CHAPTER XXVI
FOR half an hour after Webster left her to assist the great-hearted Mother Jenks in her rough care of the wounded, Dolores, absorbed in her work of mercy, gave all of her thought to the grim task before her. The cries, followed by the sudden, savage outbreak of fire when the Guards made their dash from the palace, brought Webster and Don Juan to mind instantly. In a quick access of terror and apprehension she clung, trembling, to stolid old Mother Jenks.
“Somebody's breakin' in or breakin' out,” the veteran decided calmly. “Come to the corner, dearie, an' 'ave a look.”
She half dragged Dolores to the corner, from which they had an unobstructed view down the cross-street to its intersection three blocks distant with the Calle San Rosario; consequently they saw the dozen or more survivors of that ill-fated dash from the north gate of the palace flash for a second across their line of vision. Mother Jenks croaked dismally, like a disreputable old raven; she was trying to cheer.
“The rats are leavin' the sinkin' ship,” she wheezed. “Come an' see them tyke the devils as killed my sainted 'Enery.” She broke eagerly from Dolores's detaining grasp and ran down the street. Dolores hesitated a moment; then, reasoning that her duty lay in pursuing Mother Jenks and preventing her from rushing headlong into the conflict, she followed.
Evidently the fleeing Guards had scurried around a corner into a cross-street shortly after Dolores and Mother Jenks had seen them gallop past, for the firing down the Calle San Rosario had ceased entirely by the time they reached it. They stood a moment at the corner, gazing up the street at the dead—man and beast—with the wounded crawling out of the shambles to the sidewalk.
Mother Jenks nodded approvingly as triumphant shouts from the north gate told her the Ruey men were pouring into the palace; with their arms about each other the two women watched and waited—and presently the national flag on the palace came fluttering down from its staff, to be raised again with the red banner of revolution fluttering above it, the insignia of a nation reborn.
“My lamb,” Mother Jenks said softly to Dolores, “the war is over. Wot's the matter with goin' in the south gate an' wytin' on the palace steps for the provisional president to make his grand ountray? If we 'esitate five minutes they'll have a bloomin' guard on both gates, arskin' us 'oo we are an' wot we want.”
“But Mr. Webster will come to that back street looking for me; I must go back and wait there for him.”
“Wyte, nothink!” Mother Jenks overruled the girl's protest roughly. “'E'll 'ave gone into the palace with the crowd for a look-see; we'll meet 'im there an' syve 'im the trouble o' 'untin' for us. Come!” And she half dragged the shrinking girl toward the gate, a block distant, where only a few minutes before Webster and Don Juan Cafetéro had made their ineffectual stand.
“Don't look at the blighters, honey,” Mother Jenks warned Dolores when, in approaching the gate, she caught sight of the bodies strewed in front of it. “My word! Regular bally mess—an' all spiggoties! Cawn't be. Must 'ave been some white meat on this bird, as my sainted 'Enery uster s'y. Hah! Thought so! There's a red-headed 'un! Gawd's truth! An' 'e done all that—Gor' strike me pink! It's Don Juan Cafetéro.”
Mother Jenks stepped over the gory corpses ringed around Don Juan and knelt beside him. “Don Juan!” she cried. “You bally, interferin' blighter, you've gone an' got it!”
She ran her strong old arms under his dripping body, lifted him and laid his red head on her knee, while with her free hand she drew a small flask of brandy from her dress pocket.
Don Juan opened his buttermilk eyes and gazed up at her with slowly dawning wonder, then closed them again, drowsily, like a tired child. Mother Jenks pressed the flask to his blue lips; as the brandy bit his tongue he rolled his fiery head in feeble protest and weakly set his teeth against the lip of the flask. Wondering, Mother Jenks withdrew it—and then Don Juan spoke.
“Have ye the masther's permission, allanah? I give him me worm av honour—not—to dhrink—till—he—give—permission. He—was good—to me—troth he was—God—love—me—boss——”
His jaw dropped loosely; his head rolled sideways; but ere his spirit fled, Don Juan Cafetéro had justified the faith of his master. He had kept his word of honour. He had made good on his brag to die for John Stuart Webster and welcome the chance! Mother Jenks held his body a little while, gazing into the face no longer rubicund; then gently she eased it to the ground and for the first time was aware that Dolores knelt in the dirt opposite to her striving to lift the body upon which Don Juan had been lying.
The strength of Dolores was unequal to the task; so Mother Jenks, hardened, courageous, calm as her sainted 'Enery at his inglorious finish, rose and stepped around to her side to help her. She could see this other was a white man, too; coolly she stooped and wiped his gory face with the hem of her apron. And then she recognized him!
“Lift him up! Give him to me!” Dolores sobbed. “Oh, Caliph, my poor dear, big-hearted blundering boy!”
She got her arm under his head; Mother Jenks aided her; and the limp body was lifted to a sitting position; then Dolores knelt on one knee, supporting him with the other, and drew his head over on her shoulder; with her white cheek cuddled against his, she spoke into his deaf ears the little, tender, foolish words that mothers have for their children, that women have for the stricken men of their love. She pleaded with him to open his eyes, to speak to her and tell her he still lived; so close was his face to hers that she saw an old but very faint white scar running diagonally across his left eyebrow—and kissed it.
Presently strong arms took him from her; clinging to somebody—she knew not whom—she followed, moaning broken-heartedly, while eight men, forming a rude litter with four rifles passed under his body, bore Webster to the shade of a tufted palm inside the palace gate.
As they laid Webster down for a moment there Dolores saw a tall, youthful man, of handsome features and noble bearing, approach and look at him. In his eyes there were tears; a sob escaped him as with a little impulsive, affectionate movement he patted John Stuart Webster's cheek.
“My friend!” the fainting Dolores heard him murmur. “My great-hearted, whimsical, lovable John Webster. You made it possible for me to meet you here to-night—and this is the meeting!”
CHAPTER XXVII
WHILE Ricardo watched beside the unconscious Webster one of his aides galloped up the street, to return presently with a detachment with stretchers, into which Webster and Don Juan Cafetéro were laid and carried up the palace driveway into the huge golden reception-hall where only the night before Sarros had greeted the belles and beaux of his capital. In the meantime Mother Jenks had succeeded in restoring Dolores to consciousness; supported by the indomitable old woman the girl slowly followed the grim procession until, at the door of the reception-room, they found their further progress barred by a sentry.
“The red-haired man is dead,” he informed them in response to their eager queries. “If you want his body,” he continued, hazarding a guess as to their mission, “I guess you can have it. There he is.” And the sentry pointed to the stretcher which had been set down along the wall of the reception-hall.
“'Ow about the other?” Mother Jenks demanded. Don Juan Cafetéro had, unfortunately, been so much of a nuisance to her in life that she was not minded to be troubled greatly over him in death, although the Spartanlike manner of his exit had thrilled the British bulldog blood in her.
“The big fellow isn't quite dead yet, but I'm afraid he's a goner. The surgeons have him in this room now. Friend of yours, Miss?” he inquired in tones freighted with neighbourly sympathy.
Dolores nodded.
“Sorry I can't let you in, Miss,” he continued, “but the General ordered me to keep everybody out until the doctors have finished looking him over. If I was you, I'd wait in that room across the hall; then you can get the first news when the doctors come out.”
Mother Jenks accepted his advice and steered her charge into the room indicated. And as they waited, Ricardo Ruey stood anxiously beside the table on which John Stuart Webster's big, limp body reposed, while Doctor Pacheco, assisted by a Sobrantean confrère, went deftly over him with surgical scissors and cut the blood-soaked clothing from his body.
“He breathes very gently,” the rebel leader said, presently. “Is there any hope?”
The little doctor shrugged. “I fear not. That bayonet-thrust in the left side missed his heart but not his lung.”
“But apparently he hasn't bled much from that wound.”
“The hemorrhage is probably internal. Even if that congestion of blood in the lungs does not prove fatal very shortly, he cannot, in his weakened state, survive the traumatic fever from all these wounds. It is bound—hello, how our poor friend still lives with the bayonet broken off in his body—for here is steel—hah! Not a bayonet, but a pistol.”
He unbuttoned the wounded man's coat and found a strap running diagonally up across his breast and over the right shoulder, connecting with a holster under the left arm. The doctor unbuckled this strap and removed the holster, which contained Webster's spare gun; Ricardo, glancing disinterestedly at the sheathed weapon, noted a small, new, triangular hole in the leather holster. He picked it up, withdrew the pistol, and found a deep scratch, recently made, along the blued steel close to the vulcanite butt.
When Ricardo glanced at Pacheco after his scrutiny of the pistol and holster, the doctor's dark eyes were regarding him mirthfully.
“I have been unnecessarily alarmed, my general,” said Pacheco. “Our dear friend has been most fortunate in his choice of wounds——”
“He's a lucky Yankee; that's what he is, my dear Pacheco. A lucky Yankee!” Ricardo leaned over and examined the bayonet-wound in Webster's left side. “He took the point of the steel on this pistol he happened to be wearing under his left arm,” he went on to explain. “That turned the bayonet and it slid along his ribs, making a superficial flesh-wound.”
Pacheco nodded. “And this bullet merely burned the top of his right shoulder, while another passed through his biceps without touching the bone. His most severe wound is this jab in the hip.”
They stripped every stitch of clothing from Webster and went over him carefully. At the back of his head they found a little clotted blood from a small split in the scalp; also they found a lump of generous proportions. Pacheco laughed briefly but contentedly.
“Then he is not even seriously injured?” Ricardo interrupted that laugh.
“I would die of fright if I had to fight this fine fellow a month from to-day,” the little doctor chirped. “Look at that chest, mi general—and that flat abdomen. The man is in superb physical condition; it is the bump on the head that renders him unconscious—not loss of blood.”
As if to confirm this expert testimony Webster at that moment breathed long and deeply, screwed up his face and shook his head very slightly. Thereafter for several minutes he gave no further evidence of an active interest in life—seeing which Pacheco decided to take prompt advantage of his unconsciousness and probe the wounds in his arm and shoulder for the fragments of clothing which the bullets must have carried into them. After ten minutes of probing Pacheco announced that he was through and ready to bandage; whereupon John Stuart Webster said faintly but very distinctly, in English:
“I'm awfully glad you are, Doc'. It hurt like hell! Did you manage to get a bite on that fishing-trip?”
“Jack Webster, you scoundrel!” Ricardo yelled joyously, and he shook the patient with entire disregard of the latter's wounds. “Oh, man, I'm glad you're not dead.”
“Your sentiments appeal to me strongly, my friend. I'm—too—tired to look—at you. Who the devil—are you?”
“I'm Ricardo.”
Fell a silence, while Webster prepared for another speech. “Where am I?”
“In the palace.”
“Hum-m! Then it was a famous victory.”
“One strong, decisive blow did the trick, old chap. We won pulled-up, and that forty-thousand-dollar bet of yours is safe. I'll cash the ticket for you tomorrow morning.”
“Damn the forty thousand. Where's my Croppy Boy?”
“Your what?”
“My wild Irish blackthorn, Don Juan Cafetéro.”
“I hope, old man, he has ere now that which all brave Irishmen and true deserve—a harp with a crown. In life the Irish have the harp without the crown, you know.”
“How did he die?” Webster whispered.
“He died hard, with the holes in front—and he died for you.”
Two big tears trickled slowly through Webster's closed lids and rolled across his pale cheek. “Poor, lost, lonesome, misunderstood wreck,” he murmured presently, “he was an extremist in all things. He used to sing those wonderfully poetic ballads of his people—I remember one that began: 'Green were the fields where my forefathers dwelt.' I think his heart was in Kerry—so we'll send him there. He's my dead, Ricardo; care for his body, because I'm—going to plant Don Juan with the—shamrocks. They didn't understand him here. He was an exile—so I'm going to send him—home.”
“He shall have a military funeral,” Rocardo promised.
“From the cathedral,” Webster added. “And take a picture of it for his people. He told me about them. I want them to think he amounted to something, after all. And when you get this two-by-four republic of yours going again, Rick, you might have your congress award Don Juan a thousand dollars oro for capturing Sarros. Then we can send the money to his old folks.”
“But he didn't capture Sarros,” Ricardo protested. “The man escaped when the Guards cut their way through.”
“He didn't. That was a ruse while he beat it out the gate where you found me. I saw Don Juan knock him cold with the but of his rifle after I'd brought down his horse.”
“Do you think he's there yet?”
“He may be—provided all this didn't happen the day before yesterday. If I wanted him, I'd go down and look for him, Rick.”
“I'll go right away, Jack.”
“One minute, then. Send a man around to that little back street where they have the wounded—it's a couple of blocks away from here—to tell Mother Jenks and the young lady with her I'll not be back.”
“They're both outside now. They must have gone looking for you, because they found you and Don Juan first and then told me about it.”
“Who told you?”
“Mother Jenks.”
“Oh! Well, run along and get your man.” Ricardo departed on the run, taking the sentry at the door with him and in his haste giving no thought to Mother Jenks and her companion waiting for the doctor's verdict. In the palace grounds he gathered two more men and bade them follow him; leading by twenty yards, he emerged at the gate and paused to look around him.
Some hundred feet down the street from the palace gate Sarros's bay charger lay dead. When Webster's bullet brought the poor beast down, his rider had fallen clear of him, only to fall a victim to the ferocity of Don Juan Cafetéro. Later, as Sarros lay stunned and bleeding beside his mount, the stricken animal in its death-struggle had half risen, only to fall again, this time on the extended left leg of his late master; consequently when Sarros recovered consciousness following the thoughtful attentions of his assailant, it was to discover himself a hopeless prisoner. The heavy carcass of his horse pinned his foot and part of his leg to the ground, rendering him as helpless and desperate as a trapped animal. For several minutes now he had been striving frantically to release himself; with his sound right leg pressed against the animal's backbone he tried to gain sufficient purchase to withdraw his left leg from the carcass.
As Ricardo caught sight of Sarros he instinctively realized that this was his mortal enemy; motioning his men to stand back, he approached the struggling man on tiptoe and thoughtfully possessed himself of the dictator's pistol, which lay in back of him but not out of reach. Just as he did so, Sarros, apparently convinced of the futility of his efforts to free himself, surrendered to fate and commenced rather pitifully to weep with rage and despair.
Ricardo watched him for a few seconds, for there was just sufficient of the blood of his Castilian ancestors still in his veins to render this sorry spectacle rather an enjoyable one to him. Besides, he was 50 per cent. Iberian, a race which can hate quite as thoroughly as it can love, and for a time Ricardo even nourished the thought of still further indulging his thirst for revenge by pretending to aid Sarros in his escape! Presently, however, he put the ungenerous thought from him; seizing the dead horse by the tail, he dragged the carcass off his enemy's leg, and while Sarros sat up, tailor-fashion, and commenced to tub the circulation back into the bruised member, Ricardo seated himself on the rump of the dead horse and appraised his prisoner critically.
Sarros glanced up, remembered his manners and very heartily and gracefully thanked his deliverer.
“It is not a matter for which thanks are due me, Sarros,” Ricardo replied coldly. “I am Ricardo Luiz Ruey, and I have come back to Sobrante to pay my father's debt to you. You will remember having forced the obligation upon me in the cemetery some fifteen years ago.”
For perhaps ten horrified seconds Sarros stared at Ricardo; then the dark blood in him came to his defense; his tense pose relaxed; the fright and despair left his swarthy countenance as if erased with a moist sponge, leaving him as calmly stoical and indifferent as a cigarstore Indian. He fumbled in his coat pocket for a gold cigarette case, selected a cigarette, lighted it and blew smoke at Ricardo. The jig was up; he knew it; and with admirable nonchalance he declined to lower his presidential dignity by discussing or considering it. He realized it would delight his captor to know he dreaded to face the issue, and it was not a Sarros practice to give aid and comfort to the enemy.
“Spunky devil!” Ricardo reflected, forced to admiration despite himself. Aloud he said: “You know the code of our people, Sarros. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.”
Sarros bowed. “I am at your service,” he replied carelessly.
“Then at daylight to-morrow morning I shall make settlement.” Ricardo beckoned his men to approach. “Take this man and confine him under a double guard in the arsenal,” he ordered. “Present my compliments to the officer in charge there and tell him it is my wish that a priest be provided for the prisoner to-night, and that to-morrow morning, at six o'clock, a detail of six men and a sergeant escort this man to the cemetery in the rear of the Catedral de la Cruz. I will meet the detail there and take command of it.”
Two of Ricardo's imported fighting men stepped to the prisoner's side, seized him, one by each arm, and lifted him to his feet; supported between them, he limped away to his doom, while his youthful conqueror remained seated on the dead horse, his gaze bent upon the ground, his mind dwelling, not upon his triumph over Sarros but upon the prodigious proportions of the task before him: the rehabilitation of a nation. After a while he rose and strolled over toward the gate, where he paused to note the grim evidences of the final stand of Webster and Don Juan Cafetéro before passing through the portal. .
Ricardo had now, for the first time, an opportunity to look around him; so he halted to realize his homecoming, to thrill with this, the first real view of the home of his boyhood. The spacious lawn surrounding the palace had been plowed and scarred with bursting shrapnel from the field guns captured in the arsenal, although the building itself had been little damaged, not having sustained a direct hit because of Ricardo's stringent orders not to use artillery on the palace unless absolutely necessary to smoke Sarros out. Scattered over the grounds Ricardo counted some twenty-odd Government soldiers, all wearing that pathetically flat, crumpled appearance which seems inseparable from the bodies of men killed in action. The first shrapnel had probably commenced to drop in the grounds just as a portion of the palace garrison had been marching out to join the troops fighting at the cantonment barracks. Evidently the men had scattered like quail, only to be killed as they ran.
From this grim scene Ricardo raised his eyes to the palace, the castellated towers of which, looming through the tufted palms, were reflecting the setting sun. Over the balustrade of one of the upper balconies the limp body of a Sarros sharpshooter, picked off from the street, drooped grotesquely, his arms hanging downward as if in ironical welcome to the son of Ruey the Beloved. The sight induced in Ricardo a sense of profound sadness; his Irish imagination awoke; to him that mute figure seemed to call upon him for pity, for kindness, for forbearance, for understanding and sympathy. Those outflung arms of the martyred peon symbolized to Ricardo Ruey the spirit of liberty, shackled and helpless, calling upon him for deliverance; they brought to his alert mind a clearer realization of the duty that was his than he had ever had before. He had a great task to perform, a task inaugurated by his father, and which Ricardo could not hope to finish in his lifetime. He must solve the agrarian problem; he must develop the rich natural resources of his country; he must provide free, compulsory education and evolve from the ignorance of the peon an intelligence that would built up that which Sobrante, in common with her sister republics, so woefully lacked—the great middle class that stands always as a buffer between the aggression and selfishness of the upper class and the helplessness and childishness of the lower.
Ricardo bowed his head. “Help me, O Lord,” he prayed. “Thou hast give me in Thy wisdom a man's task. Help me that I may not prove unworthy.”
CHAPTER XXVIII
MOTHER JENKS, grown impatient at the lack of news concerning Webster, left Dolores to her grief in the room across the hall and sought the open air, for of late she had been experiencing with recurring frequency a slight feeling of suffocation. She sat down on the broad granite steps, helped herself to a much-needed “bracer” from her brandy flask and was gazing pensively at the scene around her when Ricardo came up the stairs.
“'Elio!” Mother Jenks saluted him. “W'ere 'ave you been, Mr. Bowers?”
“I have just returned from capturing Sarros, Mrs. Jenks. He is on his way to the arsenal under guard.”
“Gor' strike me pink!” the old lady cried. “'Ave I lived to see this day!” Her face was wreathed in a happy smile. “I wonder 'ow the beggar feels to 'ave the shoe on the other foot, eh—the'eartless'ound! I'm 'opin' this General Ruey will 'ave the blighter shot.”
“You need have no worry on that score, Mrs. Jenks. I'm General Ruey. Andrew Bowers was just my summer name, as it were.”
“Angels guard me! Wot the bloomin' 'ell surprise won't we 'ave next. Wot branch o' the Ruey tribe do you belong to? Are you a nephew o' him that was president before Sarros shot 'im? Antonio Ruey, who was 'arf brother to the president, 'ad a son 'e called Ricardo. Are you 'im, might I arsk?”
“I am the son of Ricardo the Beloved,” he answered proudly.
“Not the lad as was away at school when 'is father was hexecuted?”
“I am that same lad, Mrs. Jenks. And who are you? You seem to know a deal of my family history.”
“I,” the old publican replied with equal pride, “am Mrs. Colonel 'Enery Jenks, who was your father's chief of hartillery an' 'ad the hextreme honour o' dyin' in front o' the same wall with 'im. By the w'y, 'ow's Mr. Webster?” she added, suddenly remembering the subject closest to her heart just then.
“His wounds are trifling. He'll live, Mrs. Jenks.”
“Well, that's better than gettin' poked in the eye with a sharp stick,” the old dame decided philosophically.
“Do you remember my little sister, Mrs. Jenks?” Ricardo continued. “She was in the palace when Sarros attacked it; she perished there.”
“I believe I 'ave got a slight recollection o' the nipper, sir,” Mother Jenks answered cautiously. To herself she said: “I s'y, 'Enrietta, 'ere's a pretty go. 'E don't know the lamb is livin' an' in the next room! My word, wot a riot w'en 'e meets 'er!”
“I will see you again, Mrs. Jenks. I must have a long talk with you,” Ricardo told her, and passed on into the palace; whereupon Mother Jenks once more fervently implored the Almighty to strike her pink, and the iron restraint of a long, hard, exciting day being relaxed at last, the good soul bowed her gray head in her arms and wept, moving her body from side to side the while and demanding, of no one in particular, a single legitimate reason why she, a blooming old baggage and not fit to live, should be the recipient of such manifold blessings as this day had brought forth.
In the meantime Ricardo, with his hand on the knob of the door leading to the room where Webster was having his wounds dressed, paused suddenly, his attention caught by the sound of a sob, long-drawn and inexpressibly pathetic. He listened and made up his mind that a woman in the room across the entrance-hall was bewailing the death of a loved one who answered to the name of Caliph and John darling. Further eavesdropping convinced him that Caliph, John darling, and Mr. John Stuart Webster were one and the same person, and so he tilted his head on one side like a cock-robin and considered.
“By jingo, that's most interesting,” he decided. “The wounded hero has a sweetheart or a wife—and an American, too. She must be a recent acquisition, because all the time we were together on the steamer coming down here he never spoke of either, despite the fact that we got friendly enough for such confidences. Something funny about this. I'd better sound the old boy before I start passing out words of comfort to that unhappy female.”
He passed on into the room. John Stuart Webster had, by this time, been washed and bandaged, and one of the Sarros servants (for the ex-dictator's retinue still occupied the palace) had, at Doctor Pacheco's command, prepared a guest-chamber upstairs and furnished a nightgown of ample proportions to cover Mr. Webster's bebandaged but otherwise naked person. A stretcher had just arrived, and the wounded man was about to be carried upstairs. The late financial backer of the revolution was looking very pale and dispirited; for once in his life his whimsical, bantering nature was subdued. His eyes were closed, and he did not open them when Ricardo entered.
“Well, I have Sarros,” the latter declared. Webster paid not the slightest attention to this announcement. Ricardo bent over him. “Jack, old boy,” he queried, “do you know a person of feminine persuasion who calls you Caliph?”
John Stuart Webster's eyes and mouth flew wide open. “What the devil!” he tried to roar. “You haven't been speaking to her, have you? If you have, I'll never forgive you, because you've spoiled my little surprise party.”
“No, I haven't been speaking to her, but she's in the next room crying fit to break her heart because she thinks you've been killed.”
“You scoundrel! Aren't you human? Go tell her it's only a couple of punctures, not a blowout.” He sighed. “Isn't it sweet of her to weep over an old hunks like me!” he added softly. “Bless her tender heart!”
“Who is she?” Ricardo was very curious.
“That's none of your business. You wait and I'll tell you. She's the guest I told you I was going to bring to dinner, and that's enough for you to know for the present. Vaya, you idiot, and bring her in here, so I can assure her my head is bloody but unbowed. Doctor, throw that rug over my shanks and make me look pretty. I'm going to receive company.”
His glance, bent steadily on the door, had in it some of the alert, bright wistfulness frequently to be observed in the eyes of a terrier standing expectantly before a rat-hole. The instant the door opened and Dolores's tear-stained face appeared, he called to her with the old-time camaraderie, for he had erased from his mind, for the nonce, the memory of the tragedy of poor Don Juan Cafetéro and was concerned solely with the task of banishing the tears from those brown eyes and bringing the joy of life back to that sweet face.
“Hello, Seeress,” he called weakly. “Little Johnny's been fighting again, and the bad boys gave him an all-fired walloping.”
There was a swift rustle of skirts, and she was bending over him, her hot little palms clasping eagerly his pale, rough cheeks. “Oh, my dear, my dear!” she whispered, and then her voice choked with the happy tears and she was sobbing on his wounded shoulder. Ricardo stooped to draw her away, but John Stuart bent upon him a look of such frightfulness that he drew back abashed. After all, the past twenty-four hours had been quite exciting, and Ricardo reflected that John's inamorata was tired and frightened and probably hadn't eaten anything all day long, so there was ample excuse for her hysteria.
“Come, come, buck up,” Webster soothed her, and helped himself to a long whiff of her fragrant hair. “Old man Webster had one leg in the grave, but they've pulled it out again.”
Still she sobbed.
“Now, listen to me, lady,” he commanded with mock severity. “You just stop that. You're wasting your sympathy; and while, of course, I enjoy your sympathy a heap, just pause to reflect on the result if those salt tears should happen to drop into one of my numerous wounds.”
“I'm so sorry for you, Caliph,” she murmured brokenly. “You poor, harmless boy! I don't see how any one could be so fiendish as to hurt you when you were so distinctly a non-combatant.”
“Thank you. Let us forget the Hague Conference for the present, however. Have you met your brother?” he whispered.
“No, Caliph.”
“Ricardo.”
“Yes, Jack.”
“Come here. Rick, you scheming, unscrupulous, bloodthirsty adventurer, I have a tremendous surprise in store for you. The sweetest girl in the world—and she's right here——”
Ricardo laughingly held up his hand. “Jack, my friend,” he interrupted, “you're too weak to make a speech. Don't do it. Besides, you do not have to.” He turned and bowed gracefully to Dolores. “I can see for myself she's the sweetest girl in the world, and that she's right here.” He held out his hand to her. “Jack thinks he's going to spring a surprise,” he continued maliciously, “quite forgetting that a good soldier never permits himself to be taken by surprise. I know all about his little secret, because I heard you mourning for him when you thought he was dead.” Ricardo favoured her with a knowing wink. “I am delighted to meet the future Mrs. Webster. I quite understand why you fell in love with him, because, you see, I love him myself and do does everybody else.”
With typical Castilian courtliness he took her hand, bowed low over it, and kissed it. “I am Ricardo Luiz Ruey,” he said, anxious to spare his friend the task of further exhausting conversation. “And you are——”
“You're a consummate jackass!” groaned Webster. “I'm only a dear old family friend, and Dolores is going to marry Billy Geary. You impetuous idiot! She's your own sister Dolores Ruey. She, Mark Twain, and I have ample cause for common complaint against the world because the reports of our death have been grossly exaggerated. She didn't perish when your father's administration crumbled. Miss Ruey, this is your brother Ricardo. Kiss her you damn' fool—forgive me, Miss Ruey—oh, Lord, nothing matters any more. He's gummed everything up and ruined my party. I wish I were dead.”
Ricardo stared from the outraged Webster to his sister and back again.
“Jack Webster,” he declared, “you aren't crazy, are you?”
“Of course he is—the old dear,” Dolores cried happily, “but I'm not.” She stepped up to her brother, and her arms went around his neck. “Oh, Rick,” she cried, “I'm your sister. Truly, I am.”
“Dolores. My little lost sister Dolores? Why, I can't believe it!”
“Well, you'd better believe it,” John Stuart Webster growled feebly. “Of course, you can doubt my word and get away with it, now that I'm flat on my back, but if you dare cast aspersions on that girl's veracity, I'll murder you a month from now.”
He closed his eyes, feeling instinctively that he ought not spy on such a sacred family scene. When, however, the affecting meeting was over and Dolores was ruffling the Websterian foretop while her brother pressed the Websterian hand and tried to say all the things he felt but couldn't express, John Stuart Webster brought them both back to a realization of present conditions.
“Don't thank me, sir,” he piped in pathetic imitation of the small boy of melodrama. “I have only done me duty, and for that I cannot accept this purse of gold, even though my father and mother are starving.”
“Oh, Caliph, do be serious,” Dolores pleaded.
He looked up at her fondly. “Take your brother out to Mother Jenks and prove your case, Miss Ruey,” he advised her. “And while you're at it, I certainly hope somebody will remember I'm not accustomed to reposing on a centre table. Rick, if you can persuade some citizen of this conquered commonwealth to put me to bed, I'd be obliged. I'm dead tired, old horse. I'm—ah—sleepy——”
His head rolled weakly to one side, for he had been playing a part and had nerved himself to finish it gracefully, even in his weakened condition. He sighed, moaned slightly, and slipped into unconsciousness.
CHAPTER XXIX
THROUGHOUT the night there was sporadic firing here and there in the city, as the Ruey followers relentlessly hunted down the isolated detachment of Government troops which had escaped annihilation and capture in the final rout and fallen back on the city, where, concealing themselves according to their nature and inclination, they indulged in more or less sniping from windows and the roofs of buildings. The practice of taking no prisoners was an old one in Sobrante, and few presidents had done more than Sarros to keep that custom alive; ergo, firm in the conviction that to surrender was tantamount to facing a firing squad at daylight, the majority of these stragglers, with consummate courage, fought to the death.
The capture of Buenaventura was alone sufficient to insure a brief revolution, but the capture of Sarros was ample guarantee that the resistance to the new order of things was already at an end. However, Ricardo Ruey felt that the prompt execution of Sarros would be an added guarantee of peace by effectually discouraging any opposition to the rebel cause in the outlying districts, where a few isolated garrisons still remained in ignorance of the momentous events being enacted in the capital. For the time being, Ricardo was master of life and death in Sobrante, and all of his advisers and supporters agreed with him that a so-called trial of the ex-dictator would be a rather useless affair. His life was forfeit a hundred times for murder and treason, and to be ponderous over his elimination would savour of mockery. Accordingly, at midnight, a priest entered the room in the arsenal where Sarros was confined, and shrived him. Throughout the night the priest remained with him, and when that early morning march to the cemetery commenced, he walked beside Sarros, repeating the prayers for the dying.
Upon reaching the cemetery there was a slight wait until a carriage drove up and discharged Ricardo Ruey and Mother Jenks. The sergeant in command of the squad saluted and was briefly ordered to proceed with the matter in hand; whereupon he turned to Sarros, who with the customary sang froid of his kind upon such occasions was calmly smoking, and bowed deprecatingly. Sarros actually smiled upon him. “Adios, amigos” he murmured. Then, as an afterthought and probably because he was sufficient of an egoist to desire to appear a martyr, he added heroically: “I die for my country. May God have mercy on my enemies.”
“If you'd cared to play a gentleman's game, you blighter, you might 'ave lived for your bally country,” Mother Jenks reminded him in English. “Wonder if the beggar 'll wilt or will 'e go through smilin' like my sainted 'Enery on the syme spot.”
She need not have worried. It requires a strong man to be dictator of a Roman-candle republic for fifteen years, and whatever his sins of omission or commission, Sarros did not lack animal courage. Alone and unattended he limped away among the graves to the wall on the other side of the cemetery and placed his back against it, negligently in the attitude of a devil-may-care fellow without a worry in life. The sergeant waited respectfully until Sarros had finished his cigarette; when he tossed it away and straightened to attention, the sergeant knew he was ready to die. At his command there was a sudden rattle of bolts as the cartridges slid from the magazines into the breeches; there followed a momentary halt, another command; the squad was aiming when Ricardo Ruey called sharply:
“Sergeant, do not give the order to fire.”
The rifles were lowered and the men gazed wonderingly at Ricardo. “He's too brave,” Ricardo complained. “Damn him, I can't kill him as I would a mad-dog. I've got to give him a chance.” The sergeant raised his brows expressively. Ah, the ley fuga, that popular form of execution where the prisoner is given a running chance, and the firing-squad practises wing shooting If the prisoner manages, miraculously, to escape, he is not pursued!
A doubt, however, crossed the sergeant's mind. “But, my general,” he expostulated, “Senor Sarros cannot accept the ley fuga. He is very lame. That is not giving him the chance your Excellency desires he should have.”
“I wasn't thinking of that,” Ricardo replied. “I was thinking I'm killing him without a fair trial for the reason that he's so infernally ripe for the gallows that a trial would have been a joke. Nevertheless, I am really killing him because he killed my father—and that is scarcely fair. My father was a gentleman. Sergeant, is your pistol loaded?”
“Yes, General.”
“Give it to Senor Sarros.”
As the sergeant started forward to comply Ricardo drew his own service revolver and then motioned Mother Jenks and the firing-squad to stand aside while he crossed to the centre of the cemetery. “Sarros,” he called, “I am going to let God decide which one of us shall live. When the sergeant gives the command to fire, I shall open fire on you, and you are free to do the same to me. Sergeant, if he kills me and escapes unhurt, my orders are to escort him to the bay in my carriage and put him safely aboard the steamer.”
Mother Jenks sat down on a tombstone. “Gord's truth!” she gasped, “but there's a rare plucked 'un.” Aloud she croaked: “Don't be a bally ass, sir.”
“Silence!” he commanded.
The sergeant handed Sarros the revolver. “You heard what I said?” Ricardo called.
Sarros bowed gravely.
“You understand your orders, Sergeant?”
“Yes, General.”
“Very well. Proceed. If this prisoner fires before you give the word, have your squad riddle him.” The sergeant backed away and gazed owlishly from the prisoner to his captor. “Ready!” he called. Both revolvers came up. “Fire!” he shouted, and the two shots were discharged simultaneously. Ricardo's cap flew off his head, but he remained standing, while Sarros staggered back against the wall and there recovering himself gamely, fired again. He scored a clean miss, and Ricardo's gun barked three times; Sarros sprawled on his face, rose to his knees, raised his pistol halfway, fired into the sky and slid forward on his face. Ricardo stood beside the body until the sergeant approached and stood to attention, his attitude saying:
“It is over. What next, General?”
“Take the squad back to the arsenal, Sergeant,” Ricardo ordered him coolly, and walked back to recover his uniform cap. He was smiling as he ran his finger through a gaping hole in the upper half of the crown.
“Well, Mrs. Jenks,” he announced when he rejoined the old lady, “that was better than executing him with a firing-squad. I gave him a square deal. Now his friends can never say that I murdered him.” He extended his hand to help Mother Jenks to her feet. She stood erect and felt again that queer swelling of the heart, the old feeling of suffocation.
“Steady, lass!” she mumbled. “'Old on to me, sir. It's my bally haneurism. Gor'—I'm—chokin'——”
He caught her in his arms as she lurched toward him. Her face was purple, and in her eyes there was a queer fierce light that went out suddenly, leaving them dull and glazed. When she commenced to sag in his arms, he eased her gently to the ground and laid her on her back in the grass.
“The nipper's safe, 'Enery,” he heard her murmur. “I've raised 'er a lydy, s'elp me—she's back where—you found 'er— 'Enery——”
She quivered, and the light came creeping back into her eyes before it faded forever. “Comin', 'Enery—darlin',” she whispered; and then the soul of Mother Jenks, who had a code and lived up to it (which is more than the majority of us do), had departed upon the ultimate journey. Ricardo gazed down on the hard old mouth, softened now by a little half-smile of mingled yearning and gladness: “What a wonderful soul you had,” he murmured, and kissed her.
In the end she slept in the niche in the wall of the Catedral de la Vera Cruz, beside her sainted 'Enery.