FOR four reasons we purpose now to move, by summery stages and many an ocean isle, to Portate, whither these, my written words, will perhaps not long precede us.
The four reasons: First; the poet Sadler claims to have been once banished by executive edict from the city of Portate, and has a notion he would like to examine his condition of exile, so to speak, at close range; to poke once more a certain irascible Jefe Municipal, or Mayor, doubtless of your acquaintance, in the midriff of his temper. Second; Mrs. Ulswater seems to have a singular hankering affection for one who, she says, “was the nicest boy there is,”—a distinct opinion in a confusion of tenses.
Third; the poet Susannah. Now what the bearing may be, in Mrs. Ulswater's mind, of Portate on Susannah, is not so clear to me. But to me this is clear, that Susannah is in a way outgrowing the capacity of islands. She is in need, I admit, of a continental connection. Fourth; I have some researches to make in South-American archaeology.
Ah, Susannah! What is there about this frank maidenhood that a mist sometimes gathers in Mrs. Ulswater's lucid eyes in looking at her. Susannah's nature is not, as yet, I should say, compact of softest sentiment. Passionate in affection, sudden in resolve, terrific in action, given to valour and wrath, why about her should the emotions of this vessel all dance in a species of harmonious jig? Why should this concussive and rebounding person rouse in my own glutinous nature a phosphorescent glow, as of a jelly fish, and cause my languid tentacles of emotion to flutter about like a flag in the wind? Why lies the melancholy Sadler tonight on the small of his back in a deck chair, his knees hooked over the rail, his feet pendant above the sea, and, in a foggy voice, to an abominable tune and the twankle of an exasperating banjo, sing:
“Good night, my Starlight,
Queen of my heart.
You are my star bright,
We are apart.
Me where the high seas
Thunder and smite,
You in your sky dreams,
Good night, Starlight.”
I do not, indeed, apprehend Sadler to be directly addressing Susannah, as such, in these terms and with that inharmonious vocalisation; but I apprehend the impact of Susannah upon Sadler to arouse in him something other than jubilation, something within the sunless caverns of his memory, certain uneasy glimmerings of an old romance. And I ask, why? To the eye of pure reason, Susannah contains as much of the vapour of moonlit sentiment as a coal scuttle. The eye of pure reason, after any continuous examination of Susannah, feels as if it had been in a prize fight, and emerged therefrom a blackened optic and out of business for the time. And yet there arises—hark! again, above the low breath of the sea wind, rises that melancholy song:
“ Good night, my Starlight,
Trembling to tears,
White is my hair, white
In the wake of the years.
Over the lee wave
You shine on my night,
Me, the old sea waif,
Good night, Starlight?”
Yours—Ulswater.
(End of Dr. Ulswater's Fourth and Last Manuscript. )
THE city of Portate, on the west coast of South America, when I knew it, had already a distinct flavour of enterprise. Two Northern companies had much to do with its affairs. One of them, The Union Electric, had the trolleys and the street lighting; the other had been longer on the ground, was called The Transport Company, and owned the inland railroad and the principal line of steamers in the harbour. I had charge of The Union Electric plant. Both were large companies operating in numerous South-American cities.
There is a river called the Jiron, which runs down from the mountains, and makes a green strip through a desert land, and so on through Portate to the sea. Even from the sea you can make out the white caps of the Andes; but in the heats of Portate, you decline to believe that the white is snow.
Portate is the seaport of the country. There is a telegraph line running inland to the capital. The monkeys do gymnastics on the wires, and the natives steal sections of it to tie their roofs on with, on the theory that the thing is plain foolishness, and the enterprise of fools is the profit of the wise. Then you go around and lam the native and take the wire, but he stays by his own opinion, and the Government wants to know what you mean by allowing official messages to be interrupted; for, they say, monkeys and roofs are not in the contract, and call it improper frivolity to mention them: “Why tie on roofs with official messages? Why improperly submit important business to the gymnastics of creatures without intelligence?”—till you come out of it by swearing yourself blood relation to all the monkeys on the Jiron, which seems as satisfactory as anything, being put down to the inherited madness of the Northerner. There are several varieties of monkeys on the Jiron.
In the city of Portate there are wharves, which float off to sea in freshets, and have to be pursued and brought back in disgrace. The trolley line goes from the wharves to the Plaza, and then visiting about town. The telephones and electric lights are the pride of the enlightened, but the unenlightened think they are run by connection with that pit of the sinful about which Padre Rafael is an authority.
“For, observe! It is not as wood that it burns. Madré de Dios, no! It is the wrath of the devil on the end of a stick.”
The Union Electric had the contract for the whole outfit of the lights and trolleys, and sent me down to handle it. I had good nerve then. I thought electricity was king, and that a man could do anything he set out to do. He can, but my nerve is not so good now.
Now The Union Electric Company's contract was to furnish the city of Portate so many arc lights, at so much a month per light, with monthly payments, but there was more politics in it than I was used to. It took me some time to see that if the Mayor bought a set of gilt furniture on the 28th, and the paymaster a span of horses on the 29th, it wasn't reasonable to bring them a city lighting bill on the 30th. But they thought it unreasonable, and after awhile I came near thinking so too. I had to get five signatures to each bill, and the signatures took turns going off into the country between the 30th and the 15th. After that they generally came with protests in parentheses, that arc No. 53 had been observed by respected gentlemen to sputter improperly, and that arc No. 5, on a certain night, had refused to burn, in contempt of authority,—which was because a native had heaved a stone into it, out of religious scruples. They were always in arrears.
They liked it that way. They said it was delay in tax-collecting. It was very warm. Did the Senor suffer from the heat? Alas! the tax collector was too fat. It had been represented to his Excellency that tax collectors should be thinner. They were thirty thousand dollars behind. It seemed to me that the city of Portate was too happy. It didn't have troubles enough.
I went to see the Mayor, what they call the “Jefe Municipal.”
He was a puffy old man, of about the fatness of the tax collector, but smaller, and wore a white moustache and imperial in such a way that it seemed to be his symbol of authority.
I said, “Mayor, the city owes me thirty thousand dollars.”
“Is it possible!” he cried, holding up his hands. “But we do pay you too much. How does the city owe you so much if it is not too much?”
That was good tropical logic. Tropical logic always confused me.
“My friend,” he said, “is it not in your country also that the corporation oppresses the people?”
“The Union Electric,” I said, “doesn't do business for love of humanity, and it didn't send me down here for my health.”
“Alas! No?” sighed the Mayor, wiping his forehead. “The corporations are without souls, pitiless. I read it in a newspaper, that also of the United States. But if the Senor's health is delicate, a trip to the hills—-”
“I give you till Wednesday night.”
He brightened up.
“It is a festival night. The municipal band will play in the Plaza. The people will dance. Portate is a city of pleasure, a second Paris. And you, Senor, will honour us, on the balcony of the magistrates.”
“Thirty thousand dollars by Wednesday night, or I shut off the lights. With great regret, your Excellency——”
“Senor——”
“It's an ultimatum. Allow me to express, nevertheless——”
The Mayor rose, smiling.
“Nevertheless, you will observe the festival. A delight, Senor, a panorama!”
I went over and tried to impress the paymaster, but he wouldn't be impressed either. He said arc No. 38 was shining persistently into the upper-story windows of the house of a municipal councillor, against his honour and privacy. He said the son of the municipal councillor was to marry his, the paymaster's daughter, and The Union Electric Company oughtn't to disturb such alliances. I went down to the plant as fast as possible, feeling in the mind to see people that were reasonable and steady, like the six dynamos.
Chepa was my foreman's name, and a good man he was—a half-breed of fifty years perhaps, with gray hair about his ears. I told him I was going to shut off the lights if they didn't pay up, and Chepa's hair stood on end. He said I was a distinguished gentleman, and would be shot for an anarchist together with himself.
“Mother of heaven! It will be a hot time. Behold me! I am game!”
I told him he wouldn't need any more heroism than came natural. I only wanted him to switch off, and throw the machines out of gear at nine o'clock Wednesday night, and then disappear for a day or two.
“Don't let them lay eyes on a hair of you.”
That was Saturday if my memory is right, the third of May. It came on Wednesday without any more interviews. The day was hot, and I didn't see that the tax collector was getting thinner with extra labour of collecting taxes. But the preparations for the festival were going on, so innocent and peaceful it would break your heart to see, with ridiculous strips of coloured cloth around the wax-palms on the Plaza; for a wax-palm grows a hundred and fifty feet high, and looks like a high-born lady; and red and white stripes around the foot of her, like a barber's pole, aren't becoming. I sent up a man with the bill in the afternoon, and he came back saying the Mayor was so busy with his uniform that he wouldn't look at him. I gave orders to shut off the switch at nine o'clock. About eight in the evening I disguised myself with a cloak and a villainous slouch hat, and left my house, which was a mile out of the city, though handy to the plant. The cook had run off to the Plaza, and I plugged up the telephone, so it was a house that couldn't be conversed with. Then I walked into town.
The Mayor's uniform and several other uniforms were on the balcony of magistrates, the Mayor making a speech to the effect that it was a municipality without parallel, a second Paris, which civilisation regarded universally, and exclaimed, “Behold Portate!” There was Padre Rafael, standing directly under an electric light, and it was curious to see him with that kind of saint's glory around him, and smiling like a plaster cast of Benevolence. Whoop-bang! went the brass band, with the bass drum miscellaneous, and the cornets audacious, and the trombones independent, but aiming, you might say, at a similar tune. And all the Plaza fell to dancing and conversing, with the fountain in the middle sprinkling recklessly, and the wax-palms done up in red and white bunting, and the electric light shining uncannily, with their bills unpaid.
“Come up, Padre Rafael!” shouts the Mayor presently, catching sight of his reverence, “to the balcony of the magistrates. It is a glorious occasion.” He puffed out his chest so anybody could admire that liked.
And then the lights went out, and the band ended off with a grunt and a squeal.
The Plaza was black as a hat, only for a few lights in the windows, and quite silent for a moment. I lit out when the howls began. It seemed to me they'd sound better from a distance. There were people running and shouting along the pitch-black streets. But getting into the outskirts of the city, I found there were a few stars shining, and came home without trouble. I sat down on a bench in the garden and waited. It was a hundred yards or more from the house. It was very peaceful, with all manner of tropical scents floating around. Shutting down the lights of Portate didn't seem to bother the rest of South America.
By and by a carriage drove up, and there was a deal of banging at the doors, and tramping around the house. I thought it was an under-official that threw a rock through the window, not a real dignitary. Later there was another carriage, more banging and tramping.
I went to bed after that. I don't know how long they tried to telephone from the City Hall—the telephone didn't say.
WHEN I awoke in the morning, the sunlight was shining brightly through the shutters, and I lay awhile getting things straightened out in my mind, wondering what the authorities would do next, and sorting my own cards. Then I noticed a murmuring all about, not like a conversation of a few people, but like the voices of a crowd at some distance. I took a cautious peek. Oh, my native country! The yard was full of soldiers of the City Guard in their pink uniforms, all squatting on the ground very dejectedly.
“Hi!” I thought. “There's no hurry about getting dressed. The cook must have stayed shy, or they'd have got me.”
I never saw that cook again. I've heard that he came on the soldiers about three o'clock in the morning, camping in the front yard. Their orders were to stay there till I came home. The cook went off into the country to avoid politics.
“Speaking of the cook now,” I said to myself, “they'll arrest me without breakfast. They'll march me into town afoot, like a malefactor. It won't do for the dignity of The Union Electric.”
With that I wrapped myself and the telephone in double blankets, took out the plug, and cautiously rang up a livery-stable.
“Carriage!” I said, “to Senor Kirby's house, North Road, in an hour.”
Then I prospected in the kitchen on tiptoe, and collected a spirit-lamp and such matters, got dressed, and breakfasted behind the shutters with a calmness that was a bit artificial. The City Guard wasn't breakfasting. By the calamitous features of the elderly officer sitting on my horse-block, they didn't expect to. El Capitano Lugo was his name, and a very friendly man, after breakfast.
I sat smoking behind the shutters, and waited for the carriage, which came along leisurely about nine. The soldiery destroyed the picket-fence getting into the road all together.
“What news?” said El Capitano Lugo.
The driver was a scared man.
“Eh!” he said. “But I know nothing, Senor Capitano, nothing! Carriage to Senor Kirby, North Road. A telephone.”
“It is an empty house, idiot!”
With that they were all crowded close about the carriage, talking in low tones, but excited. It was about ghosts, as the captain told me after, and there ran a theory among them that I had been a spirit for the last twelve hours, turning off lights and sending telephones to avenge the atrocity of my murder.
But it got no farther than a theory, because of the opening of the door, and me coming out on the porch in duck trousers, polka-dot tie, and a calm that was artificial.
“Is that my carriage?” I asked.
“Ah!” shouted the captain, making for me, over the wrecks of the picket-fence. I said:
“How d'ye do?”
“I arrest you!” said he.
“Of course you do. Get into the carriage.”
And off we went bowling toward the city, with the guard plodding far behind in pink uniforms, and very dejected. Captain Lugo himself would answer nothing when I tried to show him that pink uniforms were in bad taste for a city guard.
But, oh, the extravagance of language at the City Hall, and the Mayor with his beautiful temper in ruins!
“Intolerable! The contempt of dignity, the mockery of constituted power! By whose orders were the lights turned off?”
“Mine, your Excellency, of course. Told you all about it last Saturday.”
“Â la carcel!” he shouted, with his official moustache standing up at the ends. “He has despised the city. Take him to jail, hastily.”
“You'd better look out,” I said. “It's an international complication. The United States will be capturing Portate with an extension of the Monroe Doctrine,” I said, fishing wildly for an argument.
“Insolent foreigner!” said he.
“May Portate be darkened forever!” said I.
“A la cârcel!” said he, and four pink uniforms hustled me and my duck trousers out into the street and around the corner to the jail.
Now that was an unpleasing place to be in. I charged up fifty dollars for the experience, to The Union Electric Company, who said it was a good joke and paid it, eventually; but it wasn't a joke.
The jail was an expanse of deal-wall on the street, except at one place where there was an architectural doorway. And within there was a large patio or courtyard, a low adobe building surrounding it, with rows of open cells, and a sort of cemented veranda in front. That was the Portate City Jail entire. There were guards at the door. They shoved you in, and you did what you chose. There were groups of dirty peons lolling about, others playing some game with pebbles and fragments of cement, two women who had been officially interrupted while pounding each other's heads, a donkey, some cats, and a sad-eyed pig, all arrested for vagrancy.
I sent a guard up to the hotel for a chair, and sat down haughtily in the corner of the veranda behind the gateway and farthest from the sun. The groups of peons gathered around me. Their manners were naturally good, but they couldn't avoid the romantic fascination of me. I sent another guard with a telegram to the United States Minister and a message for the resident Consul. I gave the guard a dollar to buy tobacco and cigarette papers, and compromised with the friendly peons. We agreed on a circle twenty feet away, which was near enough for conversation, and far enough for a draught between. There was a wall of them, all supplied with cigarettes, and me the centre of observation. We discussed the government of Portate, and there was no one in the City Jail but thought it needed reform.
By and by the Consul came, and he was so interested and pleased with the situation that he wasn't up to the duties of his office, as I told him. He said the Mayor was in luck, on account of the extreme heat up-country at the capital.
“My guess at the Mayor is: he's figuring to keep you in jail over night for the sake of his dignity, and cover you with documentary apologies in the morning,” said the Consul. “And I've been telegraphing the Minister, and can't get him; for he's gone hunting up the cool of the mountains with the President of the Republic, the Minister of the Interior, and some other official parties. I say, why did you pick out a festival and presidential excursion day? You bold, bad man! said he, sticking his hands in his pockets and laughing at me.
“Stay here all night!” I shouted.
“Can't help it,” said the Consul, grinning. “I've done all I could. He'll get into trouble likely. What can I do, if he wants to run his risk and stand by his luck?”
“I'll denounce you at home for inefficiency.”
“Have a cot bed?”
“Get out!”
“Pleasant dreams!” he said. “It 'll be a hot night;” and with that he went off grinning.
The afternoon wore away slowly. I began to think the Mayor might have me down after all, and wondered if Chepa would run the plant that night with a detachment of pink soldiery over him. I sent a guard after some lunch. No one else came except my lawyer, who brought some newspapers, and said the Mayor was blushing all over with happiness and conceit. He said there were crowds in the Plaza, and sure enough you could hear the mutter and shuffle of them, for the Plaza was but a few blocks away. It seemed to me they were making more noise than before, and when the lawyer was gone, and the afternoon was late, it seemed to have grown to a kind of dull roaring, with shouts and howls intermixed. The peons in the patio were stirring about, too, and jabbering. The dusk was coming on faintly.
THERE was a clatter and tramp of feet in the street outside. The door of the patio flew open with a bang.
“Take your dirty hands off me!” Bang, went the door again, and there in the patio stood a little squat Irishman with red hair and stubby black clay pipe in his mouth.
“What's the matter?” I called to him, for his hair was rumpled and his coat torn, with rough handling. He ran to me, and the crowd, the simple-hearted criminality of Portate, gathered around us.
“Hoosh!” he said. “It's an insurrection, sor. I'm arristed for distributin' insidjus proclamations in backwoods Casthilian, an' the guards has taken me last copy, tellin' how The Mayor has Tyrannously Arristed the Electric Lights! Release Misther Kirby or Down wid the Mayor! Shall Portate be Darkened? Citizens, Rise!' Oh, hivens, me entherprise and adventures!”
“Comb down your red hair,” I said, “and go on.”
“It's auburrn, sor!”
“It's fine shade of gold, you Hibernian Apollo! Who in time are you?”
“I come in yesterday evenin' on the Violetta”
“What!”
“Yes, sor. Me name's Hagan, but Sadler's gone away from me, an' I have the trimbles in me bones.”
“Well, I'll be shot! Are they all right?”
“Sure, they are.”
“Go ahead then.”
“Well, sor, me an' Sadler an' the docther, we got ashore as soon as we could. 'Twas in the early evenin', an' thim two went off somewhere for somewhat; and me, I went down Bolivar Street to an old haunt of me mimories, to see what was there. An' who should come out of the caffy but Chepa. Sure, he's your foreman now, but onct he was me frind an' dispised acquaintance in this city of sinfulness many a year ago. 'Red hair!' says he wid a shriek. 'Auburrn!' says I, 'ye grizzly Dago.' An' wid that we ombraced. 'Och, Jimmie!' he says, 'you're the man I'm wantin',' he says. 'Where's Sadler?' 'I dunno,' I says, 'not just now. He's around the town.' 'Tis happy he'll be then this night,' he says, 'for society an' politics,' he says, 'an' populations an' powers 'll be playin' discordant chunes,' he says. 'Come on,' he says, 'an' help me ungear thim dynamos.' Wid that we started for the plant, an' me not knowin' at all the divilmint that was goin', an' we come to the plant, and Chepa set the dynamos buzzin' like bees, an' thin sat down an' explained his language wid information. 'At nine o'clock,' he says, 'I shut 'em off and disables the machinery,' an' he did. Then we come back through the town by the back streets. There was wicked rage in the heart of Portate. She wint to bed in the dark, and had bad dreams. But we come down to the docks an' hired a boat out to the Violetta, and we told the missus and the young la-ady about it. After awhile comes out the boys in the gig wid a letther from the docther sayin' him an' Sadler was gone up counthry on a night thrain in pursuit of South-American archylogy. 'Kit,' says the missus, readin' it out to the young la-ady, 'Kit seems to have this city in a barrel, an' he's plugged the shpigot, an' where in the barrel he is I dunno,' he says, 'for we've been to the electric plant and we've banged on the doorway of his house, an' nothin' happened, an' Portate is tumultuous and dark. Wherefore,' he says, 'I argue he ain't expectin' company to-night, an' me an' Sadler is goin' up counthry afther archylogy,' he says, 'to be back to-morry.' 'Goodness!' says the missis, an' she an' the young la-ady went down for the night, an' me an' Chepa passed it cool an' balmy. This mornin' the missis sent us ashore for news. But oh, the sights of the ragin' city! Oh, the throuble an' combustion of it! A crowd of men grabs us at the corner. 'Gintlemen,' says Chepa, 'respected sehores, 'tis the wickedness of the Jefe,' he says, 'a-spindin' on gilt furniture the hard-earned taxes of the people, collected by the tax collector,' he says, 'wid the shweat of his fatness. For Sehor Kirby,' he says, 'to the great sorrow of himself, havin' run out of electricity, is unable to buy more on account of the avarice and theft of the beast of a thief of a Jefe,' he says, and they thought so too. By and by comes the news of yourself arristed and put in jail. 'Jimmie,' says Chepa, 'it will not do.' I says 'It will not.' An' we broke away an' went back to the Violetta. An very interested they were, sor, the missis an' the young la-ady, askin' questions, an' then a-studyin' an' a-lookin' at ache other. 'Well,' says the missis, 'I wish Doctor Ulswater hadn't gone, but it's the Jefe's fault an' not Mr. Kirby's, an' I think you were quite right, Mr. Chepa,' she says, 'to tell the people so. But of coorse you could only tell a few,' she says, 'an' I suppose most of thim think it's Mr. Kirby's to blame, an' I think we ought to stop that,' she says, 'so I think we'd bet-ther have a lot of bills printed to explain.'—'Hooroar!' says the young la-ady, jumpin' up and wavin' herself in the atmosphere. 'I'll write it!' An' wid that she grabs Chepa an' plumps down wid him on the carpet, an' what wid thim two composin' inflaminous proclamations, an' me a shmokin' me poipe wid terror in me bosim an' me face smeared over wid insidjous calm, an' the missis a lookin' off at Portate, wid her knittin' in her hand and statesmanship an' revolution in her eye, 'twas a ould-shtyle Fenian meetin', sor, an' down wid the landlords! 'It's hot,' says Chepa, manin' the proclamation. 'There's no foreign governmint to rescue Chepa wid diplomacy. They'll hang me,' he says, 'an' 'tis no matther. Behold me, senora! I am game.' 'You must stay here,' says the missis. 'Jimmie will have the bills printed and posted.' 'Oh, senora!' says Chepa, lookin' hurt. 'Of coorse you're not afraid,' she says—an' I wished she knew that I was—'but it'd be bad for you to be arristed,' she says, 'an' besides there's another reason.' It lies in the nature of things, sor, to do what the missis says. There's no help for it. I came into Portate alone, wid myself, an' gold in me trousers pocket which I changes to the barbarious paper money of the counthry an' scuttles off to a printer. 'Set it up!' I says, showin' barbarious money. 'Print it!' An' he did so, wid the fear of consequences an' the lust of avarice. But, sor, ye should have seen the amazin' innocence an' wrath of the populace, a-jumpin' all over the Plaza, a-howlin', a-wavin' proclamations an' blackguardin' the Mayor for arristin' the lights. Prisintly comes a line of soldiers wrigglin' through the crowd, an' one of 'em raps me over the head with the butt of his gun, out of the mistherable shpite of him, an' they takes me red-handed in the disthribution of proclamations, an' up we goes, up the steps of the City Hall, before the public was onto the insult to its liberties. An' oh, the terrible language of the Mayor, a-kickin' over chairs in the corridor! 'To prisin,' says he, tearin' his hair tremendjous. 'Ye'll be shot in the mornin',' says he. Then they took me out the back alley, an' down here sudden, bein' punched in the back wid the butt ends of the rifles of a misfit soldiery, an' thim's the facts.”
SO spoke Jimmie Hagan. We sat looking at each other, and smoking silently for a moment. I got up and shooed the motley collection of human things around us back to a pleasanter distance, and sat down again to think. But still I didn't see altogether what Mrs. Ulswater thought she was going to do with her insurrection. It was a good idea of hers to keep Chepa aboard the Violetta. But a mob is like dynamite, and a person ought to have a considerable idea before he takes it on himself to explode one. A Portate mob is a maniac that cuts throats in the name of the saints, and forgets what started him, and he scatters destruction in all directions. For a man said to be without sand, I thought Hagan had done pretty well.
“Sor,” he said, “it's this way. I knew the Mayor long ago, an' Sadler knew him well, an' I know the Mayor's the same man wid the tempestchus bowels of him, for he's a nice man when he's cheerful, but he's not a wise man when there's trouble comin'. Well, sor, Sadler nor the docther ain't here, an' what one of them doesn't know the other does. An' some men was born to order and others to take orders, an' I dunno. But, if the Kid was here things'd be doin'. Well, sor, the docther is filled up wid handy knowledge more'n a bushel of pertaties wid perta-ties, but when it comes to makin' up his mind, it's the missis does it. The Violetta carries more contagious brains than's native in South America, an' you're askin' what the missis had in mind, an' I dunno. But Chepa says there's only two men in Por-tate can start them disabled machines for to-night's lightin', to say nothin' there's not a trolley runnin' in the city this day. An' where's those two men? One of 'em's here. The other's on the Violetta, but the Mayor don't know where he is. Well, sor, what can he do? It's not for me to say, but there's the populace shlingin' stones at the City Hall this blissid minute in persuasion of the Mayor's wickedness. An' who persuaded 'em of the Mayor's wickedness? Trolleys they don't so much care for, but there'll be lights or shootin', an' the Mayor'd needn't be foolish, an if ye ask me, I'll say it's the missis has got the soople intilligence, an' no throuble at all. Hark to 'em now!”
The roar of the crowd had grown to be tremendous, and they were probably throwing stones. What, indeed, could the Mayor do? The peons about us were chattering in excited groups, and the guards at the gate were distinctly uneasy. If the mob came there, I could make a fair guess what the guards would do.
There was a sudden clatter in the streets, of hoofs and wheels on bad pavement. Again the great wooden door flew open with a bang. Entered the paymaster, another agitated official, and an officer in pink and white, who bowed and smiled at me affectionately.
“You are released, senor,” said the officer.
“Oh, I am! And this gentleman too?”
“Impossible, senor. His Excellency is determined. With you, senor, he requests a friendly interview.”
“He won't get it.”
“His Excellency is in a carriage at the door.”
It was not fifty feet to the open door. His Excellency seemed to have lost flesh with the excitement and anguish of his mind.
“Oo-aa!” came over from the Plaza, that indescribable roar.
“Oh, senor!” he cried with enthusiasm. “It is the will of the people that we be reconciled. Enough. We are reconciled.”
“Not yet, Mayor. My red-haired friend here——”
“Impossible!”
“Not a light, then. Bury it all, Mayor. The wisest plan.”
“But the proclamations! Abominable, public, infamous!”
“Oh, quite wrong, of course.”
“You admit it!”
“He must be pardoned.”
“To-morrow.”
“Now!”
“Oo-aa!” from the Plaza, that hair-raising yell.
The Mayor shivered. Then he gathered up his dignity with the gracefulness of a lady picking up her skirts, and finished the game like a fallen but romantic potentate. “Enough,” he said. “I yield.”
We drove to the Plaza, Jimmie Hagan on the carriage-springs behind, the Mayor and I standing on the seat and holding hands for the public to see the unlimited affection we had; the paymaster and the officer in pink and white on the seat facing, waving their hats with unnatural joy, and the other official on the seat with the driver.
But what a sight was the Plaza! What a howling mass of faces, open mouths, hands gesticulating, all fading and dimly seen at a few hundred feet from the carriage, for the night was falling fast.
“Excellency,” I said, “you owe me thirty thousand dollars. We'll stop at the bank.”
“Just at present, senor, the public's balance is low, but——”
“On the contrary—or rather, we'll step in and see.”
“To-morrow, senor——”
“Excellency,” I said, “I don't care one little bit at all whether it's out of the city's deposit, or your private account, or whether there's any difference between them. But there won't be a light till every dollar is paid. Moreover, this mob is nervous. Moreover, here's the bank.”
We got down, and left the pink and white officer in the carriage with the two other officials. The Mayor stalked grimly ahead of me into the bank, and the thirty thousand was paid.
I made the plant in a carriage in ten minutes. Three scared furnace tenders were there, in charge of a company of pink soldiers. Among them they had two dynamos more or less mutilated trying to switch them on with a pick-axe. At last I got things running, turned on the main switch, and saw the nearby streets leap into brightness.
When Hagan and I came back through the town about eight o'clock, the band was playing in the Plaza, the people rejoicing among the palm trees, which were done up in bunting, and the Mayor was making a speech from the balcony of magistrates to the effect that Portate was a centre of civilisation, a second Paris.
It occurred to me that I was carrying thirty thousand dollars in my pocket, and wasn't a steel vault. The lights were going anyway for to-night, and maybe some public functionary's private bandit might be looking for me. I ought to have deposited before going to the plant, or perhaps—but there was the Violetta, which would be safer still.
We dodged the Plaza, and went down to the docks. Not a boatman was about. I untied a row boat, and we rowed out, looking for the Violetta. It was easy to distinguish her, clean and white, glimmering with bright port-holes. As we drew near we could see the polished brasses shining under the stars. The cool sea wind on the bay and the soft lapping of waves against the boat were pleasant to feel and hear, after the heat and noise of Portate. The sight of the Violetta, neat and compact, made me homesick for the temperate zone and my own people of the North, gray-eyed level-headed people, steady and reasonable. I felt like a carrier pigeon come home.
“Violetta, ahoy!”
CAPTAIN JANSEN met us at the gangway. There were some changes in the look of the Violetta's deck since last I had seen it, a year and a half before, in the West Indies. The awning was new. Those geranium pots were gone, which used to stand along the scuppers, and be carried down every night and whenever the weather threatened. The world had been too much for them. The same doilies were on the same rocking chairs. There was the brown mahogany parlour table. But among objects that recalled home conventions, something that breathed eastward, a tropic touch here and there, had been admitted. A huge Burmese tapestry swung from one side of the awning, and the breeze bayed it in, its green embroidered serpents writhing lazily above an honest but uninspiring sofa from Grand Rapids. Yellow Chinese mats from Singapore were on the deck in place of the former flowered carpet.
Mrs. Ulswater sat in her familiar rocking chair, small, thin, quiet, and slightly precise; and on one of the mats, with her back against Mrs. Ulswater's chair, sat a girl in a white dress, with dark hair, with very definite eyebrows and a tilted, provocative nose. In front of her, on another mat, sat Chepa smoking a cigarette. At some distance off, a motionless figure in dingy white crouched in the shadow of the cabin, whom I took to be Ram Nad engaged in abstraction. These were the occupants of the after-deck.
“Kit!” cried Mrs. Ulswater, dropping her knitting. Susannah sprang up and cried: “Did we beat the Mayor?”
I told them about the insurrection, Jimmie Hagan's arrest, and the Mayor's surrender, and how I wanted Dr. Ulswater to take charge of The Union Electric's cash.
“I'm ever so much obliged for your insurrection, Mrs. Ulswater. As to the Mayor—well, you've been around the world yourself since I saw you, and got acquainted with the Gentile. What do you think of him?”
“Whom do you mean by the Gentile?”
“The alien, the uncanny human who isn't like us. His 'best is like his worst,' isn't it? in our eyes, because both his best and his worst are different from ours.”
“I like him better than I expected to,” she answered.
“Are you going to keep on rearranging him?”
“I'm not so sure as I was what his arrangement is.”
“But the cruise of the Violetta has been a success, hasn't it?”
After a moment's thought she said:
“When it began, I didn't know what I wanted, but I thought I should know it when I saw it. And that was the way it turned out. I found out what it was, when I found it. The doctor and Susannah are most of it.”
“It wasn't the missions, then?”
“Not exactly. It's partly finding things to do, and doing them as they come along.” After a pause she said, as if changing the subject:
“Do you think you can get on with the Mayor here, after all this?”
“Why, that's the question. The Mayor has his virtues, but he doesn't like insurrections or paying bills. If Providence didn't afflict him with one or the other of those now and then, he might be a philosopher; but now you speak of it, I shouldn't say he was a good loser. It's one of the characteristics of the tropics, to carry grudges long and far.”
Susannah was looking at me gravely.
“Do you make poetry?” she asked.
“Not in the way of business,” I said, still thinking of my troubles. “It's Portate that introduces poetry into business. If I propose to the Mayor to put in five hundred new lights, he proposes a procession. If I tell him I'm going to repaint some of the trolley cars, he announces it that night to the populace from the balcony of magistrates, and the populace comes and asks me for a free ride, and The Union Electric's employés claim it's a holiday. You see, Miss Romney——”
“Why, I'm Susannah?”
“Oh! Well, Susannah—You see, Susannah, Portate furnishes all the poetry The Union Electric Company will stand. They can't afford to let me decorate the situation too. That's why I have some doubts about the ultimatum and the insurrection. They were rather decorative, weren't they?”
“I'm going to make poetry about you,” said Susannah.
She got up and walked away across the deck, in the manner of one conducting powerful operations with the muses. She came to where the dingy heap of eastern wisdom sat against the cabin wall.
“Ram Nad!” we heard her say, with a stamp of the foot, “you go this minute and get your shawl!”
He rose silently, pale and venerable, and went down the companionway.
“He catches cold easily,” Mrs. Ulswater explained. “I told him not to sit out evenings without his shawl.”
Chepa and Hagan had gone forward sometime before. Susannah paced the deck apart with folded arms, making poetry about me. Mrs. Ulswater sat in her rocking chair, knitting, listening, talking.
I was thinking that she would have been a dangerous woman, with all that will and reserve, if she had not happened to be honest and kind. She could not help but foresee and devise. I wondered if she were plotting and planning at the moment, and for whose benefit. Likely it was for mine. I wondered if the Mayor were plotting and planning for my distress or destruction at the same moment. Likely he was. I didn't much care. Mrs. Ulswater had rearranged the tropics here and there, but they had not rearranged her. It was about eleven o'clock. Susannah was extraordinarily pretty. As the subject of a ballad by Susannah, of a plot by Mrs. Ulswater, and another plot by the Mayor, supposing all these things were going on, I seemed to be in the centre of things.
At that moment the sound of oarlocks startled us. We rose and went to the rail. A boat drew near on the dark water. On the surface of the water the lights of the distant city made long broken reflections. The boat drew up at the foot of the gangway, and Dr. Ulswater mounted, followed by a large powerful man, gray-haired, with a long dangling moustache and lean throat, carrying on his broad shoulders a large oblong box. Behind them came up one of the boatman, carrying a trunk. Susannah cried:
“What's in the box?”
And I said, catching sight of my initials, “Where'd you get my trunk?”
“Jansen,” said Dr. Ulswater, “get up steam. We leave as soon as you're ready.” A moment later we were seated under the awning; Mrs. Ulswater in her rocking chair knitting and nowise excited; Susannah, her hands clasped about her knees, back against the rocker, eagerly absorbing all things; the doctor, the grizzled Sadler and I, each negotiating one of the doctor's cigars. Chepa, with his cigarette, and Hagan, with his black clay pipe and extravagant hair, squatted together on the deck.