotel now, to-night, and away from Jalapa, and not have a soul know where I’ve gone. I’ll pay you well for your trouble!”
“Keep your money, my son,” the man answered gruffly. “It wasn’t for that I had to come down here. But I’ll help you out, if you are in trouble.”
He reflected yawningly for a few moments, while Brainard held his breath with impatience. For all he knew, the man and the woman might already have entered his room and discovered his flight.
“If it were daylight, it would be different, but you know I couldn’t start a train out of here at this time without the whole town knowing about it; and I reckon that isn’t what you want.”
“Not much!”
“Can’t you bunk here with me until morning? Then Hollinger and I can fix up something.”
Brainard shook his head.
“I’d run you down myself in an engine to the coast—”
“That’s it!”
“But there isn’t an engine that can turn a wheel in the place. The first train comes up in the morning.”
“I might get a horse and go over to the haçienda,” Brainard suggested.
The Southerner scratched his sleepy head for a while.
“You might,” he admitted. “But that wouldn’t put you out of your trouble and might put other folks into danger. You want to lose these urgent friends of yours for good.”
“That’s so.”
“Got some nerve?”
“Enough to capture this stuff from a court and tote it ’cross country from Frisco!” He patted his valise.
“Come on, then!”
The Southerner drew on his trousers and boots. As Brainard turned impatiently toward the door, he said:
“Not that way!”
He pulled back a hanging at the foot of his bed, revealing a little wooden door, which he opened, and, candle in hand, led the way through a close, dusty passage. After making several turns, they descended a flight of narrow stairs, and Brainard’s guide pushed open a door at the bottom. The musty odor of old incense told him that they had entered a church, and the wavering candle-light partially revealed the statues of the saints and the altars of the chapels.
“The cathedral,” the Southerner remarked, and added, “Convenient sometimes!”
Brainard followed him closely across the nave of the church to a door, which Calloway unbolted after some fumbling. They emerged upon a narrow lane with blank walls on either side.
“That hotel used to be the bishop’s palace,” the Southerner explained. “It’s a pretty handy place to get out of on the quiet, if you know the way!”
It was only a short distance to the railroad terminal. Calloway walked rapidly and noiselessly on the toes of his boots, and kept to the dark side of the lane. They entered the yards beyond the station building, and went to the farther end, where several tracks were occupied by antiquated coaches that looked like a cross between open street cars and English third-class railway carriages.
“We used these rattletraps before they changed the line to steam. It took six mules to haul one of ’em up from the junction of the Mexico and Vera Cruz road; but they can go down flying! It’s down grade all the way for nearly forty miles. They are rather wabbly now, but if you get one with a good brake, it will last the trip.”
He tried several of the old cars, and finally selected one with a brake that worked to his satisfaction. Together they could just start it, and they pushed it out to the main track. Brainard threw his valise aboard, and took his post, as the railroad man directed him, at the handbrake.
“I’ll open the gate for you, and set the switch; then it’s clear sailing. Go slow until you learn the trick, then let her sail. There’s a bad curve about seven miles out, and a couple of miles farther on you’ll find a considerable hill and some up grade. You must let her slide down the hill for all she can do, and take the grade on her own momentum. If you don’t, you may get stuck. I can’t think of anything else. You’ll roll down to the junction in a couple of hours, as pretty as coasting, if that confounded peon hasn’t left the switch open at Cavallo. If he has, you’ll just have to jump for it, and foot it down through the chaparral, if you haven’t broken your neck. Needn’t bother to return the car,” he chuckled. “Is there anything else I can do for you, young man?”
“You’ve got me out of a tight hole,” Brainard replied warmly, “and I can’t begin to thank you for it. I hope I shall see you up North some day, and be able to do something for you!”
“It isn’t likely we’ll meet in the States. They don’t want me up there!” the Southerner answered slowly. “But perhaps, sometime, you’ll be able to help a poor fellow out of his hole in the same way.”
“That woman may strike the scent, and come hot-foot to Vera Cruz by the first train. Well, I’ll have to take my chances there before the boat sails.”
“Leave her to me and Hollinger. We’ll give her a tip that you have gone North.” Calloway laughed. “If she won’t take it, there are other ways of stopping her activity. There’s a good deal of smallpox hereabouts, you know, and if the mayor suspected these gringos had the disease, he’d chuck ’em into the pesthouse. Don Salvador does pretty much what I tell him—and the hotel-keeper, too. I think we can keep your friends quiet.”
“Get me twelve hours, if you can! And tell Hollinger I’m on the job again.”
The two men shook hands; Calloway pushed back the great gate; and the car slid down the track out into the warm, black night, groaning to itself asthmatically as it gathered impetus.
XVI
The Transatlantique line steamer Toulouse lay off the breakwater of Vera Cruz, smoking fiercely, anchor up, passengers all aboard, ready to sail for Havre. Her departure had been delayed nearly eighteen hours by a fierce “norther,” which had not yet exhausted its fury. They had been anxious hours for Brainard, who had gone aboard the night before, in the expectation of sailing immediately. Now the black smoke pouring from the funnel indicated that the captain had decided to proceed, and Brainard’s spirits rose.
Nothing had been seen or heard of the stenographer and her companion. Either they had lost the trail, or his friends at Jalapa had succeeded in holding them there for almost two days, and had kept them away from the telegraph, too.
Brainard was about to leave the deck, where he had been anxiously watching the land, when his attention was caught by a small launch that was rounding the end of the pier and heading for the steamer. His hands tightened on the rail; he suspected what that launch might contain. He noted that the steamer was moving slowly. Would the captain wait?
The Toulouse had swung around; her nose pointed out into the Gulf of Mexico, and her screw revolved at quarter speed. The launch approached rapidly, and signaled the steamer to wait. Brainard could see the smart French captain, on the bridge above, examining the small boat through glasses. He himself could detect two figures in the bow, waving a flag, and he smiled grimly at the comedy about to take place at his expense.
The screw ceased to revolve. As the launch came within hailing distance, there was an animated colloquy in French between the officers on the bridge of the Toulouse and the man in charge of the launch.
“Some late passengers,” remarked the third officer, who was standing beside Brainard. “A woman, too!”
Apparently neither the stenographer—for now he could recognize the young woman—nor her companion, a stout, middle-aged, red-cheeked American, understood the French language. They kept gesticulating and pointing to Brainard, whom they had discovered on the deck. The captain of the launch translated their remarks, and threw in some explanations of his own. The officers from the bridge of the Toulouse fired back vigorous volleys of questions. It was an uproar!
Brainard, in spite of his predicament, burst into laughter over the frantic endeavors of the two Americans to make themselves understood. The captain tried his English, but with poor results. Finally, with a gesture of disgust, he yanked the bell rope. Brainard could hear the gong sound in the engine room beneath for full speed. The Toulouse would not wait.
The steamer began to gather speed, the launch to fall behind, while the woman at the bow shrieked and pointed to Brainard. The captain of the Toulouse merely shrugged his shoulders and walked to the other side of his vessel.
“Some friends of yours?” the third officer said to Brainard, with a grin, as the little launch fell into their wake and finally turned back toward the inner harbor. “The lady seemed anxious to join you—might be a wife, non?”
Apparently he knew enough English to enable him to conjecture what the two Americans wanted. If, thought Brainard, the captain had known as much English as his third officer, it might not have gone so happily for him!
“The lady isn’t exactly my wife,” Brainard replied, with a laugh; “not yet!”
“Ah!” the Frenchman said, with a meaning smile. “What you in the States call a breach of the promise?”
“Exactly!” Brainard replied hastily, glad to accept such a credible fiction.
“She seems sorry to let you make the journey alone, eh?”
“Rather!”
The story circulated on the ship that evening, and gave Brainard a jocular notoriety in the smoking room among the German and French business men, who composed most of the Toulouse’s first-cabin list. It was forgotten, however, before he emerged from his cabin, to which the remains of the “norther” had quickly driven him. By this time—it was the fourth day out—the Toulouse was in the grasp of the Gulf Stream, lazily plowing her twelve knots an hour into the North Atlantic, and the passengers were betting their francs on the probable day of arrival at Havre.
That evening, at dinner, Brainard ordered a bottle of champagne, and murmured, as he raised the glass to his lips:
“Here’s to Melody—whoever and whatever and wherever she may be!”
His youthful fancy, warmed by the wine, played again with the idea of an unknown mistress for whom he was bound across the seas with her fortune in his grip. With the insistence of youth, he had made up his mind that Melody must be a woman—what else could she be? He always saw her as a young woman, charming, beautiful, of course, and free!
And yet she might well be some aged relative of Krutzmacht, or a fair friend of his youth, to whom, in the moment of decision allowed him, he had desired to leave his fortune; or some unrecognized wife, to whom, at the threshold of death, he thought to do tardy justice.
“An old hag, perhaps!” the young man murmured with a grimace. “We’ll see—over there!”
But his buoyant fancy refused to vision this elusive Melody as other than young and beautiful. And he gave her the attractive shape and personality of Señorita Marie. He began to think of her as living in some obscure corner of the great world, waiting to be dowered with the fortune that he had bravely rescued for her.
When Brainard felt that his stomach and his sea legs were both impeccable, he descended to his cabin, bolted the door, pulled the shade carefully over the porthole, pinned newspapers above the wooden partitions, and proceeded to make a leisurely examination of the valise. It was the first safe moment that he had had to go through the contents of the bag thoroughly; and when the key sank into the lock, his curiosity was whetted to a fine edge.
He had already made a careful count of the notes and gold left after his devious journey to Vera Cruz. The sum was eight thousand dollars and some hundreds. This he had entered on a blank leaf in a little diary, under the heading “Melody, Cr.” On the opposite page he had put down all the sums that he remembered to have spent since leaving New York, even to his cigarettes and the bottle of champagne which he had drunk in honor of his unknown mistress.
“Here goes!” he said at last. “Let’s see what Melody’s pile is, anyway.”
It took the best part of the night to examine thoroughly what the bag held. Even after he had gone over every piece, Brainard, untrained in business matters, could but guess at the full importance of his haul. There were contracts and deeds and leases relating to a network of corporations, of which the most important, apparently, was the Pacific Northern Railway.
Despairing of understanding the full value of these documents without some clew, Brainard contented himself with making a careful inventory of them. The meat of the lot, he judged, lay in certain bundles of neatly engraved five-per-cent bonds of the Pacific Northern, together with a number of certificates of stock in the Shasta Company. In all, as he calculated, there were eight millions of bonds and fifteen millions, par value, of stock.
“Melody doesn’t look to me to be a poor lady,” Brainard muttered, bundling up the bonds and stock, and packing them carefully away at the bottom of the valise. “They are welcome to the rest, if they’ll let me off with these pretty things!”
What was more, he had come across the name of Schneider Brothers, bankers, Berlin, on the letterhead of several communications, indicating that they had been the dead man’s foreign fiscal agents. That would be of use to him, he noted, as he wrote the name in his little diary. Then he went on deck, lighted a long Mexican cigar, and began to think. The value of his haul made him very serious. Latterly his adventure had more or less the irresponsibility of a boy’s lark about it, but now it assumed larger importance. What he had done was a serious matter in the eyes of the law, and he must justify his proceedings, not only to himself, but to others. . . .
The days of the lazy, sunny voyage slipped away. As the vessel drew nearer Europe, Brainard speculated more and more anxiously on what might be waiting for him on the dock at Havre. Now that he knew how valuable his loot was, he felt certain that old Krutzmacht’s San Francisco enemies, who had tracked him to the dock at Vera Cruz, would hardly be idle during the sixteen days that the Toulouse had taken to cross the seas. There had been ample time for them to hear from the stenographer and their other agents in Mexico, to communicate with the French authorities, to have detectives cross from New York by one of the express boats and meet him at Havre. There would be a fine reception committee prepared for him on the dock!
Cudgel his brains as he might, hour after hour, he could see no way out of the predicament that was daily drawing nearer. After the incident at Vera Cruz, he could not approach any of the officers of the vessel and seek to enlist their help. He thought of bribing the sociable third officer to secrete the contents of his valise, but he mistrusted his volatile temperament. There was a Frenchwoman who sat next him at the table, a dark-haired little person, clever and businesslike, who had been very agreeable to Brainard, and had undertaken to teach him French. He could tell his story to Mme Vernon, and ask her to assume charge of the troublesome valise. But an instinctive caution restrained him from taking any one into his confidence. He preferred to run his chance of arrest, and to fight against extradition. Whenever he resigned himself to this prospect, his sporting blood rebelled, and there rose, also, a new sentiment of loyalty to the interests of his unknown mistress, Melody. He had come too far in his venture to be beaten now!
“Whether the old man was straight or not, whether he really owned the bunch of bonds and stock or not, it would be a pity not to get something out of it for Melody. She’s not in the scrap,” he said to himself. “No, I don’t chuck the game yet!”
His anxieties were quieted by another fit of seasickness on the day before they were due to arrive at Havre. As she approached the coast of Brittany, the Toulouse lost the balmy weather which had prevailed since they entered the Gulf Stream, and ran straight into a gale that was sweeping over the boisterous Bay of Biscay. Brainard went to bed, to spend altogether the most wretched twenty-four hours he had ever experienced.
In his more conscious moments he gathered that the old Toulouse was having as hard a time with the weather as he was. Her feeble engines at last lay down on the job, and the captain was forced to turn about and run before the storm. It mattered little to Brainard, just then, whether the ship was blown to the Azores, or went to the bottom, or carried him into Havre, there to be arrested and finally deported to the United States for grand larceny. He turned in his berth, thought of the Bourgogne, and closed his weary eyes.
Toward evening the gale blew itself out, and the battered old Toulouse was headed north once more across the Bay of Biscay. Sometime in the night the engines ceased to thump, and Brainard awoke with a start. When he had hurried into his clothes, and groped his way to the deck, he was astonished to see ahead, through the gray fog of early morning, faint lights and, farther away, the stronger illumination that came from some city.
“Is it Havre?” he demanded of the third officer, whom he met.
“No, monsieur—St. Nazaire!” the Frenchman answered. “Monsieur will be disappointed?”
“I don’t think so!” exclaimed Brainard.
It was, indeed, the port of Nantes. The captain had not chosen to risk the voyage around the stormy coast of Brittany with his depleted coal supply, and had taken the old Toulouse to the nearest port.
“Here’s where Melody scores!” Brainard muttered, when he realized the significance of the news. “Now for a quick exit to Paris, before the telegraph gets in its deadly work and notifies the civilized world where we are!”