# Lady Gaunt

When General Alfaro snubbed and then, apparently without justification, insulted young Archie, it was for a very good reason. Which Archie is soon to find out.
LADY GAUNT
By Major Wolcott LeCléar Beard
IT was the opening of the corridas at Quito. Every one was there, of course, together with a great multitude of those who were nobody at all, for the bull-fights are to that little Andean capital what the Grand Prix has always been to Paris—and more.
Five bulls had been killed, dying with the courage for which that Ecuadorian breed is famous even in old Spain. The sixth bull had not yet been turned into the ring when young Archie Douglas leaned over the rail of the President's box.
"I came to tell you, General Alfaro, how sorry I was that I didn't receive your invitation to see the corrida from your palco here in time to accept it. I was away," he said, in his careful, academic Spanish. "I didn't get back until just now."
Eloy Alfaro, President of the republic, so called, of Ecuador, was short, stocky, and clad in a near-German uniform. Every line of his heavy face told of the Quichua ancestry which had made him so many adherents and of which he was so bitterly ashamed. Slowly and deliberately he turned that aboriginal face upon Archie.
"I am rejoiced that my invitation miscarried," he said, murdering the liquid Castilian with raucous tones and defective grammar. "Otherwise," he went on, "I would have felt called upon to cancel that invitation. Having been spared that painful necessity, I consider myself most fortunate."
Archie started as though the President had struck him. What in the world could it all mean? Why, until now Alfaro's manner had always been cordiality itself: he had neglected no opportunity to shower attentions upon this young engineer from the United States who was sojourning in his country. This change was so astounding that poor Archie, his thoughts thrown into utter confusion, at first could only stare. Alfaro saw the effects of his first verbal bomb and, thinking it good, launched another.
"You do not understand me?" he sneered with exaggerated politeness. "Then I will endeavor to make my meaning clearer. When I invited you to become a guest, here in my box, I supposed you to be a gentleman and a man of honor. Then I discover that you are neither. Therefore I am desirous of bringing our acquaintanceship to an end. Voilà tout."
President Alfaro was proud of his French, but as he had learned it entirely from books, he pronounced it, Spanish fashion, exactly as it was spelled: "voe-eela toe-oot." Ordinarily Archie would have smiled at this, but now not a smile remained in his whole composition. A dull flush spread over his honest, rather ugly face, and his rage restored to him a measure of articulate speech—such as it was. Bending down he spoke softly and almost caressingly in the President's ear.
"You're a mangy, lying, mongrel cur," he cooed. "If it wasn't for making a scene in this place I'd thrash that yellow hide of yours until you thought it held sausage meat. If I can once find you when you're not surrounded by more guards than I can fight, I'll do it anyhow—President or no President. Remember that—for I mean it!"
For a moment Archie stood waiting for a reply, but none came. With a crash of cymbals the band blared forth as the gates were flung open and a bull bolted into the ring. This gave the President a chance to pretend that he had not heard, and he did so pretend. He had ample cause, of course, and ample authority as well, to order the irate young man into one of the numerous and vermin-infested jails, but he thought it wiser not to. The present political situation was acute, even for Ecuador, and a little thing might bring about most distressing results. As to the insult—well, if a chance to repay that should present itself he would make the most of it. If not, what matter? Insults are only words. True, blood of the Black Douglases, heated by generations of Texan suns, is ill to trifle with; but in justice to Alfaro it should be said that if this thought occurred to him it had no more effect upon his conduct than did the insult. Men do not attain to the position then enjoyed by Eloy Alfaro through being either sensitive or cowardly.
Tramping doggedly around the curve of the arena, Archie Douglas re-entered his own box, where he had left two guests. The noise of the band prevented his having to speak, and for this he was grateful. Raising his glasses, for the first time he swept them slowly over the audience.
Bright costumes of women and the gay uniforms of many officers made the old Plaza de Toros like a great bowl of gray stone, bordered with flowers. In this border there was one dull spot, and only one. At this spot Archie was looking when the band ceased.
"I wonder who she is—that old lady in black," he said, lowering his glasses and trying hard to speak naturally. "She doesn't look like a Spanish-American."
"She isn't," replied Major Jimmy O'Neill, formerly of his Britannic Majesty's Seventeenth Lancers. "That's Lady Gaunt."
"Gaunt! Fits her—eh? Name and nature—that sort of thing—what? Sure!" snickered Thrale, the second of the two guests.
Thrale's squeaky voice was ludicrously disproportioned to his big, over-plump body. His utterance was jerky. He himself was Jimmy O'Neill's pet aversion. O'Neill frowned, but Thrale did not see the frown.
"You'll find it wiser not to discuss Lady Gaunt in my presence," quietly remarked O'Neill. "Try and grasp that fact. It's worth while."
Thrale made no reply. Duelling still is a universal custom in that country, but there was not a duellist in it who would not think twice before putting himself in the position of having to meet this dapper, grizzled little soldier of fortune. And, despite Thrale's vanity, which was enormous, despite his military rank, which was that of colonel, his regard for the safety of his own plump person was, to put the fact conservatively, among the more strongly marked traits of Thrale's character.
Therefore, wriggling his body as though the tight uniform suddenly had become irksome to it, Thrale held his tongue. Also he glanced apprehensively at his host, for there were especial reasons, just then, why he would greatly regret being discredited in Archie's estimation. Archie, however, being absorbed in his own troubles, had heard nothing of what passed between his guests. So Thrale breathed more freely, and once more turned his flagging interest to the spectacle before him.
The bull, after having been played with by the elusive capaderos until he would chase them but languidly, was goaded to fresh fury by having three banderillas planted in each side of his massive neck and left hanging there. After a few ungainly capers, made in a vain attempt to free himself from those barbed and torturing darts, he pawed the earth, tossed clods of it into the air with his horns; then stood glaring about him for something upon which he could avenge himself.
A bugle sounded, and the band once more burst into violent eruption as four picadores—mounted men these, armed with spears—pranced into the arena.
"I say!" cried Archie disgustedly, shouting so as to be heard above the noise of the band. "I was told they didn't do that here. I don't want to see those poor brutes of horses gored by the bull. It's beastly!"
"It won't be beastly," asserted O'Neill, very positively. "Not more beastly than usual, that is. If it were, Lady Gaunt wouldn't allow it."
Archie glanced with surprise at O'Neill's impassive face, and saw that neither humor nor sarcasm was intended. Raising his glasses again, he scrutinized the lonely occupant of the opposite box more closely even than he had previously done.
Evidently, he thought. Lady Gaunt would be tall when standing. The chin under which old-fashioned bonnet-strings were tied betokened grim determination, and so did the Roman nose above it. Her gown of the richest brocade, and fitting closely to her bony frame, was as severely plain as the habit of a nun; but the large and well-formed hand, resting on the gold crutch-head of an ebony stick, glittered with jewels. A man dressed in severe black, and with the appearance of ultra-respectability which apparently is attainable only by bishops and upper men servants, stood behind her palco, which was next to that which the President occupied. This latter fact recalled to Archie an intention that had slipped his mind. He turned to Thrale.
"Tommy, look here," he said. "I'm in bad with Alfaro. I don't know why, but I am. So I thought that if he saw you sitting here with me he might get sore, and I ought to tell you."
"Sore!" cackled Alfaro's quartermaster-general. "He? Not any! If he's peeved at you, Duggy, don't you mind. Just his way. That's all. Don't mean anything. If 'twas her, now—" here the speaker wagged his head toward Lady Gaunt—"’twould be different. Bet your boots! He camps on her trail. He hates her. And she him."
"Which is a jolly bad lookout for Alfaro," O'Neill observed.
"Anyhow," Thrale hastened to continue, "my being here won't bother him. He won't care. Not he! He don't care—within limits—what his officers do."
"Nor whom," added O'Neill. Thrale hastily changed the subject.
"See that man?" he giggled. "That servant. Eh! He's Lady Gaunt's—her majordomo. Yep. Also a crook—fugitive—all that. Fact! Yet she——"
O'Neill frowned. Thrale's flow of staccato speech took another abrupt turn.
"’Scuse me, Duggy. Got to leave you. Yep. Got to," he said. "Somebody I must speak to. See you later. Club. Right? Good!" And he was gone.
"What on earth did he mean in saying what he did about that servant of Lady Gaunt's?" asked Archie with mild curiosity. "Was he trying to joke, or what?"
"To joke?" repeated O'Neill. "No. He spoke the truth—this time. Could think of nothing more malicious, I suppose. McCabe—that's the man's name—was a burglar, 'wanted' in both Europe and the United States. He escaped, came here, and was caught, but Lady Gaunt prevented his extradition. She has her own ways of doing those things. She took him on as a sort of general factotum and says he's the most honest man she knows. But I wanted to speak with you concerning another matter, Douglas. I heard what you said to Thrale about falling suddenly out of Alfaro's favor. Would you mind telling me just what occurred? I don't ask from idle curiosity."
Archie didn't mind—far from it. Full of his troubles, a sympathetic listener was most welcome. His tale was neither long nor, in that country, strange.
Since the death of Archie's father, many years before, an uncle of his had been also his guardian. The uncle held an Ecuadorian concession for the building of a railway, and in the construction of this road had sunk not only his own fortune but most of Archie's as well, when an injury and subsequent illness compelled his return to the United States. Young as he was, Archie had come to take his uncle's place, but meanwhile much time had been lost. There was a time limit to the concession as there is to all such concessions. If not completed by a certain date all rights to the road, and to the enormous amount of work and material that already had been expended upon if, would automatically revert to the state. And that date was at hand.
"Alfaro started by being nice as pie. Nearly broke his neck to do me favors," said Archie, his face full of troubled perplexity in completing his tale. "When I explained to him why we needed an extension of time he said—why, certainly; I could have all the time I wished. Yet he never gave me the extension. Kept putting it off. Said it was only a formality anyway, which could be attended to whenever he had five minutes to spare. And now, when we've put in all that money—and the road's nearly finished—and the concession expires this very day at midnight—" Archie finished the sentence with a helpless gesture of both hands and tried to smile gamely.
"I see," nodded O'Neill, as Archie finished. "Alfaro, of course, wishes to hand the concession over to somebody else. Haven't you suspected as much?"
"No," sighed Archie. "I had no reason for suspicion until this afternoon. Probably you're right, though. Now I think of it there was a fat and fussy little Dutchman hanging around——"
"You mean the man talking with Thrale?" asked O'Neill, interrupting. "Over there by that pillar. Can't you find him? Look! There comes McCabe, Lady Gaunt's man. He's handing Thrale a note. Now can't you——"
"I see him!" cried Archie. "He's the man. Do you know him, O'Neill?"
"Not personally," was the reply. "I've seen him, and was told that his name was Müller, and that he was after your concession as soon as Alfaro intimated that it probably would lapse, and so be open for regranting. Lady Gaunt told me; therefore it's true."
Lady Gaunt again! The iteration of that name began to get on Archie's nerves.
"Who is this Lady Gaunt, anyway?" he asked impatiently. "And how does it happen that an Englishwoman has so much inside information about the affairs of Ecuador?"
"She isn't an Englishwoman; she's an American," answered O'Neill. "Old Phil Gaunt was English, of course. He was always messing around these little countries and their little wars—like me. He wasn't very successful. Hadn't any brains worth mentioning—only brute courage and good looks. But somehow he induced Lady Gaunt to marry him. Why she did it I can't imagine—but she did. Perhaps his way of life appealed to her. Anyway, she furnished the thinking machinery for both, and from the time of his marriage Gaunt began to rise in the world. She made him do something—I don't know what; it all happened before my time—that got him knighted by the British Government. He died soon afterward. His widow took up his work, and ever since has carried it on."
"But how can she—a woman—carry on such work?" asked Archie, now much interested. "And what has she done?"
"Done!" repeated O'Neill, with unwonted enthusiasm. "By sheer force of brains and courage—aided by a woman's intuitions, a woman's occasional ruthlessness, by her utter contempt for any laws that she can't use for her own ends, and also by an entire lack of all feminine weakness—she has raised herself to a position of greater power than western South America has seen before since the days of the Incas. That's what she has done—among other things. Not many people know how great her power is. And let me tell you, young Douglas, that you're a blazing lucky chap to have Lady Gaunt for a friend."
"Lady Gaunt my friend?" laughed the younger man. "’Fraid that can't be, major. Why, I never laid eyes on her till to-day. She doesn't know me from Adam."
"Oh, yes, she does," returned O'Neill very positively. "Don't ask me how, nor any other such questions, for though I've lived and prospered under her orders for years I can't tell you the answers. In some occult way she seems to know everything she wants to know. Well, the corrida is over, and that poor devil of a bull at last can get some rest. Are you bound for the club?"
Archie rose. "I have an engagement there with Thrale," said he. "I wish I hadn't, now."
"Don't let that trouble you," advised Major O'Neill, as they made their way to the exit and the street. "Thrale won't be there. The note you saw McCabe deliver was a summons before the throne—from Lady Gaunt, you know."
"Thrale won't obey any such summons," returned Archie, unconvinced. "Not when it takes him away from a poker game."
"Oh, yes, he will," O'Neill smilingly contradicted. "It's true, I admit, that as yet Thrale isn't at all afraid of Lady Gaunt. That's because he has no imagination; only cunning. But Thrale's master is another matter. Alfaro, who is just beginning to realize what Lady Gaunt's power may mean, is defiant, but scared. His dignity won't allow him to call upon her, and for days he has been trying to get her to receive Thrale as a sort of ambassador. She wouldn't do it, until now. But tell me, Douglas, where did you meet this man Thrale?"
"We were at school together. Then I lost sight of him until we met down here. He went into our army—and got out of it."
"Under pressure?"
"Well—he was allowed to resign, I believe."
"Ah!" sighed O'Neill understandingly. "Here we are at the club. And here, if I mistake not, comes your former schoolmate in order to offer you his excuses."
Thrale came panting toward them. "Sorry, Duggy!" he called out, as soon as he was close enough. "Have to postpone our séance. Yep. Business. Alfaro's. His orders. So long!"
Thrale departed, almost running. Archie and the major stood looking after him until a great limousine car came by, driven slowly in order to minimize jar from the cobble-paved street. Within sat Lady Gaunt, rigidly upright, her hands, as usual, resting on her stick. The two men raised their hats; she bowed, gravely and impersonally, as a queen might bow. The car drove on through the street into which Thrale had vanished and through other streets, all of them lined with grim, fortress-like mansions. It drew up at the largest, grimmest, and most fortress-like of them all. With the aid of her stick and McCabe's shoulder—for she was very lame—Lady Gaunt alighted and, limping up the steps, entered a room where Thrale, fuming and rebellious, awaited her coming.
The room was a large office, worn and shabby, in which Lady Gaunt was accustomed to interview the less important among the many people with whom she had business. Its shabbiness was strangely accentuated by a sedan chair, exquisitely painted and of the period of Louis XIV, which stood against one of its walls. Thrale permitted himself the rudeness of not rising as Lady Gaunt entered. On her part she made no sign that she was conscious of his presence until she had settled herself in an armchair behind a well-worn writing-table. Then, with characteristic directness, she spoke.
"I sent for you because I wish to speak of your intimacy with young Douglas," she said. "I desire to impress upon your mind the following facts. The intimacy must stop; it must stop at once and stop for all time. You left the army of your native country because you attempted to swindle a brother officer. That in itself naturally unfits you for association with gentlemen. Your connection with Alfaro, whose jackal you are, has no tendency to sweeten an unsavory record. Therefore, you will leave Archie Douglas alone. Do you understand?"
"Oh!" cried Thrale, elaborately sneering. "I'm to leave Douglas alone—eh?"
"Yes," she answered composedly, "or take the consequences."
"Consequences!" he sneered, more elaborately than before. "Really, now! You think you run this country, do you?"
"Yes," replied Lady Gaunt. "And you'll find it well to remember that I do."
As O'Neill had said, Thrale was not afraid of Lady Gaunt. His lack of imagination prevented his conceiving any circumstances in which an old and crippled woman could imperil his interests. By dint of an effort almost suicidal he had thus far succeeded in controlling his temper, simply in order that no mental heat might blunt the edge of what he considered his cutting sarcasm, of which he was very proud. Now, however, his self-control quite deserted him. His squeaky voice soared to a pitch almost unprecedented even in the voice of Thrale.
"Listen!" he shrilled. "I've played cards with Douglas—yes! He's lost. Not much. Enough to make him wild to get even. No more. Now it'll be different. Get that? Different! He's going to lose big. Big! And you won't do a thing. Not you! You'll sit tight and see Duggy take his medicine. Yes, you will! There's a reason. Here!"
Leering triumphantly, Thrale flung a folded paper on the table before Lady Gaunt and stalked majestically toward the door. "It's only a copy," he said, pausing as he reached the door. "Destroy it, if you like. Sure! Why not?" Then he vanished.
Unfolding the paper. Lady Gaunt read what was written there once and then again. Laying it down, she sat motionless, her eyes fixed vacantly upon the opposite wall and an expression on her stern old face that must have frightened Thrale had he been there to see it. Alfaro would have been more frightened still. Alfaro had imagination.
Minutes had massed themselves into hours, and the sudden darkness of the zero latitude had fallen when at last Lady Gaunt nodded, as though her thoughts had led her to a satisfactory conclusion. She struck a bell and McCabe appeared, bringing lights. In a tone so low that he was obliged to bend in order to hear her she gave him some directions. He repeated them in a tone that was lower still; then bowed and hurried away.
A quarter of an hour later, when Major O'Neill entered the great doorway, there was an unwonted stir in the stronghold of Lady Gaunt. Singly, and in unobtrusive groups of two or three, swarthy men were hastening in through that same doorway to join many others who already were within, crowding the great patio and among them representing every one of the numerous and minute gradations into which the city's lower classes, both military and civil, were divided. Glancing at them with surprise and answering their salutes, O'Neill hurried on into Lady Gaunt's office.
"Why, what can be the matter?" he cried, as he saw her face. "And why have you called in those men? There must be a hundred of them—and more are coming."
"There'll be over three hundred of them," she replied impatiently. "They're to be the nucleus of a mob I shall need later. That isn't the question now. Read that."
So O'Neill took the paper that Thrale had left and read aloud:
"To Whom it May Concern:
"I, Archibald Douglas, do hereby acknowledge and confess as follows:
"On the Seventeenth day December, 1915, I, with the three gentlemen whose names are appended to this paper as witnesses, was playing cards in the Club Unión of Quito, Ecuador. One of the players, Colonel Thomas Thrale, discovered me in the act of cheating. Under pressure I then owned that I had cheated upon other occasions, when definite detection did not follow.
"This confession is signed by me at the instance of Colonel Thrale, who undertakes to preserve it in confidence so long as certain conditions imposed by him are observed by me. If, in his opinion, I should fail to observe those conditions, he is at liberty to make such use of this confession as he may see fit.
       "(Signed) Archibald Douglas.
"Witnessed by
   * Thomas Thrale
   * James Terence O'Neill
   * William C. Drayton."
"Sit down!" commanded Lady Gaunt as O'Neill started to rise. "Your notion, I surmise, is to go immediately and horse-whip Thrale—but you mustn't. Major, I didn't think that he and Alfaro between them had brains enough to concoct that 'confession.’"
"They signed my name to a false statement contained in a document I never saw until now," said O'Neill, with tense calmness. "I don't consider that a clever thing for them to do. I think it was a very foolish thing for them to do. And I intend to convert them both to my opinion."
"They shall be converted—thoroughly converted," Lady Gaunt assured him. "Still, the scheme was crudely clever. They used poor Mr. Drayton's name because, as he died in January, he can't deny that the signature was his. They used your name because they think—and with some reason—that you won't dare deny it."
"Won't dare!" growled O'Neill.
"If you did what would happen?" asked Lady Gaunt; then answered her own question. "Backed by Alfaro—who, after all, is President of the country—Thrale would say that you signed the paper because you couldn't refuse without practically announcing yourself as Archie Douglas's confederate. They would also say that now, at my behest, you take advantage of Drayton's death to deny your signature in order to impute forgery to Thrale."
"A riding-whip," began the major, "if judiciously administered, would——"
"Would serve only to give wings to the lies that Alfaro is anxious to have circulated," interrupted Lady Gaunt. "The result being that the better element would be driven to join the Alfarist faction, my position would be greatly weakened, while you and young Douglas would be utterly discredited. That won't do."
O'Neill was a soldier, pure and simple, who knew nothing of politics and intrigue. Still, as he himself would have said, he could see through a millstone if somebody would show him the hole. He saw through this one now.
"Still," he said thoughtfully, "what licks me is just what we're going to do. If Alfaro really did sell Douglas's concession to Müller——"
"Alfaro didn't sell the concession at all," the old lady broke in. "He gave it away. He knows—and so do you—the weakness of his grip upon the presidency. He knows that Leonidas Plaza stands ready to tear that grip loose if he can, and that in a mild way Plaza is favored by Washington. Alfaro therefore desires to identify the interests of Germany with his own interests. He gave the concession to a German subject with that end in view. Müller received the document this morning and delivered it to me, properly countersigned by him, just before the corrida.
"Müller got that concession and turned it over to you?" asked O'Neill wonderingly; then a light broke upon his mind. "Good heavens!" he cried. "Then Müller must be your man! He must have been acting as your agent all along!"
"Don't be so stupid!" the lady snapped. "Of course Müller is my man and has been for years."
"Good!" sighed the major, with deep satisfaction. "Then all we have to do is to decide upon our course in dealing with this infernal forgery."
"I have decided," said Lady Gaunt. "I'm interested in this young Douglas. I've taken a fancy, say, to that ugly face of his, which probably is a demonstration of that feminine weakness that you like to believe I don't possess."
She paused. Certainly she never had appeared less capable of any weakness than she was at that moment. Leaning forward, both lean hands gripping her stick with a force that whitened their knuckles, she gazed into the face of O'Neill with a controlled but concentrated fierceness that caused even him, long associated with her though he had been, apprehensively to wonder what would come.
"Listen!" she continued. "As I say, I've taken a fancy to the lad. Those two slimy reptiles, Alfaro and Thrale, have tried to rob him not only of his honor but of nearly everything else he has in the world. For that I shall break Thrale—yes—in passing; taken alone he's a nuisance merely. But Alfaro! O'Neill, I shall see to it that Alfaro receives, while still in this world, a foretaste of the other world to which he shall go this very night."
"But I say," O'Neill objected, in his most insinuating tone, "aren't you afraid that those Yankee cruisers—there are two of 'em no farther away than Puno—will come blundering in and spoil the show?"
With a suddenness that seemed almost miraculous. Lady Gaunt's fury had passed. She might now have been attending in her customary way to the ordinary routine that went to make up her life—which was very nearly the fact, though not quite.
"The cruisers aren't at Puno," said she. "This afternoon they started for Guayaquil, and ought nearly to have reached there by this time. I've known the senior officer for years. So I sent a telegram informing him that in the absence of the United States minister the legation here at Quito had been mobbed and the emblem of the country insulted, adding that ample proof that it had been done by adherents of Alfaro would be forthcoming. So the cruisers will take possession of the custom-house at Guayaquil until apologies and reparation shall have been made. Both will be made. But it is Leonidas Plaza who will make them."
"But—hang it all, Lady Gaunt—Plaza isn't in the country!" cried O'Neill. "He doesn't dare cross the frontiers. And there has been no mobbing."
"Leonidas Plaza is in this house and has been for days," placidly contradicted Lady Gaunt. "As for the mobbing—I wished first to be sure that the mob wouldn't be wasted, and so waited for a reply to my telegram. But now——"
She struck a call bell. Soft-footed and respectful, in manner the ideal servant, McCabe appeared and stood before her.
"Well?" she asked. "Has everything been done?"
"I think so, my lady," the man replied. "The national coat of arms has been removed from over the door of the United States legation. No one, as yet, has noticed its absence. Men have been detailed to stone the legation windows whenever your ladyship gives the word. Colonel Thrale's quarters were entered, thoroughly searched, his papers collected, brought here, and burned—all under my own supervision."
"Burned!" cried O'Neill. "And without having been read? How are we to tell whether the original of that forgery was among them or not?"
"We don't care," answered Lady Gaunt. "There'll have been records there of any amount of Alfaro's characteristic business. The mere fact that Alfaro is likely to learn that these papers have been stolen will be quite enough to throw Thrale into such a panic that he will be only too glad to run away and stay away, which is all I require—from him. So why should we wade through all that filth? McCabe, get the chair ready and call the chairmen. Major, it's time for you to go."
"Go where?" asked O'Neill, rising.
"First to the club. Tell Thrale that his rooms have been robbed in order that he may suspect that it is our people who have robbed them. Tell him also that a fast horse and a mounted guide will be found around the corner from his quarters ready to take him to the border. See that he starts. Then come and join me."
"Where?"
"In the porch of that little church that faces the mercado. Hurry, please."
The major departed. He knew that Lady Gaunt was right; that the prospect of standing between a wall and a firing squad, where Alfaro would not for an instant hesitate to place him, would cause flight from the country to be the one longing of Thrale's soul. O'Neill loathed his present mission but had not the shadow of a doubt of its entire success, nor was there any occasion for doubt.
The grim old city was silvered by a full moon, save when the shadow of a cloud enshrouded it in passing darkness. It was into one of these shadows that a little procession, fantastic in its incongruity of times and types, issued from the portal of Lady Gaunt's mansion. It consisted of that sedan-chair, dainty with pink satin and Watteau-like paintings, borne by strapping Indians in ponchos, with more Indians to relieve them. Within sat Lady Gaunt. By its side walked McCabe. It wound through a labyrinth of narrow byways until it was swallowed by shadows, far darker than those of the clouds, which lived under the porch of that little church. O'Neill found it there.
"Thrale has gone, of course," said the voice of Lady Gaunt, from the inky blackness. "You're just in time, major, for the first scene of our last act. It's worth seeing."
It was well worth seeing. Staged in an old market-place that was outlined by low stone buildings, thronged with picturesque actors and lighted by a dozen roaring bonfires, it was a scene to which few painters, since Rembrandt's time, could have done justice. Few of those actors, it is true, guessed that parts had been assigned them; only Lady Gaunt's instructed three hundred, a number no more than sufficient to leaven the greater mass, knew of this fact. Nevertheless, every individual there, man or woman, was included in the cast. Now some of them were dancing to the music of guitars while others watched or gathered around booths where liquor or refreshments were sold. For the day was one of a fiesta, as, in all those countries, so many days are.
From the church porch came the faint and silvery chime of a repeater.
"It is time," announced Lady Gaunt. "Let the others begin, McCabe."
Touching his hat, McCabe nodded to one of the Indian chairmen, who departed at a run. O'Neill waited for whatever was to happen. He had not long to wait.
At first the major could see only that the fronts of houses lining a street that led from the mercado to the level of the Upper City were successively lighted by the glare of torches, but that was enough; the United States legation stood at the head of that street. He watched the glare become stationary as it fell upon the cornice of the legation, which was visible from where he stood. Then came a concerted shout which caused the guitars and the dancers to stop short, and made even the drinkers listen.
"Viva Alfaro!"
Instantly following was the crash and tinkle of broken windows. Then the glare vanished and the slap of rawhide sandals worn on running feet could be heard. The outrage which, hours before, had called those war-ships from their anchorages now had been technically committed, which answered every purpose.
The slapping footsteps died away as those who made them rejoined the crowds in the market-place, but the shout of those men did not die. "Viva Alfaro!" The two words lived to flash from one end of that crowd to the other, as fire flashes along a train of powder. Yet, though the people, in holiday mood, were willing to shout for anything so long as they could shout, the chorus was not a very hearty one. Laughter and a few hisses mingled with the cheers.
"Now!" whispered Lady Gaunt, into the darkness.
A man stepped forth from the shadows, where he had been waiting. He was bare-headed, as though, in his haste to arrive, he had left his hat; also he panted. He sprang upon an unoccupied booth.
"Silence!" he screamed.
The man was a merchant known to all who saw him and respected by all, for his dealings had been exceptionally fair. Widely also was he known as an enemy of Alfaro, a fact which lost him no popularity in that assemblage. Lastly, he flourished in one hand a slip of blue paper—a telegram. A telegram had but one meaning to those whom the merchant addressed—tidings of woe—news of battle, murder or fresh instances of oppression, or, more likely still, all three. For all these reasons dead silence ensued. For a moment the newcomer also was silent, his face a picture of righteous rage. Then he burst forth.
"Fools!" he roared. "You shout 'Viva Alfaro,' will you?—idiots and sons of idiots that you are! Here is a telegram that has come from Guayaquil. Listen!"
They listened, and he read.
"‘Because of the insult offered their country United States war-ships have taken possession of custom-house. They will collect all duties until indemnity has been paid.'
"And you, you blockheads and asses, whose grandmothers were geese—do you know what this means?" the merchant went on. "It means that the United States will collect a huge sum of money—that they will collect it once. But it means also that the scoundrel Alfaro will use this condition—which he himself has brought about—as an excuse for collecting it a dozen times, as he has done before. As an excuse for more taxes, and yet more. It is you who will pay! Will pay while your wives and little ones starve, as others have starved."
"Down with Alfaro!" cried a voice, and other voices took up the cry.
"Viva Plaza!" some one yelled, and from the crowd there rose a mighty, inarticulate roar of assent, a roar that echoed and re-echoed like thunder and which seemed to make the leaping flames of the bonfires tremble in sympathy.
"Yes, 'Down with Alfaro!' and 'Long live Plaza!’" cried the orator, as the roar at length subsided somewhat. "Especially 'Long live Plaza!' Shall I tell you why? The reason is this. Were Plaza in power the indemnity—if, indeed, it should then be demanded—would be paid without a single centavo of extra taxes. You doubt! Then, if you choose, you may hear Plaza himself make the promise and that within an hour. If you choose, I say. But first you must act. You shout 'Down with Alfaro!' Very good! Will you confine yourselves to shouting, and still allow Alfaro, unchecked, to rob and murder you? Answer!"
The answer came. "NO!" It was another roar, mightier by far even than the first.
"Good!" cried the orator. "Alfaro is at the palacio. There, then, let us go. I myself will lead you. Al palacio!'"
"Al palacio!" came the response.
Springing to the ground and marching straight ahead, the orator began to sing. He sang the "Marseillaise," with misfit Spanish words, and in a moment every man there was singing it. Any song rendered by that number of male voices is impressive. When the song has a deadly purpose behind it it becomes doubly so. This song had such a purpose. Forming mechanically into a ragged column behind its leader, the crowd followed him, serpentwise, into the street which led into the Upper City.
"Nothing can stop them now," said Lady Gaunt. "All need for theatricals is over. A great actor was lost, however, when that man became a merchant. Take me home, McCabe. Major, please come with us."
They took her home, but not by the most direct route, for the direct route was occupied by that column, as it wound its upward way into the plaza mayor. There stands the palacio. There also stands the house in which Archie Douglas had his rooms.
That singing, distant but approaching, at first mingled with Archie's dreams. Then, as he wakened somewhat, he recognized the music for what it was. Though he knew, as every one knows, what that air is likely to mean when it is sung in procession by thousands of men, for a little Archie lay still, trying to gather his drowsy senses. Above those deep notes he heard a discord of bugles sounded from the infantry barracks. Starting to a sitting position, he listened for shots, but none came. Instead he heard cheers. Thereupon he lost interest; probably it was only a lot of political speech-making and that sort of thing. So he lay down once more and took up his interrupted sleep exactly where he had left it off.
Therefore Archie saw nothing of the procession as it debouched into the plaza mayor. It was greater than it had been—much greater. All sorts of people now were included in its ranks. Soldiers from the barracks cheered and joined it. Torches of llama wool soaked in grease blazed and smoked and smelled abominably. With one of these the leader beat time to his singing.
Straight to the palacio they went. Archie might have seen the sentinels leave their posts and join their comrades. He might have seen the doors as they opened, and have caught a glimpse of brilliant uniforms behind them. Only one man emerged, however. The doors closed, and by himself he advanced to the edge of the portico. It was Alfaro. For a moment he stood motionless in the glaring torch-light. Enemy though he was—scoundrel though he was—Archie must have respected him then, had he seen. That squat figure, standing alone and forsaken against so many, was heroic. And by some strange freak the crowd fell silent.
Stretching forth his right hand, Alfaro would have spoken. Instantly pandemonium ripped loose. The crowd surged forward. From the breast of his coat Alfaro snatched a pistol which spat redly. The merchant—he who had been the leader—crumpled to the paved floor and lay there. But over the front and both ends of that raised portico the crowd lapped like a rising tide. Almost at once its voice sank to a murmur like that of a tide.
Then it was that Archie's slumber became part of his good fortune, and no small part of it. Had he been awake he would have seen what followed, which was ill for any man to see. For this mob had traditions behind it, traditions of Inca punishments, also those of the Spanish Inquisition. It was making good the words of Lady Gaunt. Archie slept on.
There was no sleep, however, in the mansion of Lady Gaunt. She sat in the great sala, enthroned in an armchair. McCabe stood behind her, and the major sat close by, both watchful and alert. A tall and rather handsome man, his beard shot with gray, nervously paced the room. Suddenly he halted, holding up a hand, as the notes of the "Marseillaise" came floating in through the open windows. He sighed with relief.
"They are coming," he said in Spanish. "Your part of our bargain, señora mia, is complete; it now remains for me to fulfil my part. One hundred thousand dollars in currency of the United States as an atonement, you tell me, for a sin of my predecessor. And cheap enough—as I do not have to atone for his other sins!"
Drawing from his pocket a packet of gold certificates. Plaza—for it was Plaza who had spoken—placed them on a table by Lady Gaunt's side. Then he stepped out through a window onto a balcony, to bask in the torchlight which now began to shine there while the crowd roared forth his name, mingled with cheers.
Without looking at him Lady Gaunt opened a drawer in the table, and taking from it a document covered with seals—the one conveying that concession—she laid the sheaf of gold certificates upon it, snapped a rubber band about both, and placed them in an envelope. From the drawer she took also another envelope, placed both of them in a larger one, and handed it to O'Neill.
"I find myself very tired, major, and think I shall leave this morning for a rest in the country," she said. "So please give that envelope to Archie Douglas as soon as you conveniently can. I think everything is quite safe for you to go. General Plaza is making a speech which, if it is like most speeches of its kind, will last for hours."
With an old-world courtesy that sat well upon him, O'Neill bent low and kissed the withered hand that gave him the packet.
"It isn't the concession, my lady," he said, with a sort of affectionate gayety, "nor yet the money. But all the same I think that young Douglas is the luckiest chap in the world."
Lady Gaunt smiled almost shyly, and over her face there came a delicate pink, like that which one sees on the inside of sea-shells.
"Please go now," she said. "For, after all, I'm just a tired old woman who must get some rest."
So O'Neill left her, just as dawn was breaking. He found Archie deep in slumber and was obliged to shake him back to consciousness.
"Hullo!" growled the shaken one good-naturedly. "What's the matter?"
"Matter?" echoed the major, laughing. "The matter is that you're to get up and come over to my place to breakfast. In the meantime here's something that Lady Gaunt told me to give you."
It was the smaller of the two enclosed envelopes that Archie happened to open first. An old-fashioned locket set with brilliants fell into his hand. Mechanically, for he still was dazed with sleep, he pressed a spring, and the locket flew open, disclosing a miniature. Save for the costume, which was that of a day long past, it might have been a portrait of Archie himself. He stared, rubbed his eyes, and stared again.
"Why, it's dad!" he cried. "My mother had one something like this, but this is younger than hers. So Lady Gaunt knew my father, and before my mother did! Now, wouldn't that bump you?"
"Yes," agreed O'Neill thoughtfully, a light of understanding breaking upon his mind. "Yes, I think it would. But—I don't know whether you've noticed it, Douglas, as I have—whenever a woman makes history one is apt to be 'bumped' twice; once by her motives and once by the history itself. It's an interesting phenomenon. I'll see you at breakfast. You needn't hurry, though."
There was no reply. With the unopened fortune lying beside him, Archie stared at the miniature. So O'Neill left the room and, softly closing the door behind him, went his way.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1937, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 86 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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