VI
I bent my head and drove my spurs into my horse. I did not know where he was carrying me. My eyes were shut with tears, and with the horror of what I had witnessed. I was reckless, mad, for the first time in my life, filled with hate against my fellow-men. I rode a hundred yards before I heard the scout at my side shouting, “To the right, Captain, to the right.”
At the word I pulled on my rein, and we turned into the Plaza.
The scout was McGraw, the Kansas cowboy, who had halted Aiken and myself the day we first met with the filibusters. He was shooting from the saddle as steadily as other men would shoot with a rest, and each time he fired, he laughed. The laugh brought me back to the desperate need of our mission. I tricked myself into believing that Laguerre was not seriously wounded. I persuaded myself that by bringing him aid quickly I was rendering him as good service as I might have given had I remained at his side. I shut out the picture of him, faint and bleeding, and opened my eyes to the work before us.
We were like the lost dogs on a race-course that run between lines of hooting men. On every side we were assailed with cries. Even the voices of women mocked at us. Men sprang at my bridle, and my horse rode them down. They shot at us from the doors of the cafes, from either curbstone. As we passed the barracks even the men of my own native regiment raised their rifles and fired.
The nearest gun was at the end of the Calle Bogran, and we raced down it, each with his revolver cocked, and held in front of him.
But before we reached the outpost I saw the men who formed it, pushing their way toward us, bunched about their gatling with their clubbed rifles warding off the blows of a mob that struck at them from every side. They were ignorant of what had transpired; they did not know who was, or who was not their official enemy, and they were unwilling to fire upon the people, who a moment before, before the flag of Alvarez had risen on Pecachua, had been their friends and comrades. These friends now beset them like a pack of wolves. They hung upon their flanks and stabbed at them from the front and rear. The air was filled with broken tiles from the roofs, and with flying paving-stones.
When the men saw us they raised a broken cheer.
“Open that gun on them!” I shouted. “Clear the street, and push your gun to the palace. Laguerre is there. Kill every man in this street if you have to, but get to the palace.”
The officer in charge fought his way to my side. He was covered with sweat and blood. He made a path for himself with his bare arms.
“What in hell does this mean, Macklin?” he shouted. “Who are we fighting?”
“You are fighting every native you see,” I ordered. “Let loose up this street. Get to the palace!”
I rode on to the rear of the gun, and as McGraw and I raced on toward the next post, we heard it stabbing the air with short, vicious blows.
At the same instant the heavens shook with a clap of thunder, the sky turned black, and with the sudden fierceness of the tropics, heavy drops of rain began to beat upon us, and to splash in the dust like hail.
A moment later and the storm burst upon the city. The streets were swept with great sheets of water, torrents flowed from the housetop, the skies darkened to ink, or were ripped asunder by vivid flashes, and the thunder rolled unceasingly. We were half drowned, as though we were dragged through a pond, and our ponies bowed and staggered before the double onslaught of wind and water. We bent our bodies to theirs, and lashed them forward.
The outpost to which we were now riding was stationed at the edge of the city where the Calle Morizan joins the trail to San Lorenzo on the Pacific coast. As we approached it I saw a number of mounted men, surrounding a closed carriage. They were evidently travellers starting forth on the three days’ ride to San Lorenzo, to cross to Amapala, where the Pacific Mail takes on her passengers. They had been halted by our sentries. As I came nearer I recognized, through the mist of rain, Joseph Fiske, young Fiske, and a group of the Isthmian men. The storm, or the bursting shells, had stampeded their pack-train, and a dozen frantic Mozos were rounding up the mules and adding their shrieks and the sound of their falling whips to the tumult of the storm.
I galloped past them to where our main guard were lashing the canvas-cover to their gun, and ordered them to unstrap it, and fight their way to the palace.
As I turned again the sentry called: “Am I to let these people go? They have no passes.”
I halted, and Joseph Fiske raised his heavy eyelids, and blinked at me like a huge crocodile. I put a restraint upon myself and moved toward him with a confident smile. I could not bear to have him depart, thinking he went in triumph. I looked the group over carefully and said: “Certainly, let them pass,” and Fiske and some of the Isthmian men, who appeared ashamed, nodded at me sheepishly.
But one of them, who was hidden by the carriage, called out: “You’d better come, too; your ship of state is getting water-logged.”
I made no sign that I heard him, but McGraw instantly answered, “Yes, it looks so. The rats are leaving it!”
At that the man called back tauntingly the old Spanish proverb: “He who takes Pecachua, sleeps in the palace.” McGraw did not understand Spanish, and looked at me appealingly, and I retorted, “We’ve altered that, sir. The man who sleeps in the palace will take Pecachua tonight.”
And McGraw added: “Yes, and he won’t take it with thirty pieces of silver, either.”
I started away, beckoning to McGraw, but, as we moved, Mr. Fiske pushed his pony forward.
“Can you give me a pass, sir?” he asked. He shouted the words, for the roaring of the storm drowned all ordinary sounds. “In case I meet with more of your men, can you give me a written pass?”
I knew that the only men of ours still outside of the city were a few scouts, but I could not let Fiske suspect that, so I whipped out my notebook and wrote:
“To commanders of all military posts: Pass bearer, Joseph Fiske, his family, servants, and baggage-train.