THE CAFE SANTOS, SAGUA LA GRANDE, HONDURAS
We sighted land at seven in the morning, and as the ship made in toward the shore I ran to the bow and stood alone peering over the rail. Before me lay the scene set for my coming adventures, and as the ship threaded the coral reefs, my excitement ran so high that my throat choked, and my eyes suddenly dimmed with tears. It seemed too good to be real. It seemed impossible that it could be true; that at last I should be about to act the life I had so long only rehearsed and pretended. But the pretence had changed to something living and actual. In front of me, under a flashing sun, I saw the palm-fringed harbor of my dreams, a white village of thatched mud houses, a row of ugly huts above which drooped limply the flags of foreign consuls, and, far beyond, a deep blue range of mountains, forbidding and mysterious, rising out of a steaming swamp into a burning sky, and on the harbor’s only pier, in blue drill uniforms and gay red caps, a group of dark-skinned, swaggering soldiers. This hot, volcano-looking land was the one I had come to free from its fetters. These swarthy barefooted brigands were the men with whom I was to fight.
My trunk had been packed and strapped since sunrise, and before the ship reached the pier, I had said “good-by” to everyone on board and was waiting impatiently at the gang-way. I was the only passenger to leave, and no cargo was unloaded nor taken on. She was waiting only for the agent of the company to confer with Captain Leeds, and while these men were conversing on the bridge, and the hawser was being drawn on board, the custom-house officers, much to my disquiet, began to search my trunk. I had nothing with me which was dutiable, but my grandfather’s presentation sword was hidden in the trunk and its presence there and prospective use would be difficult to explain. It was accordingly with a feeling of satisfaction that I noticed on a building on the end of the pier the sign of our consulate and the American flag, and that a young man, evidently an American, was hurrying from it toward the ship. But as it turned out I had no need of his services, for I had concealed the sword so cleverly by burying each end of it in one of my long cavalry boots, that the official failed to find it.
I had locked my trunk again and was waving final farewells to those on the Panama, when the young man from the consulate began suddenly to race down the pier, shouting as he came.
The gang-way had been drawn up, and the steamer was under way, churning the water as she swung slowly seaward, but she was still within easy speaking distance of the pierhead.
The young man rushed through the crowd, jostling the native Indians and negro soldiers, and shrieked at the departing vessel.
“Stop!” he screamed, “stop! stop her!”
He recognized Captain Leeds on the bridge, and, running along the pierhead until he was just below it, waved wildly at him.
“Where’s my freight?” he cried. “My freight! You haven’t put off my freight.”
Captain Leeds folded his arms comfortably upon the rail, and regarded the young man calmly and with an expression of amusement.
“Where are my sewing-machines?” the young man demanded. “Where are the sewing-machines invoiced me by this steamer?”
“Sewing-machines, Mr. Aiken?” the Captain answered. “I left your sewing-machines in New Orleans.”
“You what?” shrieked the young man. “You left them?”
“I left them sitting on the company’s levee,” the Captain continued, calmly. “The revenue officers have ‘em by now, Mr. Aiken. Some parties said they weren’t sewing-machines at all. They said you were acting for Laguerre.”
The ship was slowly drawing away. The young man stretched out one arm as though to detain her, and danced frantically along the stringhead.
“How dare you!” he cried. “I’m a commission merchant. I deal in whatever I please—and I’m the American Consul!”
The Captain laughed, and with a wave of his hand in farewell backed away from the rail.
“That may be,” he shouted, “but this line isn’t carrying freight for General Laguerre, nor for you, neither.” He returned and made a speaking trumpet of his hands. “Tell him from me,” he shouted, mockingly, “that if he wants his sewing-machines he’d better go North and steal ‘em. Same as he stole our Nancy Miller.”
The young man shook both his fists in helpless anger.
“You damned banana trader,” he shrieked, “you’ll lose your license for this. I’ll fix you for this. I’ll dirty your card for you, you pirate!”
The Captain flung himself far over the rail. He did not need a speaking trumpet now—his voice would have carried above the tumult of a hurricane.
“You’ll what?” he roared. “You’ll dirty my card, you thieving filibuster? Do you know what I’ll do to you? I’ll have your tin sign taken away from you, before I touch this port again. You’ll see—you—you—” he ended impotently for lack of epithets, but continued in eloquent pantomime to wave his arms.
With an oath the young man recognized defeat, and shrugged his shoulders.
“Oh, you go to the devil,” he shouted, and turned away. He saw me observing him, and as I was the only person present who looked as though he understood English, he grinned at me sheepishly, and nodded.
“I don’t care for him,” he said. “He can’t frighten me.”
I considered this as equivalent to an introduction.
“You are the United States Consul?” I asked. The young man nodded briskly.
“Yes; I am. Where do you come from?”
“Dobbs Ferry, near New York,” I answered. “I’d—-I’d like to have a talk with you, when you are not busy.”
“That’s all right,” he said. “I’m not busy now. That bumboat pirate queered the only business I had. Where are you going to stop? There is only one place,” he explained; “that’s Pulido’s. He’ll knife you if he thinks you have five dollars in your belt, and the bar-room is half under water anyway. Or you can take a cot in my shack, if you like, and I’ll board and lodge you for two pesos a day—that’s one dollar in our money. And if you are going up country,” he went on, “I can fit you out with mules and mozos and everything you want, from canned meats to an escort of soldiers. You’re sure to be robbed anyway,” he urged, pleasantly, “and you might as well give the job to a fellow-countryman. I’d hate to have one of these greasers get it.”
“You’re welcome to try,” I said, laughing.
In spite of his manner, which was much too familiar and patronizing, the young man amused me, and I must confess moreover that at that moment I felt very far from home and was glad to meet an American, and one not so much older than myself. The fact that he was our consul struck me as a most fortunate circumstance.
He clapped his hands and directed one of the negroes to carry my trunk to the consulate, and I walked with him up the pier, the native soldiers saluting him awkwardly as he passed. He returned their salute with a flourish, and more to impress me I guessed than from any regard for them.
“That’s because I’m Consul,” he said, with satisfaction. “There’s only eight white men in Porto Cortez,” he explained, “and we’re all consular agents. The Italian consular agent is a Frenchman, and an Italian, Guessippi—the Banana King, they call him—is consular agent for both Germany and England, and the only German here is consular agent for France and Holland. You see, each of ‘em has to represent some other country than his own, because his country knows why he left it.” He threw back his head and laughed at this with great delight. Apparently he had already forgotten the rebuff from Captain Leeds. But it had made a deep impression upon me. I had heard Leeds virtually accuse the consul of being an agent of General Laguerre, and I suspected that the articles he had refused to deliver were more likely to be machine guns than sewing-machines. If this were true, Mr. Aiken was a person in whom I could confide with safety.
The consulate was a one-story building of corrugated iron, hot, unpainted, and unlovely. It was set on wooden logs to lift it from the reach of “sand jiggers” and the surf, which at high tide ran up the beach, under and beyond it. Inside it was rude and bare, and the heat and the smell of the harbor, and of the swamp on which the town was built, passed freely through the open doors.
Aiken proceeded to play the host in a most cordial manner. He placed my trunk in the room I was to occupy, and set out some very strong Honduran cigars and a bottle of Jamaica rum. While he did this he began to grumble over the loss of his sewing-machines, and to swear picturesquely at Captain Leeds, bragging of the awful things he meant to do to him. But when he had tasted his drink and lighted a cigar, his good-humor returned, and he gave his attention to me.
“Now then, young one,” he asked, in a tone of the utmost familiarity, “what’s your trouble?”
I explained that I could not help but hear what the Captain shouted at him from the Panama, and I asked if it was contrary to the law of Honduras for one to communicate with the officer Captain Leeds had mentioned—General Laguerre.
“The old man, hey?” Aiken exclaimed and stared at me apparently with increased interest. “Well, there are some people who might prevent your getting to him,” he answered, diplomatically. For a moment he sipped his rum and water, while he examined me from over the top of the cup. Then he winked and smiled.
“Come now,” he said, encouragingly. “Speak up. What’s the game? You can trust me. You’re an agent for Collins, or the Winchester Arms people, aren’t you?”
“On the contrary,” I said, with some haughtiness, “I am serving no one’s interest but my own. I read in the papers of General Laguerre and his foreign legion, and I came here to join him and to fight with him. That’s all. I am a soldier of fortune, I said.” I repeated this with some emphasis, for I liked the sound of it. “I am a soldier of fortune, and my name is Macklin. I hope in time to make it better known.”
“A soldier of fortune, hey?” exclaimed Aiken, observing me with a grin. “What soldiering have you done?”
I replied, with a little embarrassment, that as yet I had seen no active service, but that for three years I had been trained for it at West Point.
“At West Point, the deuce you have!” said Aiken. His tone was now one of respect, and he regarded me with marked interest. He was not a gentleman, but he was sharp-witted enough to recognize one in me, and my words and bearing had impressed him. Still his next remark was disconcerting.
“But if you’re a West Point soldier,” he asked, “why the devil do you want to mix up in a shooting-match like this?”
I was annoyed, but I answered, civilly: “It’s in a good cause,” I said. “As I understand the situation, this President Alvarez is a tyrant. He’s opposed to all progress. It’s a fight for liberty.”
Aiken interrupted me with a laugh, and placed his feet on the table.
“Oh, come,” he said, in a most offensive tone. “Play fair, play fair.”
“Play fair? What do you mean?” I demanded.
“You don’t expect me to believe,” he said, jeeringly, “that you came all the way down here, just to fight for the sacred cause of liberty.”
I may occasionally exaggerate a bit in representing myself to be a more important person than I really am, but if I were taught nothing else at the Point, I was taught to tell the truth, and when Aiken questioned my word I felt the honor of the whole army rising within me and stiffening my back-bone.
“You had better believe what I tell you, sir,” I answered him, sharply. “You may not know it, but you are impertinent!”
I have seldom seen a man so surprised as was Aiken when I made this speech. His mouth opened and remained open while he slowly removed his feet from the table and allowed the legs of his chair to touch the floor.
“Great Scott,” he said at last, “but you have got a nasty temper. I’d forgotten that folks are so particular.”
“Particular—because I object to having my word doubted,” I asked. “I must request you to send my trunk to Pulido’s. I fancy you and I won’t hit it off together.” I rose and started to leave the room, but he held out his hands to prevent me, and exclaimed, in consternation:
“Oh, that’s no way to treat me,” he protested. “I didn’t say anything for you to get on your ear about. If I did, I’m sorry.” He stepped forward, offering to shake my hand, and as I took his doubtfully, he pushed me back into my chair.
“You mustn’t mind me,” he went on. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen a man from God’s country that I’ve forgotten how to do the polite. Here, have another drink and start even.” He was so eager and so suddenly humble that I felt ashamed of my display of offended honor, and we began again with a better understanding.
I told him once more why I had come, and this time he accepted my story as though he considered my wishing to join Laguerre the most natural thing in the world, nodding his head and muttering approvingly. When I had finished he said, “You may not think so now, but I guess you’ve come to the only person who can help you. If you’d gone to anyone else you’d probably have landed in jail.” He glanced over his shoulder at the open door, and then, after a mysterious wink at me, tiptoed out upon the veranda, and ran rapidly around and through the house. This precaution on his part gave me a thrill of satisfaction. I felt that at last I was a real conspirator that I was concerned in something dangerous and weighty. I sipped at my glass with an air of indifference, but as a matter of fact I was rather nervous.
“You can’t be too careful,” Aiken said as he reseated himself. “Of course, the whole thing is a comic opera, but if they suspect you are working against them, they’re just as likely as not to make it a tragedy, with you in the star part. Now I’ll explain how I got into this, and I can assure you it wasn’t through any love of liberty with me. The consular agent here is a man named Quay, and he and I have been in the commission business together. About three months ago, when Laguerre was organizing his command at Bluefields, Garcia, who is the leader of the revolutionary party, sent word down here to Quay to go North for him and buy two machine guns and invoice ‘em to me at the consulate. Quay left on the next steamer and appointed me acting consul, but except for his saying so I’ve no more real authority to act as consul than you have. The plan was that when Laguerre captured this port he would pick up the guns and carry them on to Garcia. Laguerre was at Bluefields, but couldn’t get into the game for lack of a boat. So when the Nancy Miller touched there he and his crowd boarded her just like a lot of old-fashioned pirates and turned the passengers out on the wharf. Then they put a gun at the head of the engineer and ordered him to take them back to Porto Cortez. But when they reached here the guns hadn’t arrived from New Orleans. And so, after a bit of a fight on landing, Laguerre pushed on without them to join Garcia. He left instructions with me to bring him word when they arrived. He’s in hiding up there in the mountains, waiting to hear from me now. They ought to have come this steamer day on the Panama along with you, but, as you know, they didn’t. I never thought they would. I knew the Isthmian Line people wouldn’t carry ‘em. They’ve got to beat Garcia, and until this row is over they won’t even carry a mail-bag for fear he might capture it.”
“Is that because General Laguerre seized one of their steamers?” I asked.
“No, it’s an old fight,” said Aiken, “and Laguerre’s stealing the Nancy Miller was only a part of it. The fight began between Garcia and the Isthmian Line when Garcia became president. He tried to collect some money from the Isthmian Line, and old man Fiske threw him out of the palace and made Alvarez president.”
I was beginning to find the politics of the revolution into which I had precipitated myself somewhat involved, and I suppose I looked puzzled, for Aiken laughed.
“You can laugh,” I said, “but it is rather confusing. Who is Fiske? Is he another revolutionist?”
“Fiske!” exclaimed Aiken. “Don’t tell me you don’t know who Fiske is? I mean old man Fiske, the Wall Street banker—Joseph Fiske, the one who owns the steam yacht and all the railroads.”
I had of course heard of that Joseph Fiske, but his name to me was only a word meaning money. I had never thought of Joseph Fiske as a human being. At school and at the Point when we wanted to give the idea of wealth that could not be counted we used to say, “As rich as Joe Fiske.” But I answered, in a tone that suggested that I knew him intimately:
“Oh, that Fiske,” I said. “But what has he to do with Honduras?”
“He owns it,” Aiken answered. “It’s like this,” he began. “You must understand that almost every republic in Central America is under the thumb of a big trading firm or a banking house or a railroad. For instance, all these revolutions you read about in the papers—it’s seldom they start with the people. The puebleo don’t often elect a president or turn one out. That’s generally the work of a New York business firm that wants a concession. If the president in office won’t give it a concession the company starts out to find one who will. It hunts up a rival politician or a general of the army who wants to be president, and all of them do, and makes a deal with him. It promises him if he’ll start a revolution it will back him with the money and the guns. Of course, the understanding is that if the leader of the fake revolution gets in he’ll give his New York backers whatever they’re after. Sometimes they want a concession for a railroad, and sometimes it’s a nitrate bed or a rubber forest, but you can take my word for it that there’s very few revolutions down here that haven’t got a money-making scheme at the bottom of them.
“Now this present revolution was started by the Isthmian Steamship Line, of which Joe Fiske is president. It runs its steamers from New Orleans to the Isthmus of Panama. In its original charter this republic gave it the monopoly of the fruit-carrying trade from all Hondurian ports. In return for this the company agreed to pay the government $10,000 a year and ten per cent, on its annual receipts, if the receipts ever exceeded a certain amount. Well, curiously enough, although the line has been able to build seven new steamers, its receipts have never exceeded that fixed amount. And if you know these people the reason for that is very simple. The company has always given each succeeding president a lump sum for himself, on the condition that he won’t ask any impertinent questions about the company’s earnings. Its people tell him that it is running at a loss, and he always takes their word for it. But Garcia, when he came in, either was too honest, or they didn’t pay him enough to keep quiet. I don’t know which it was, but, anyway, he sent an agent to New Orleans to examine the company’s books. The agent discovered the earnings have been so enormous that by rights the Isthmian Line owed the government of Honduras $500,000. This was a great chance for Garcia, and he told them to put up the back pay or lose their charter. They refused and he got back at them by preventing their ships from taking on any cargo in Honduras, and by seizing their plant here and at Truxillo. Well, the company didn’t dare to go to law about it, nor appeal to the State Department, so it started a revolution. It picked out a thief named Alvarez as a figure-head and helped him to bribe the army and capture the capital. Then he bought a decision from the local courts in favor of the company. After that there was no more talk about collecting back pay. Garcia was an exile in Nicaragua. There he met Laguerre, who is a professional soldier of fortune, and together they cooked up this present revolution. They hope to put Garcia back into power again. How he’ll act if he gets in I don’t know. The common people believe he’s a patriot, that he’ll keep all the promises he makes them—and he makes a good many—and some white people believe in him, too. Laguerre believes in him, for instance. Laguerre told me that Garcia was a second Bolivar and Washington. But he might be both of them, and he couldn’t beat the Isthmian Line. You see, while he has prevented the Isthmian Line from carrying bananas, he’s cut off his own nose by shutting off his only source of supply. For these big corporations hang together at times, and on the Pacific side the Pacific Mail Company has got the word from Fiske, and they won’t carry supplies, either. That’s what I meant by saying that Joe Fiske owns Honduras. He’s cut it off from the world, and only his arms and his friends can get into it. And the joke of it is he can’t get out.”
“Can’t get out?” I exclaimed. “What do you mean?”
“Why, he’s up there at Tegucigalpa himself,” said Aiken. “Didn’t you know that? He’s up at the capital, visiting Alvarez. He came in through this port about two weeks ago.”
“Joseph Fiske is fighting in a Hondurian revolution?” I exclaimed.
“Certainly not!” cried Aiken. “He’s here on a pleasure trip; partly pleasure, partly business. He came here on his yacht. You can see her from the window, lying to the left of the buoy. Fiske has nothing to do with this row. I don’t suppose he knows there’s a revolution going on.”
I resented this pretended lack of interest on the part of the Wall Street banker. I condemned it as a piece of absurd affectation.
“Don’t you believe it!” I said. “No matter how many millions a man has, he doesn’t stand to lose $500,000 without taking an interest in it.”
“Oh, but he doesn’t know about that,” said Aiken. “He doesn’t know the ins and outs of the story—what I’ve been telling you. That’s on the inside—that’s cafe scandal. That side of it would never reach him. I suppose Joe Fiske is president of a dozen steamship lines, and all he does is to lend his name to this one, and preside at board meetings. The company’s lawyers tell him whatever they think he ought to know. They probably say they’re having trouble down here owing to one of the local revolutions, and that Garcia is trying to blackmail them.”
“Then you don’t think Fiske came down here about this?” I asked.
“About this?” repeated Aiken, in a tone of such contempt that I disliked him intensely. For the last half hour Aiken had been jumping unfeelingly on all my ideals and illusions.
“No,” he went on. “He came here on his yacht on a pleasure trip around the West India Islands, and he rode in from here to look over the Copan Silver Mines. Alvarez is terribly keen to get rid of him. He’s afraid the revolutionists will catch him and hold him for ransom. He’d bring a good price,” Aiken added, reflectively. “It’s enough to make a man turn brigand. And his daughter, too. She’d bring a good price.”
“His daughter!” I exclaimed.
Aiken squeezed the tips of his fingers together, and kissed them, tossing the imaginary kiss up toward the roof. Then he drank what was left of his rum and water at a gulp and lifted the empty glass high in the air. “To the daughter,” he said.
It was no concern of mine, but I resented his actions exceedingly. I think I was annoyed that he should have seen the young lady while I had not. I also resented his toasting her before a stranger. I knew he could not have met her, and his pretence of enthusiasm made him appear quite ridiculous. He looked at me mournfully, shaking his head as though it were impossible for him to give me an idea of her.
“Why they say,” he exclaimed, “that when she rides along the trail, the native women kneel beside it.
“She’s the best looking girl I ever saw,” he declared, “and she’s a thoroughbred too!” he added, “or she wouldn’t have stuck it out in this country when she had a clean yacht to fall back on. She’s been riding around on a mule, so they tell me, along with her father and the engineering experts, and just as though she enjoyed it. The men up at the mines say she tired them all out.”
I had no desire to discuss the young lady with Aiken, so I pretended not to be interested, and he ceased speaking, and we smoked in silence. But my mind was nevertheless wide awake to what he had told me. I could not help but see the dramatic values which had been given to the situation by the presence of this young lady. The possibilities were tremendous. Here was I, fighting against her father, and here was she, beautiful and an heiress to many millions. In the short space of a few seconds I had pictured myself rescuing her from brigands, denouncing her father for not paying his honest debt to Honduras, had been shot down by his escort, Miss Fiske had bandaged my wounds, and I was returning North as her prospective husband on my prospective father-in-law’s yacht. Aiken aroused me from this by rising to his feet. “Now then,” he said, briskly, “if you want to go to Laguerre you can come with me. I’ve got to see him to explain why his guns haven’t arrived, and I’ll take you with me.” He made a wry face and laughed. “A nice welcome he’ll give me,” he said. I jumped to my feet. “There’s my trunk,” I said; “it’s ready, and so am I. When do we start?”
“As soon as it is moonlight,” Aiken answered.
The remainder of the day was spent in preparing for our journey. I was first taken to the commandante and presented to him as a commercial traveller. Aiken asked him for a passport permitting me to proceed to the capital “for purposes of trade.” As consular agent Aiken needed no passport for himself, but to avoid suspicion he informed the commandante that his object in visiting Tegucigalpa was to persuade Joseph Fiske, as president of the Isthmian Line, to place buoys in the harbor of Porto Cortez and give the commission for their purchase to the commandante. Aiken then and always was the most graceful liar I have ever met. His fictions were never for his own advantage, at least not obviously so. Instead, they always held out some pleasing hope for the person to whom they were addressed. His plans and promises as to what he would do were so alluring that even when I knew he was lying I liked to pretend that he was not. This particular fiction so interested the commandante that he even offered us an escort of soldiers, which honor we naturally declined.
That night when the moon had risen we started inland, each mounted on a stout little mule, and followed by a third, on which was swung my trunk, balanced on the other side by Aiken’s saddle bags. A Carib Indian whom Aiken had selected because of his sympathies for the revolution walked beside the third mule and directed its progress by the most startling shrieks and howls. To me it was a most memorable and marvellous night, and although for the greater part of it Aiken dozed in his saddle and woke only to abuse his mule, I was never more wakeful nor more happy. At the very setting forth I was pleasantly stirred when at the limit of the town a squad of soldiers halted us and demanded our passports. This was my first encounter with the government troops. They were barefooted and most slovenly looking soldiers, mere boys in age and armed with old-fashioned Remingtons. But their officer, the captain of the guard, was more smartly dressed, and I was delighted to find that my knowledge of Spanish, in which my grandfather had so persistently drilled me, enabled me to understand all that passed between him and Aiken. The captain warned us that the revolutionists were camped along the trail, and that if challenged we had best answer quickly that we were Americanos. He also told us that General Laguerre and his legion of “gringoes” were in hiding in the highlands some two days’ ride from the coast. Aiken expressed the greatest concern at this, and was for at once turning back. His agitation was so convincing, he was apparently so frightened, that, until he threw a quick wink at me, I confess I was completely taken in. For some time he refused to be calmed, and it was only when the captain assured him that his official position would protect him from any personal danger that he consented to ride on. Before we crossed the town limits he had made it quite evident that the officer himself was solely responsible for his continuing on his journey, and he denounced Laguerre and all his works with a picturesqueness of language and a sincerity that filled me with confusion. I even began to doubt if after all Aiken was not playing a game for both sides, and might not end my career by leading me into a trap. After we rode on I considered the possibility of this quite seriously, and I was not reassured until I heard the mozo, with many chuckles and shrugs of the shoulder, congratulate Aiken on the way he had made a fool of the captain.
“That’s called diplomacy, Jose,” Aiken told him. “That’s my statecraft. It’s because I have so much statecraft that I am a consul. You keep your eye on this American consul, Jose, and you’ll learn a lot of statecraft.”
Jose showed his teeth and grinned, and after he had dropped into a line behind us we could hear him still chuckling.
“You would be a great success in secret service work, Aiken,” I said, “or on the stage.”
We were riding in single file, and in order to see my face in the moonlight he had to turn in his saddle.
“And yet I didn’t,” he laughed.
“What do you mean,” I asked, “were you ever a spy or an actor?”
“I was both,” he said. “I was a failure at both, too. I got put in jail for being a spy, and I ought to have been hung for my acting.” I kicked my mule forward in order to hear better.
“Tell me about it,” I asked, eagerly. “About when you were a spy.”
But Aiken only laughed, and rode on without turning his head.
“You wouldn’t understand,” he said after a pause. Then he looked at me over his shoulder. “It needs a big black background of experience and hard luck to get the perspective on that story,” he explained. “It wouldn’t appeal to you; you’re too young. They’re some things they don’t teach at West Point.”
“They teach us,” I answered, hotly, “that if we’re detailed to secret service work we are to carry out our orders. It’s not dishonorable to obey orders. I’m not so young as you think. Go on, tell me, in what war were you a spy?”
“It wasn’t in any war,” Aiken said, again turning away from me. “It was in Haskell’s Private Detective Agency.”
I could not prevent an exclamation, but the instant it had escaped me I could have kicked myself for having made it. “I beg your pardon,” I murmured, awkwardly.
“I said you wouldn’t understand,” Aiken answered. Then, to show he did not wish to speak with me further, he spurred his mule into a trot and kept a distance between us.
Our trail ran over soft, spongy ground and was shut in on either hand by a wet jungle of tangled vines and creepers. They interlaced like the strands of a hammock, choking and strangling and clinging to each other in a great web. From the jungle we came to ill-smelling pools of mud and water, over which hung a white mist which rose as high as our heads. It was so heavy with moisture that our clothing dripped with it, and we were chilled until our teeth chattered. But by five o’clock in the morning we had escaped the coast swamps, and reached higher ground and the village of Sagua la Grande, and the sun was drying our clothes and taking the stiffness out of our bones.