THE STORY OF THE DESERTER OF THE PHILIPPINES
I don’t exactly know why I married Maxie Morrow, except that I’ve always been a fool about women. The thing came so sudden, I just jumped and caught her on the fly. When she left me, I went pretty much to the bad. Then Harry Maidslow disappeared, because of debts and one thing or another, and I turned up as Harry Roberts in St. Louis. That was just about when the Spanish war broke out. It was too good a chance to lose, and I decided to begin all over again. So I enlisted in the regulars, joining the One Hundred and Fourteenth Infantry. I was hardly more than through the goose step when we were sent to the Philippines.
I was no slouch nor shirk, either, but I knew more about eating than anything else, and I naturally gravitated to the cook’s tent and put him on to a lot of things the boys liked. I got to be rather popular with the company in this way, and when the Commissary Sergeant was appointed in Manila, I managed to get the place, though I was only a rookie. Perhaps the Captain’s wife helped me out some. She, being an officer’s lady, wasn’t supposed to know I was on earth, but somehow she noticed me and fixed it up easy.
Commissary work was a snap—little drill, no guard mount, leave of absence occasionally, and the run of the town in a little pony cart. You see each company had its quota of rations. We could draw them, or leave them and get credit. There was maple syrup and candy, canned fruit, and chocolate, and all sorts of good stuff in the storehouse that we could get at wholesale rates. By cutting down on fresh meat and pinching on bacon, I managed the company’s accounts so that we could have hot griddle-cakes and maple syrup every day. That’s the way I held my job. If I ever become famous it will be for having introduced Pie in the Philippines.
Every morning I drove around Manila, visiting the markets with a man to help me, exchanging sacks of flour for fresh baker’s bread and cakes, getting chickens, and so on, besides making friends right and left. About two nights every week I was dancing or flirting with the half-breed women; Mestizas they called them. That’s how I got into trouble.
Her name was Senorita Maria del Pilar Assompcion Aguilar, and nothing that ever I saw could touch her for looks. She was the kind of woman that makes you forget everything else that ever happened before. She and her brother owned about the whole of a province in the middle of the island of Luzon. When she came into the room it was all over with me. There was more of the Spanish than the Filipino in her, enough to give her the style and air of a lady, but she got her beauty from the tropics. Her hair was like one of those hot black nights they have down there—silky and soft, drifting around her face—but it was her eyes that made you lose sleep. They were blue-black, not melting, but wide-awake and piercing. They were just a bit crossed, hardly a hairbreadth out, but that little cast seemed to make her even prettier than if they were straight. A Kansas sergeant told me that the family was in from their country place, and that the Secret Service people were watching her. She and her brother were suspected of knowing a good deal about Aguinaldo’s plans.
You remember that after the battle of Manila the American troops lay in town for months, just drilling and waiting to see what the insurgents were going to do. There were all sorts of rumours afloat, and nobody knew which way the cat would jump. The Filipinos were camped in a semi-circle outside the city and growing uglier every day. Our sentries were watching them close enough to see every nigger that stuck his finger to his nose at us.
I saw more and more of Maria, danced with her, or went to her house every night I could get off. It wasn’t long before I saw that I had her going. Her brother looked as if he’d like to bolo me in the back, and never left us alone for a moment. I didn’t care. I was too far gone myself to be afraid of him. I’ve seen one or two women in my time, but she could put it over them all.
Love goes pretty fast in hot countries. One night I happened to find her alone. Her brother was away on some Katipunan conspiracy business, most likely, or perhaps dodging our spies. She was dressed like a queen, all ready for me. I had no more than come in when she threw herself into my arms and lay there crying. I had gone too far, and I was in for it.
I let her stay there a little while, kissing her and trying to get her quiet, and then I looked away, and told her what I should have told her long before—that I had a wife and couldn’t marry. She took it pretty hard at first.
After she had cried she laughed, and there was a load off my mind. I said to myself that women must be different down here, and thought I was lucky to get out of it so easy. I thought perhaps she hadn’t been so badly hurt, after all. She said we’d forget it, and be friends, just the same. I was a fool and believed her. She asked me to come back to-morrow, and I said I would.
The next day I met Señor Aguilar, her brother, and he seemed to be as friendly as if we were bunkies. He insisted upon my having a drink with him. He seemed to be glad to know that Maria and I weren’t so much lovers as he had thought. We sat most of the afternoon drinking cognac, and I got more and more pleased at having squared myself with them both. Then some one must have hit me over the head.
When I came to, my head was bursting. My hands were bound and I was covered with a sheet of canvas, being jolted in a little bobbing cart. I yelled for help, and my only answer was the barrel of a Mauser rifle stuck in my face. Then I went off into a stupor, and for the rest of that trip I only remember heat, thirst, hunger, stiff joints and a murderous headache. The journey seemed to go on for years and years, but I didn’t have energy enough even to wonder what had happened or where I was going.
Finally I found myself stretched upon a cot in a white-walled room, looking through a great arched window into a green patio waving with palms. Señor Aguilar was standing beside me, smiling wickedly. Bromo-seltzer wouldn’t have cleared my head the way the sight of him did.
“Señor Roberts,” he said, as soon as he saw that I was fully conscious, “possibly you may have suspected that I have not always been charmed at the attentions you have paid Señorita Maria. However, you will be glad to learn that I have at last decided to accept you as my brother-in-law. I have given directions that the marriage ceremony shall take place to-morrow evening. I shall be honoured by the alliance, I am sure, for within a week you will be the only Americano alive on the Island of Luzon. I have just come from a conference with General Aguinaldo, and the council of war has set upon February 4th as the date when we shall have the pleasure of capturing Manila and exterminating your army. You are at Carrino, a hundred miles from the city, helpless and unarmed. I think you will see the advisability of accepting gracefully the privilege of becoming a member of our distinguished family.
“It is barely possible,” he went on, “that you may feel like declining to become the husband of Señorita Maria. Americanos are not renowned for their courtesy. So I give you a day to think it over. We Aguilars do not often force ourselves upon strangers, but under the circumstances I consent to forget our family pride. You may give me your answer to-morrow.”
I knew what he meant. This was a sample of Spanish revenge with a Filipino barb to it. If I stayed, I was a branded deserter. I knew that, and Aguilar knew it too. And he was sure enough that I’d never marry his sister under those circumstances, or he’d never have made the offer. The only possible way out of it—although that seemed hopeless—was to escape, carry the news to General Otis, and save the army. It would mean a pardon, and maybe shoulder-straps for me.
Could I get away? That was the question. I had no time to lose. To travel a hundred miles through an unknown hostile country in a week, without arms, food or money, was no child’s play. But I watched my chance.
About sundown a Tagalo woman, homely as a hedge-fence, came in with my dinner. She hung round as though she were willing to talk, and I set to work to see how I could use her. I’d had some experience with women, and had found them mostly alike, black and white, and I used every trick I knew on her. Of all the cyclone love-making I ever did, that got over the ground the quickest. I worked so hard I almost meant it, and she rose to the hook.
That night she got the guard off, filled him up with bino, and showed me the way out of the plantation through the banana grove. Outside, she had a little scrub pony waiting. She pointed to it, and gave me a general idea of the direction, then put her arms on my shoulders and held up her great thick lips to be kissed. That was about the hardest work I had on the whole trip. Then I jumped into the saddle and pelted down the road like Sheridan thirty miles away. I thought I was a hero, all right, and I saw my picture in the papers with shoulder-straps and the girls kissing me, like Hobson. It was a grand-stand play to save the army. As near as I could calculate, that was the night of January 31st, and I had six days to get to Manila. It looked easy.
I kept as nearly south as I could guess, and rode that pony almost to death. At daylight I hid and hobbled him and crawled into the brush to sleep. When I woke up the nag was lying in a puddle of blood, hamstrung. That was the first blow.
There was not a soul in sight, but I imagined there was a boloman behind every tree. I listened, and every waving bush scared me worse. I was actually afraid of the light. If this were the beginning of the trip, what would the end be? But I had to go on, and do my best.
I got under cover and crawled like a snake till I came to a patch of banana trees, where I stopped long enough to eat and to fill my pockets. For two days I kept it up, making about thirty miles south, I suppose, dodging villages, skirting the roads and sleeping most of the daytime. It was hot and dusty; food was scarce and water scarcer.
So I fought my way through the tropical night, tortured by mosquitos, insects, and ants. Luckily it was near the full of the moon, and I was able to drag myself along all night. The way gradually became more moist and swampy. I toiled through slippery mud, and had often to make detours to avoid sinking in great morasses. Then, just at dawn of the third morning I came upon the banks of the Pasig. Now I had four days more in which to save the army, and a quiet river to drift down at night, hiding by daylight, if I could only find something to float on.
Towards noon, as I lay in the bushes, I saw an empty boat bobbing down stream. I swam out to it, hauled it ashore, and hid it in the bushes. That night I began to paddle down the river, calling myself “Lieutenant” Roberts.
Twice, before morning, I thought I heard the sound of oars or paddles behind me, and got inshore to listen, but nothing appeared. At dawn I drew in to the bank, hid the boat, and crawled to a safe place and slept like a horse. After I had foraged for bananas and got back to the river, the boat was gone! I began to lose hope.
I was certain that I had tied the boat securely, so I knew now that someone was on my trail. I had not only to make my way on foot through the wilderness, but I was to be dogged at every step. What with the heat, starvation, and growing fear, I was pretty nearly out of my head, but the knowledge that upon me alone depended the safety of the army kept me on, straining every nerve. If it hadn’t been for that, I would have given it up right there.
After I had followed the bank of the river for some distance, some logs came drifting down the current. I took the chances of being seen, and swam out and captured two of them. Tied together with long, tough creepers, they made a passable raft, and all that night I floated down stream, paddling as well as I could with my hands. I passed a lot of houses and villages on the banks, and so I knew that I was approaching the city. Sometimes I heard the sound of drums and bugles, for the insurgents were all over the country raising recruits. I must have been wandering in my mind by that time, for I wasn’t a bit scared any more—only watching for wild bananas and bread-fruit, and wondering how long I’d last. I succeeded in killing some of the many tame ducks I saw, and ate them raw, not daring to build a fire.
Next night the river broadened out into a good-sized lake. By the look of it, I took it to be Laguna de Bay, about twenty-five miles from Manila. I had only that night and the next day to reach our troops. If the first shot were fired before I got to the outposts, I might just as well drop into the Pasig and go to the bottom.
When the sun rose I slid into the water and struck out for the shore, intending to take my chances along the bank by daylight. This was the morning of the 4th of February. Somehow, some way, I had to get through the circle of the Filipino lines drawn about the city. I hoped that I was too close to the town for them to dare to interfere with an American soldier in the daytime. So I climbed up a slippery bank and broke into the brush, about as tired and discouraged as a man could be and still live.
Then—all of a sudden—I was nailed from behind! The game was up. Somebody gripped me by the throat. I was so weak, there was no fight left in me. In half a minute I was bound by a dozen niggers, who came jumping out of the bushes and fell on top of me from all sides at once. I didn’t much care what they were going to do with me: I had quit. Five days of fear and suspense and suffering had taken every bit of nerve out of me.
As soon as I was tied up they began to rush me along the road, kicking me up every time I faltered, and jabbing me with bolos when I fell. I don’t know why I didn’t die right then. I don’t know why my hair isn’t white.
At last we came to a little nipa hut, guarded by Filipino soldiers in dirty white uniforms and bare feet. I was thrown inside, unbound, and given a gourd of rice. I ate it, hoping it was poisoned. From all I saw, I was sure the tip about the outbreak was straight, for the place was bustling with soldiers coming and going, and I noticed they all had ammunition.
At about four o’clock I was bound again and gagged. I thought it was the end, sure, this time, and I was ready to die game. But it was only a new kind of torture. They prodded me with their bayonets, marching me to a place where I could look through the bushes right across a little river. There, on the other side, was one of our sentries pacing up and down, and way off I saw the Stars and Stripes floating in the sun. I could hear a band playing “There’ll be a hot time,” too. If I could have yelled across just once and given our boys warning, I wouldn’t have minded anything they did to me. But I was gagged. I believe I cried.
Then they took me back to the hut, and night came on. Every minute that passed made the torture worse and worse. I didn’t care for myself any more; I was only thinking about the boys across the river, all unconscious of what was going to happen. I knew so well how careless they had got to be, and what fun they made of the idea that the niggers could possibly have the nerve to attack us. They would all be fooling around the streets of Manila, probably half of them at the theatre or dancing or in the cafés, leaving only the guard to take the first rush. It didn’t seem possible that we could be saved. Our entrenchments would be carried at the first charge, I was sure. The Tagalos in town would rise, and it would mean a wholesale massacre.
Of course you know now all about the battle, for the night of February 4, 1899, is school-book history by this time. I doubt if there was any actual date set by Aguinaldo for rushing Manila, though he had considerable trouble keeping his cocky little niggers in order. If there was a time set, it wasn’t that night, anyway. The Filipinos were getting more insulting every day, and I suppose it was only a question of a week or so at latest. But I didn’t know it then. Everybody has heard by this time how the row opened, with a Nebraska private shooting at four Tagalos who tried to pass Block House No. 6. But all I knew was what Aguilar had told me, and from what I saw, it looked nasty enough to be true. I could see that the niggers were prepared to go into action at a minute’s notice.
So I waited and waited in the hut, dying by inches. I hoped I had been fooled, and feared that I wasn’t. I imagined by what I had seen that I was at San Felipe, on the bank of the San Juan River, where it joins the Pasig. If so, the Nebraska boys ought to be nearest me. My regiment was with Ovenshine, to the south of the city, camped near Malate.
I felt about the way you feel when a tempest is coming up, and I was just waiting for the first clap of thunder. Along about half-past eight, I should say, I heard a single shot ring out, and right off, as if it had been a signal, the Mausers began to crack over by the river. The fire increased steadily till they were shooting all over to the north in the Tondo District. Company after company of Filipinos ran past the hut, the officers yelling like mad. Still, there was nothing but Mausers going, popping like fire-crackers, and it seemed hours before the fire was returned. I was sure they had carried the town. At last I heard a volley of Springfields—I knew them by the heavy boom, and I knew then that the Nebraska boys had formed and had gone into action. I had been with the regulars long enough to look down on the volunteers; but when I heard that firing, I just stood up and yelled! It didn’t die down, but kept up steadily, and I was sure the boys were holding the Filipinos back, when the Utah light artillery got into action. Then, just like a thunderstorm, the noise slowly swept round to the south, and the Springfields took up the chorus down through Anderson’s Division; first the California boys and the Idahos of the 1st Brigade, till about three in the morning the regulars were engaged. Of course I had to guess it out from what I knew of the way our troops were camped, but I imagined I could tell the minute my regiment began to fight. The Astor Mountain Battery and the 6th Artillery began to answer the Filipino’s Krupp guns, and then till daybreak the battle was going on all round the town.
I waited for the Springfield fire to weaken, dreading that we would be driven in, but when it kept up as if it never would stop, I was sure that we had whipped them. The Filipinos began to retreat past the hut in disorder, the officers as badly scared as the privates. I was watching them, laughing, when four niggers broke into the hut, tied my arms, packed me on a mule, and rushed me off.
For four or five days I was carried back and forth behind the Filipino army, dodging out of every skirmish, as the Americans pushed Aguinaldo back all along the circle. One night we spent in Mariquina, and left early in the morning, while white flags were flying to lure our troops into the town. Then we travelled southwest towards Pasai. I wondered what they were keeping me for, and why they didn’t either kill me or let me go. Then I remembered what I’d heard of Spanish prisons, and I stopped wondering and began to pray.
We ended, finally, in a church the insurgents were trying to hold while our boys were getting ready to charge. I was driven up into a bell-tower half battered to pieces from our shells and filled with smoke. A squad of natives were firing from the windows.
There in a corner was Señor Aguilar, in the uniform of a Filipino colonel, and I knew that my case was to be settled at last. He looked black. I didn’t have long to wait this time. The niggers threw me down, and put a Filipino uniform blouse on me, taking it from a dead soldier on the floor. I didn’t try to resist. What was the use?
Then Aguilar said to me: “I hope you have enjoyed your journey, Señor Roberts. My men took care to make it as interesting as possible. A man who has the courage to refuse the hand of an Aguilar deserves distinguished treatment.” He got as far as that with his Spanish sarcasm, and then his native Filipino savagery got the better of him.
“You d—— fool, did you think for a moment that I’d let an American hound like you marry my sister? Do you think I would let a man live who had played with her? No, by heaven, nor die, either, except like a dog. I have let you live long enough to be hanged by your own countrymen. You’re a deserter, and I’ve given some interesting information to your spies. And you’ll be caught fighting in our ranks!” Then he drew his revolver and pointed to the dead Filipino on the floor. “Take that gun, and go to the window, and shoot down your brother dogs!” he cried.
I don’t know why I didn’t shoot him, instead, right there, but I had lost my nerve. I went to the window and fired at a bare space. And then, if you’ll believe it, I saw my own regimental flag coming up with Old Glory, as my own bunkies formed for the rush. It was Colonel Knowlton’s command that was to take the church. I don’t know what ever became of Aguilar, for I just stood up in the window and cheered as the boys came on. They charged with a yell that did my heart good to hear, for I lost myself and my danger watching the way they did the work.
But I remembered soon enough. The Filipino fire died away, and the insurgents scurried out of the building like rats. I was pulled back with them as they retreated, but as we crossed a dry creek bed I stumbled and fell. Just then a detachment of my own company came up, skirmishing, and saw me. I threw up my hands, and a corporal covered me. I knew him well; he used to drive in the little donkey-cart with me in Manila when I marketed.
He dropped his rifle and said, “Good God! It’s Roberts.”
I tried to explain how I’d been knocked out and captured, but they wouldn’t believe me. I had been posted for a deserter, and Aguilar had fixed me. All I could do was to ask them to shoot me right there, as if I had been killed in the battle. But they had cooled down some while I talked, and they couldn’t do it in cold blood. Finally, the corporal said:
“See here, boys, I enlisted to fight, and not to be a hangman. Roberts has messed with me, and I can’t do it. Perhaps what he says is true; I don’t know. If you want to arrest him, go ahead. But I’ll be darned if I want it said that the old 114th had to shoot a deserter. Come on, and let him take his chances!”
He turned his back on me, and they followed him. I ripped off my canvas coat and ran down the creek and hid till night.
There wasn’t a man on the whole island, nigger or white, who wasn’t my enemy, and I didn’t expect I’d ever escape. But there was a woman. She wasn’t exactly the kind you’d ever suspect of having a heart, but she saved my life. She hid me in a shed outside of the town, and fed me and nursed me till I was able to get away on a blockade runner and come to San Francisco. I owe that woman something, and if I’m ever flush again, she’ll get it back.
So it was a woman who sent me to the Philippines, it was a woman who got my promotion, a woman who tortured me like a fiend, and a woman who saved me. And the queer part of it is that the last one was what most people would call the worst of the lot!
Admeh Drake was seeing his own phantoms of the Philippines on his cot; the man with the yellow beard, Maidslow, alias Roberts, was looking with eyes that saw beyond the walls of the Hammam, when the Hero of Pago Bridge brought himself back with a jerk.
“You’ve told me all except how you got here,” he said.
“Plain drunk,” said Maidslow, “the first I dared get after I left the Islands. But it isn’t safe for me to stay in San Francisco, now Colonel Knowlton is back here. If Maxie saw through the beard, he will, and the place is full of Secret Service men.”
Admeh Drake suddenly jumped from the couch.
“What will you give me if I get that legacy for you?”
“A thousand dollars.”
“Done!” cried the Hero. “See here, it’s too easy! Colonel Knowlton don’t know your real name’s Maidslow, does he?”
“No, I enlisted as Roberts.”
“Dead to rights. He’ll take Maxie’s word when she identifies her husband to him. All right again. Well, let me play Harry Maidslow, and go with Maxie to the Colonel. I take my thousand, and you take the rest and—Maxie. How’s that?”
“If Maxie will stand for it, I’m ready,” said the deserter.
During the rest of the night, the man who went for a soldier and wished he hadn’t, and the man who didn’t go and wished that he had, lay in an upper corridor of the Hammam discussing the details of their conspiracy.
CHAPTER IX
THE WARDS OF FORTUNE
Soothed by the drone of the Retired Car Conductor’s narrative, and wearied out with the continuous performance of the night’s adventures, the Harvard Freshman fell asleep on the wooden bench in his cell at the Tanks; and it was not until a heavy hand was laid on his shoulder that he awoke. A bluff policeman was standing over him.
“Your order for release has come, and you can go now! You and your pardner was asleep, and I clean forgot you.”
The officer had a similar word with the Conductor, and led the two prisoners out into the corridor. While they were waiting for their property to be taken from the boxes in which it had been stored, Eli Cook felt idly in his pocket and drew out a torn scrap of red paper marked with Chinese writing.
“That’s all they left on me when I was searched,” he said, with a feeble grin. “Want it for a souvenir of a happy evenin’? It dropped out of a Chinaman’s pocket yesterday up to Dupont Street, and I picked it up.”
The Freshman took it, in the same spirit of mockery, and stuffed it into his own pocket to keep company with several pawn tickets. As they went together into the street the city bells were striking two o’clock.
“Gosh!” Coffin cried, with a burst of his old fervor, “I feel like the chairman of a woman’s club after an annual election. Where you going to feed your visage, old man?” he added tentatively. He was out of funds, hungry and weary. The hundred dollars won from the Klondyker in the smoking wager, deposited for bail, had, in fact, completely exhausted his resources. The Conductor, however, refused to take the hint, and manifested a desire to get away.
“Oh, I got to snoop back to the Beach,” he said. “This has been a hard day for me, and I dunno how I’m a-goin’ to get even on my hundred if I have to stand trial. I ain’t exactly hungry, anyway, but perhaps I’ll stew up some canned stuff out to the cars. Want to come along? You’ll have to walk, though, and it’s full seven miles through the Park.”
“No, thanks,” said Coffin, dryly. “I’ve got a poke-out coming to me at nine, and I guess I can wait. I’ll walk up and down, and let the girls admire me for a season.”
“Well, good-by, then!” said Eli Cook of Carville-by-the-Sea, and he hurriedly made off down Kearney Street.
The youngster mused. “I shall now endeavor to give the correct imitation of a thousand-dollar sport in the act of starving to death. I am wondering, in my simple Japanese way, whether that gentle Klondyker with my prize money in tow, will ever swim into my ken again. It’s a good deal like trying to find a pet oyster in a mud flat, but I’ll try my best. Angels, they say, can do no more. Selah!” With that he walked up to Gunschke’s cigar store and found the young man who had assisted at the smoking orgy of the night before. The clerk, however, knew nothing of the Klondyker’s whereabouts, having never seen the Father of the Katakoolanat previous to the debauch. The Freshman was in a quandary.
“Say, has your luck changed yet?” the salesman asked. “Last time I heard, the curve was still rising.”
“By Jove, I had forgotten all about that,” cried Coffin. “Let’s see, I won my hundred at the wager, then I won my thousand, more or less, in the Chinese lottery, but then I was pulled, and dropped the hundred at the Tanks. The grand psychological query is, Do I get that thou’? If I had a nickel to my name I’d put the delicate question to the Oracle of the Slot and find out how I stand on Fortune’s Golden Rolls.”
“Oh, I’ll stake you; here you are,” the salesman answered, tossing out a nickel. “I’d like to know myself. If you’re still winning I’ll take you out to the race-track and let you do my betting.”
The Freshman pushed the coin down the slot of the poker machine and jerked the handle. Three treys appeared behind the wire. “Bully!” cried the salesman. “Here, you draw four cigars!”
“Nay, nay, Pauline!” Coffin exclaimed in disgust. “I wouldn’t eat another cigar to be crowned King of the Barbary Coast! I can never endure the smell of tobacco again without being as sea-sick as a cat in a swing. Much obliged for your charity, but I’ll call it square for the good omen.”
Irrationally cheered by the portent, James Wiswell Coffin, 3d, wandered out aimlessly and floated with the throng down towards the cheaper end of Kearney Street. The cool, green, grassy square at the Old Plaza attracted him, and he entered the little park.
Meanwhile, the plot hatched by the Hero of Pago Bridge and the deserter of the Philippines had gone forward without a hitch. Drake and Maidslow had met Maxie at the Biograph Theatre, and she had consented to visit Colonel Knowlton and represent Drake as her missing husband, that Maidslow might be safe from being recognised and apprehended by the Secret Service men as a deserter. Both husband and wife were affected at this meeting, after so many years, and it was evident to the Hero that a reconciliation would be easily arranged. Both were lonely. Maxie had worked so hard and Maidslow had lived so adventurously that the prospect of settling down to a peaceful married life attracted them equally. This was now possible if the legacy of old Max could be collected safely from the Colonel. Their scheme was nothing less them conspiracy; but, after all, Maidslow, her real husband, would be the one profited, for he would receive the money. Maxie’s conscience was assuaged by this consideration.
At 10.30 that morning Maxie and Drake called upon the Colonel at the army headquarters and passed the ordeal successfully. The officer was too busy to spend much time in investigation, and, knowing Maxie as well as he did, it did not occur to him to suspect fraud. At any rate, the check for $15,000, which he passed over to Admeh (made payable to Harry Maidslow) would not be cashed without proper identification, and the bank would relieve the Colonel of this necessity. He congratulated them on their reunion, and dismissed them in relief that the responsibility of his trust was over.
How Maidslow was to cash the check was now the question. It was easily solved, at a meeting of the three principals in the plot, by the decision that old Dietrich, the proprietor of the Biograph Theatre, could identify the payee. He would undoubtedly believe Maxie’s introduction of Maidslow as her husband, as this time, at least, she would be speaking the truth. They left Admeh Drake on the sidewalk while they proceeded to this next step.
The old Dutchman was canny, however. “How do I know dat dis man is your huspant?” he said. “You say so, Maxie, put I neffer seen him pefore! See here, didn’t you say Harry Maidslow hat a tattoo mark on his arm alretty? He hat a girl’s name ’Dotty,’ you tole me once. Lemme see dat mark, and I vill itentify him, sure! Den I know it’s all right!”
This was easily proved. Maidslow stripped up his sleeve and exhibited the tattoo mark, and old Dietrich was convinced. He put on his hat to accompany them to the bank. Excusing himself for a moment, Maidslow slipped out and spoke to Admeh Drake.
“It’s all right, Drake, we’re going right down to cash the check. You get away before Dietrich sees you and gets suspicious, and I’ll meet you with the thousand dollars at Lotta’s Fountain in half an hour!”
Drake walked down Market Street. In a few minutes he saw Maxie, Maidslow, and the old Dutchman approaching. He kept out of sight while they passed him, on their way to Montgomery Street, where the bank was located. Then he commenced his vigil at Lotta’s Fountain.
This is the very hub and centre of San Francisco, in the heart of the shopping district, and the strategic point for confidence men, tourists, loiterers, and sports. The three great newspaper buildings form here a towering group against the sky, and the Palace Hotel, a massive block honeycombed with windows, is within a stone’s throw. About him eddied the principal currents of the town, carrying their heterogeneous collection of humanity. The fountain is an island in the triangular opening formed by the union of Geary, Kearney, and Market streets, and each of these important thoroughfares contributed to the liveliness of the place. Groups of brightly gowned women were awaiting the cable cars to take them to the Oakland Ferry, cheap actors promenaded up the Rialto of Market Street, the Geary Street cars swung on the turn-table, impeding the traffic, and along the sidewalk on Kearney Street the flower-venders made a vivid splotch of color. The whole place was alive and bustling, and time went fast with the watcher at the gilded fountain where no one drank.
When Admeh Drake looked up to the clock tower above his head, he was surprised to see that it was already a quarter to twelve. He had waited nearly an hour. He began to be impatient, nervous, suspicious. Maidslow should have returned with Maxie long before this. Something must have happened, or else—he grew frightened at the thought—they had given him the slip, and would avoid paying him the thousand dollars as his share of the plot. He waited now with less hope. Surely, if they were coming at all, they would have returned before this. He lost interest in the passers-by, and watched only for the two who were to bring him his reward.
The clock struck noon, and the throng was swelled by clerks and business men released for their lunch hour. One o’clock, and the tide poured back again. Two, and he grew weary with standing, and sat upon the pedestal of the Fountain. Three, and he gave up all hope. The excitement which had kept him up all night relaxed. He was faint and limp from lack of food and sleep.
So he, too, joined the human current and drifted along Kearney Street with no set plan of action.
He turned into the Old Plaza, at Portsmouth Square, his eyes caught by a sparkle of light from the gilded sails of the little bronze ship on the Stevenson Memorial. He walked nearer to see what it was, and as he approached he perceived a young man in a red sweater reading the inscription on the marble shaft. It was the Harvard Freshman.
“To be honest, to be kind,” Coffin was reading, “to earn a little and to spend a little less, to make upon the whole a family happier for his presence”—and then he turned away with a bitter protest in his throat, to see the Hero of Pago Bridge looking over his shoulder.
“Pretty, ain’t it!” said Admeh Drake, and he, too, looked at the immortal quotation from the “Christmas sermon.” Had it been written for him alone, it could not have stung him more fiercely.
“—To renounce, when that shall be necessary, and not be embittered, to keep a few friends, but these without capitulation—above all, on the same grim condition, to keep friends with himself—here is a task for all that a man has of fortitude and delicacy.”
He turned to Coffin with despair in his eye, all that was best in him writhing at these graven words. “Say, what the hell did they stick that up here for, right where every man that has failed can read it and eat out his heart?”
Coffin slapped him on the back in sympathy, for even the irrepressible Freshman seemed for the moment to be touched by the admonitory legend. But he was not one to be serious for long, and after that one swift glance into his soul, his customary spirit asserted itself.
“See here,” he said, “this is the way I look at it. You can’t have good luck with your conscience all the time, any more’n you can with your purse. Moral: cultivate your forgettery! We meet under the shadow of the good ship Bonaventure, aforesaid ship being full of buccaneers and sailing over a Sublime Moral Precept, by R. L. S. I doubt if he would claim he was always such an angel himself if anybody should drive up in a chariot and ask him. Lastly, my brethren, why be phazed at a dozen lines of type? Discard your doubts and draw to the glorious flush of hope. Amen. Let’s have a drink.”
They pledged each other somewhat forlornly in Spring Valley water, and then Coffin remarked, “By the way, what did you do with the dime Coffee John gave you? Made a fortune yet?”
“I made a thousand dollars, but I’ve got it to get. I’ve roped her, but I can’t throw her yet.”
“A thou’?” Coffin exclaimed, “the devil you have! Jupiter, but that’s queer! Why, that’s my fix, precisely. I got it on the hook all right, but I couldn’t haul it into the boat.”
Exchanging confidences over the night’s adventures, the two wandered up to the top of the sloping Plaza, where the back of the Woey Sen Low restaurant arose, three stories high, an iron balcony projecting from each tier of windows.
“Let’s come up to the chink’s Delmonico,” suggested the Freshman. “You can get a great view of the city from up there, and you don’t have to spend money if you don’t want to.”
They went round to the front entrance, ascended the stairs, and filed past empty tables, gaining the balcony. As they stood gazing over San Francisco they heard steps approaching from behind, and two persons came into the nearest room. Coffin, who was standing with Drake, out of sight of the new arrivals, peeped round the corner of a porcelain lantern.
“It’s a woman,” he whispered. “And a peach-erlooloo of the first degree, too, by Jove! Nigger or Kanacker blood, though. Let’s go through and have a look at her.”
Drake assented. They entered the open doorway and passed carelessly through the room. A man at the table looked up and nodded.
“Whittaker!” said the Freshman, when they were out of sight, “the medium, as I exist! I wonder how he ever got into a friendly mix-up with that chocolate-colored fairy. There was no heroine with raven locks in mine.”
At this moment Vango appeared and stuck a dirty finger in Coffin’s buttonhole. The medium’s hair was matted and stringy, his clothes wrinkled and spotted in a shocking disorder. “Come in here,” he said. “I want to make you acquainted with a lady friend,” and he escorted the adventurers where the Quadroon sat, already clad in widow’s weeds.
“Mrs. Moy Kip, let me introduce—Mr.”—here he hesitated, and was prompted—“Mr. Coffin and Mr. Drake. Set down, gents. This here lady has suffered recent a sad and tragical bereavement. I was just about to console her when you passed by, and I hoped you might help distrack her mind from gloomious thoughts and reflections. The party what has just passed out, you understand, was a Chinee, but he is now on the happy side of Jordan, in the spirit spere, and we are some in hopes of having the pleasure of his society to-night in astral form, if the conditions is favorable.”
Here he nudged the Freshman under the table, and Coffin passed the hint to Drake, neither of them knowing exactly what was expected of them.
“Do you speak Chinese, madam?” inquired the Freshman, at a loss how to begin the conversation. “I’ve often wondered about these signs in here. I suppose they’re mottoes from Confucius. Perhaps you wouldn’t mind translating some.” He pointed to several long, narrow strips of colored paper which hung from the walls.
“Oh, I only know a little Chinese, just about enough to read a common business letter in the Cantonese dialect,” said the Quadroon.
Coffin recalled the scrap of paper given him by the retired conductor in the Tanks, and he drew it from his pocket to show to her. The sharp black eyes of the ex-medium, sharpened by long practice, fastened upon it, and he darted a skinny hand.
“Here you are!” he cried excitedly to the Quadroon. “I told you I’d find it, and I done it! Look at that, Mrs. Moy Kip, and see if it ain’t the very same identical piece of paper you was a-searchin’ for. Oh, I felt it a-comin’ just now when this gentleman entered into the room. I felt a wave of self-independent spirit message, and I seen a red aura round his head, thereby denotin’ he was a Psychie.” Exultant as he was, however, he looked over his shoulder fearfully as if he dreaded interruption.
The Quadroon had taken another scrap of red paper from her bosom and tremblingly placed the torn edges of the two together. They fitted exactly. She suddenly rose with set eyes and mouth, and ran towards the stairs without a word.
Vango followed her, leaving Drake and Coffin to wonder at the cause of the excitement. After a few moments the Professor returned trembling, pale, and crestfallen. He sank into a seat and covered his face with his hands.
“Mrs. Higgins! Mrs. Higgins!” he moaned. “I just see her out by the stairs! She wouldn’t let me by! Oh, God, she’s after me again! And that nigger woman’s gone and I’ve lost her. Think of it, after all I’ve went through, to lose her just as I was winnin’!”
He looked up haggardly and pounded his fist on the table. “By Jimminy Christmas! That there piece of paper was worth a thousand dollars, gents, to me, and I’ve lost it!”
Drake and Coffin exchanged glances of amused surprise, and Vango added weakly, looking at the Freshman, “Much obliged, I’m sure, Mr. Coffin.” He was wondering if he would be asked to divide the prize, in case he got it.
“Oh, don’t mention it, old chap,” Coffin answered, “you’re welcome to all you can make out of that paper with your flim-flam. That sort of humbuggery isn’t exactly in my line. But suppose you put us wise as to the facts in the case.”
The ex-medium, still trembling with the memory of his supernatural fears and discomfited by the escape of the woman, pulled himself together, and told of the remarkable series of events which had brought him, that morning, to Hunter’s Point in a launch containing a Quadroon woman, a dead Chinaman, a scrap of paper, and $2,000 worth of smuggled opium.
“I’ve been working the widow soft and easy ever since,” he said. “Gettin’ that first piece of paper was what I incline to denominate a masterpiece, but this findin’ of the missin’ half right in your pocket is nothin’ less than inspirational second-sight. She ought to think herself lucky to have fell in with me at no cost to herself for a sittin’ whatever. But will she pay up? That’s the question. Niggers is creditable, but they is also tricky. But anyways, I bet them two Chinese highbinders is apt to meet Moy Kip on the opposite shore to-night.”
It grew dark as they sat there, and when they had finished their stories they went out upon the balcony again. The light on the Ferry tower burned like a star against the waters of the Bay. The street lamps followed suit, and the night closed in. The three Picaroons were in the first quiet exhilaration that follows hunger and fatigue. Except for the Freshman’s broken rest at the Tanks, not one of them had slept since their meeting the previous evening; not one of them had eaten. Their eyes were glassy, but not yet sleepy; they were like dead men who could still walk and speak. A dull fever burned in their veins. Talk, then, grew faint, and even thought flickered but dimly. There was nothing positive to look forward to but Coffee John’s invitation to supper at nine o’clock, so they waited listlessly for the hour. Finally, a proposal from the indefatigable Coffin to wander through the Chinese quarter lured them out.
They turned into Ross Alley. This narrow lane of shops and gambling houses was swarming with passers-by. As the three men entered the passage, the sound of banging doors preceded them; the outer guards of the fan-tan resorts, catching sight of white faces and fearing detectives, were slamming and bolting the entrances.
Before they had gone half the length of the alley, Coffin noticed a Chinaman in felt hat and blue blouse standing idly by a lamp-post, and behind him a second man, leaning against a brick wall. The Freshman’s alert eye awoke and took the two in at a glance, for he noted something vaguely furtive in their apparently careless attitudes.
Now another Chinese approached the two figures at a rapid pace, holding one hand hidden in his blouse. A few feet behind him a coolie followed, looking sharply to the right and left. Coffin was just about to call Drake’s attention to them, when, without warning, the man by the lamp whipped out a revolver and fired point blank at the one approaching. The pistol barked three times in rapid succession, then the weapon was swiftly handed to the loafer by the wall. It was like the passing of the ball to the quarter-back in a football game, for, on the instant, these two and another broke through the crowd and ran in different directions. As they started, the bodyguard of the wounded man drew his own pistol and sent a stream of bullets after the fugitives.
The fusillade scattered the crowd in the alley. The Chinese dodged this way and that, escaping into doors and down cross lanes to avoid the officers who would soon appear to question them. The Freshman pulled his companions hurriedly into a little shop, and, whirling them back to the door, drew their surprised attention to a case of jade ornaments.
“Lay low,” he exclaimed, “the police will be here in a moment, and we don’t want to be run in and held for witnesses. We couldn’t identify the chink, anyway. I say let ’em have it out their own way.”
He looked out and saw a plain-clothes detective running down the alley to where the dead man lay. From the other end of the passage two officers in uniform came up, sweeping a dozen Chinese in front of them. One policeman lined the fugitives in front of him, while the other examined them for weapons. As none were found, the crowd was rapidly dispersed. The detective looked in at the shop door.
“Did you see the shooting?” he asked.
“We got to the door here just in time to see three men running, but I didn’t catch their faces,” said Coffin coolly. “What’s the row?”
“Oh, another Tong war,” said the detective. “Moy Kip was shot last night, and this one is the first one to pay up the score. Of course we can’t do nothing without no witnesses except this monkey!” and he went about his business.
“Well,” said Professor Vango, as they passed from the scene, “that’s the finishin’ conclusion to my picnic. I hope yourn won’t end so tragic.”
“I don’t know,” the Freshman replied, “you may find your dusky beauty yet. Then Drake has to catch his soubrette, and I would fain discover the gentle Klondyker. I consider it about horse and horse. Funny! Here each of us has made a thousand dollars, and not one is any better off than he was last night, plum broke! That’s what we used to call a paradox at Harvard, in ’English 13.’ And I’m carnivorously hungry to boot. I haven’t bitten anything except a cigar since the feed last night.”
“Nor me, neither,” asserted the Professor.
“Here too!” said Admeh Drake.
“Then it would seem to be up to Coffee John again. He seems to be the god in this machine. Come on, and we’ll give an imitation of a three-stamp mill crushing ore!” So saying, still jubilant, still heartening them with frivolous prattle, the Harvard Freshman piloted his comrades down Clay Street.
As they passed the old Plaza, Drake looked over his shoulder once or twice and said, “I reckon we’re being followed, pardners. There’s a chink been on our trail ever since we turned out of the lane, up yonder. I hope they ain’t got it in for us because we saw the scrap!”
The soft-footed coolie was half a block behind them, when, without a word of explanation, Coffin suddenly bolted and ran up Kearney Street. Vango gave a gasp and clutched the cowboy’s arm.
“What’s the matter?” he whimpered. “Where’s Coffin went? Is he scared?”
“You can search me!” Drake said, philosophically. “I give it up, unless he’s running to get an appetite for dinner. Don’t you fret, I’ll stand by you if there’s any trouble.”
Taking the medium’s arm, he walked down Clay Street until they came to Coffee John’s window. Then, looking round, they saw the Chinaman coming up to them boldly, with a grin on his face.
“You name Vango?” the coolie said.
“That’s right! What d’you want with him?” the cowboy replied, for the Professor was too frightened to answer.
The Chinaman felt inside his blouse, while Drake watched for the first sight of a weapon. Nothing more formidable was brought forth, however, than a smallish paper-wrapped parcel. Vango took it cautiously. It was suspiciously heavy.
“Moy Kip wife send,” explained the Chinaman, and retreated up the street.
The medium, in an agony of excitement, opened the parcel by the light of the window. It contained fifty golden double eagles. His little beady black eyes sparkling, he jubilantly entered the restaurant with Drake.
Close on their heels came James Wiswell Coffin, 3d, waving a bunch of greenbacks above his head. “I got him! Oh, I got the green-eyed Klondyker all right!” he cried. “He had cashed my lottery ticket, and he handed me over ten hundred pea-green dollars! Oh, frabjous day, we dine, we dine to-night!”
Coffee John, who had been conversing with some unseen patron in a tiny, curtained-off room in the rear of the shop, now came forward and greeted the Picaroons.
“My word,” he remarked, “yer do look bloomin’ ’appy, reg’lar grinnin’ like a Chinee at a Mission Sabbath School! All but Dryke,” he added, noticing his favorite’s gloomy looks, in sharp contrast to the delight of the others. “Wot’s wrong? Ain’t your aig ’atched, too? Well, per’aps it will, yet. They’s a lydy a-wytin’ darn in thet there room for you. Been there a ’arf hour an’ is nar nacherly a bit impytient. Looks like a narce gal, too, if she didn’t put so much flar on her fyce. She may ’ave good news for yer.”
Drake started before Coffee John finished, and, entering the little compartment, found Maxie Morrow awaiting him. He held out his hand in pleased surprise. She offered him a thick envelope in return.
“Oh, I’m in an awful hurry,” she began, “and I haven’t a minute to spare. I’m afraid you thought we weren’t going to keep our word, but really, Mr. Drake, we couldn’t help it! I was so sorry to keep you waiting so long, but, just as we left the Bank, I saw Colonel Knowlton come in. I was so afraid he’d suspect something, seeing me there with Harry, instead of with you, and Harry was so afraid the Colonel would put the Secret Service men on his track, that we jumped on a car and went right to my house on Bush Street, and Harry has been afraid to show himself outdoors since. We’re going to try to get away to-morrow to Southern California, but I was just bound that you should have your thousand dollars, so I brought it down here. Lucky you told Harry you were coming to Coffee John’s, wasn’t it? Now, good-by, and good luck to you!”
With that she rustled out of the restaurant, and Drake joined the group at the counter.
“Nort by no means!” Coffee John was saying. “Tortoni’s be blowed! If Coffee John’s peach pie an’ corfee ain’t good enough fer yer to-night, yer can go and eat withart me. Fust thing, I want to hear the tyles told. Afore I begin to ’elp yer eat your money, I want to know ’ow it’s come by! After thet, I don’t sye as I won’t accep’ a invitytion to dine proper.”
The proprietor was insistent, and though a thousand dollars burned in each pocket, the Picaroons, so gloriously come into port, sat down to a more modest repast than had been set in that room the night before. Between mouthfuls, one after the other told to his benefactor the story of his lucky dime—the Freshman with a tropic wealth of flowery trope and imagery, the ex-Medium with unction and self-satisfied glibness, the Hero of Pago Bridge with his customary simplicity. Not one of them expected the flagon of morality that was to be broached by their host, forbye.
For, as the tales developed, Coffee John’s face grew set in sterner disapproval. Coffin’s story moulded disdain upon the Cockney’s lip—the recital of Professor Vango altered this expression to scorn—but at the confession of Admeh Drake the proprietor’s face froze in absolute contempt, and he arose in a towering wrath.
“See ’ere, gents,” he began, folding his red bare arms, “though w’y I should call yer thet, w’ich yer by no means ain’t, I don’t know—nar I see wot good it is to plyce a mistaken charity in kindness! I’ve went an’ throwed awye me thirty cents on yer, blow me if I ain’t! I said yer was ’ard cyses, an’ yer be ’ard cyses, an’ so yer’ll nacherly continue till yer all bloomin’ well jugged for it!
“You, Coffin,” he pointed with severity, “you ’ave conspired against the laws of this ’ere Styte w’ich forbids a gyme o’ charnce, besides ’avin’ patronized a Chinee lottery, w’ich same is also illegal. You, Vango, ’ave comparnded a felony, by bein’ a receiver o’ stolen goods subjick to dooty in Federal customs. And you, Dryke, who, bite me if I didn’t ’ave a soft spot in me ’art for, yer’ve gone an’ went an’ obtayned money under false pretences, an’ ’arbored an’ abetted a desarter from the harmy o’ your country, for if you believe that there cock-an’-a-bull story, I don’t!”
He raised his arms threateningly, like an outraged Jove. “Git art from under me roof, all o’ yer! Yer no better than lags in the Pen!”
The three Picaroons passed through the door and faded into the darkness. The Cockney watched them separate, and then reëntering his shop, turned out the lamp and locked the door.
“I feed no more bums!” said Coffee John.
The End