CHAPTER XIII
When Strawbridge entered the library of the palace he found only Coronel Saturnino, who was working at his desk. Near the entrance stood one of the palace guards. The silence was almost complete; Strawbridge could hear the faint scratch of the colonel's pen as he toiled at his endless preparations to seize San Geronimo.
The drummer was on the verge of calling out to ask the whereabouts of General Fombombo, when it occurred to him that this Coronel Saturnino was at that moment devising plans upon which, quite possibly, his own safety depended.
It was rather an extraordinary thought for the salesman. There was something dramatic about it—a man working silently in the great, still library, determining whether Strawbridge should live or die. And there stood Strawbridge, near the door, unable to assist in the slightest degree in this determination of his fate. It was a queer, almost a ghostly feeling. Somehow it clothed Coronel Saturnino with a kind of awesome superiority. A sort of premonition of the raid on San Geronimo came to the drummer, a charging of horsemen, sword thrusts, the flash of small arms.... His visualization was based largely upon a cheap chromo called "The Fall of the Alamo" which had hung in the parlor of his home in Keokuk. In this picture the artist had been very liberal with blood and dead men. Strawbridge decided not to call to Coronel Saturnino, but to allow him to work undisturbed.
The drummer nodded the guard to him. The little brown man glanced around at the colonel, then moved silently toward the American, evidently with scruples. When he was close enough, Strawbridge whispered:
"Where is the general?"
The man was amazed at such a question.
"Señor, I am a guard, not a spy."
The salesman was faintly amused.
"Aw, come now! What's the big idea? You know me. You see me every day around this joint. So spit it out, man: where did the general go?"
The little fellow shrugged, pulled down the corners of his mouth, and moved silently back to his post.
This irritated the American. He told the guard, under his breath, to go to hell, and that faint explosion sufficed to wipe the incident from his mind. He turned out into the corridor again and walked toward the front of the building, in an aimless search for the dictator, while his thoughts returned to the señora and the misfortunes of little Josefa.
He began composing a speech against the time he found the general, a kind of sales talk designed to set Josefa free. He would say the little clerk had not volunteered the information about General Fombombo's business methods. That had been wrung from him by the fact that he, Strawbridge, was about to arrange a hardware display. From this point of departure the drummer hoped to proceed into a constructive criticism of the general's whole dictatorial policy. It might do a lot of good, probably would. He was making the general's problems his problems, and now he rather thought he had solved one. He could fancy the general looking him straight in the eye and saying, "Strawbridge—by God!—I believe you've hit the nail on the head!" As a matter of fact, the drummer knew the general never used profanity, but somehow he placed this blasphemy in the general's mouth because it sounded strong and admiring, as one frank, manly American curses at another when his admiration reaches a certain low boiling-point.
The drummer walked slowly down the corridor, listening at each door as he passed, but he reached the entrance of the palace without hearing the general's voice.
Strawbridge came to a halt near the guard at the entrance, and stood wondering what he should do. The injustice of Josefa's imprisonment spurred him to do something. He stood looking into the plaza below him, which was illy lighted. A rather large audience was collecting, for it was concert night. The semi-weekly concert of the firemen's band would begin in about half an hour. A thought that he might find General Fombombo in the audience sent the drummer down the long flight of ornamental stairs into the plaza.
In the park was a typical Wednesday-evening crowd such as were gathering in all the larger towns in South America. Near the band stand was a high stack of folding chairs, and peon boys hurried among the audience, renting these chairs at two cents each for the evening. Dark-eyed señoritas in mantillas and fashionable short skirts chose seats under the electric lights, where they could cross their legs and best display their well-turned calves and tiny Spanish feet. The greater part of the crowd preferred to walk. They moved in a procession around the plaza, the men clockwise, the women anticlockwise, so the men were continually passing a line of women, and vice versa. There was an endless tipping of hats, tossing of flowers, and brief exchange of phrases. Here and there an engaged couple strolled about the square together. To be seen thus was equivalent to an announcement.
The drummer was walking among this crowd, glancing about for the President, when a hand touched his shoulder. He looked around and saw Lubito the bull-fighter with a peon companion. This peon was a youth who wore alpargatas, but the rest of his costume had the cheap smartness of the poorer class of Venezuelans who trig themselves out for the Wednesday-night concerts. In contrast to his finery, there was something severe, almost tragic in the youth's pale-olive face.
"This is Esteban, señor," introduced the torero, reaching back and settling his wad of hair. "You remember him—Madruja's lover, who is half married to her. That makes him the demi-husband of a demi-monde."
Strawbridge extended his hand, rather amused at the oddity of the introduction.
"Caramba!" ejaculated Lubito. "Do you smile at a man in distress, señor?"
The drummer straightened his face.
"Oh, no, not at all! I am glad to meet Señor Esteban. By the way, I was just out hunting General Fom—"
Esteban lifted a quick hand.
"Señor," he cautioned in an undertone, "it is not wise to speak that name in a public place, such as this."
Strawbridge glanced around, rather surprised.
"I was saying no harm. Besides, he's a friend of mine. In fact, I was looking for him, to ask a little favor."
"Yes?" interrogated Lubito.
"It's about a youngster named Josefa. The general put him in prison—"
"Diablo, señor!" gasped Esteban. "I beg of you not to speak of these things in the plaza!"
The drummer was impressed with the peon's alarm. His feeling was reinforced by the knowledge that Josefa was in prison on account of just such a casual conversation as this. So he said:
"Well, now you know what I had to tell you, and who I am hunting."
The bull-fighter nodded gravely.
"I see you are going to do a certain friend of yours a little favor."
"Yes, get him out of trouble."
The torero turned to his companion.
"You see, Esteban, he is un hombre muy simpatico but very indiscreet. Do you know what he did to me in Caracas? Caramba! I was standing on the street corner watching some domino-players. Every one knows that the domino-players are the police's own stool-pigeons. Cá! I was standing there watching them when this hombre comes along and roars in my ears, 'Where is the casa where the great revolutionist, General Adriano Fombombo lives!' Madre de Jesu! I almost fainted. I could see myself rotting in La Rotunda!"
"He has a lion's heart," declared Esteban.
"And a donkey's brain," retorted the bull-fighter.
Strawbridge had heard enough of this.
"With your permission, señors, I will continue my search."
"But don't you want to watch the crowd, señor?" suggested Lubito. "There, look at that little officer with the swagger-stick; perhaps you know him?"
The drummer saw a sharp-featured young officer with dark circles of dissipation under his eyes.
"No, I don't know him."
"You don't know the Teniente Rosales?"
"No, I never heard of him."
Lubito gave the drummer a side glance.
"It is not a bad idea to say you don't know him, at any rate."
"Why, I don't!" repeated the drummer, emphatically, looking around at the bull-fighter in surprise.
Esteban interrupted:
"You see, Lubito, he is far more discreet than you gave him credit for. Perhaps he recognized you on the street corner of Caracas."
The bull-fighter looked at Esteban and then at Strawbridge.
"Caramba! I never thought of that!"
This conversation was getting too cryptic for Strawbridge.
"I don't know what you're talking about," he said, "so, once more with your permission, I'll go." He turned to leave his companions.
Lubito interrupted:
"Wait; we're going in your direction ourselves. Come on, Esteban, we might as well have pleasant company."
"Oh, ... all right," agreed the drummer, rather surprised at this.
The three men drew away from the crowd, and for some distance walked in silence. They directed their course along the shadowy parts of the plaza and then to the adjoining streets. At last Lubito said with a casual air:
"We hear you have joined the cavalry, señor."
"For the expedition against San Geronimo," qualified the drummer.
"You are a military man, no doubt?"
"No, not at all."
The bull-fighter seemed surprised.
"Are you going as a simple private?"
"Well, y-es," hesitated Strawbridge, with the complete reason of his going floating unsaid in his mind.
"No doubt you wish to make friends with the common people—the peons, the griffes, the mestizos, who make up this God-forsaken country, señor, and who are not of the pure Castilian blood as Esteban and I."
Strawbridge could not see whither this conversation was leading. He said, very honestly:
"Naturally; I want to make friends with every one."
"We thought so," nodded the torero; "we observed how you speak to all persons, great and small, how you stop on the street to give moral advice even to the lottery-ticket venders, how you sympathize with the unfortunate Josefa, and say conditions should be changed. Yes, you certainly are very careful to make friends with every one."
Strawbridge was surprised that the bull-fighter had so complete a digest of his most trivial acts. Also, here and there in Lubito's tones flickered an insinuation of some hidden meaning which annoyed the drummer.
"Look here," he said frankly. "What are you driving at? You know I rode from Caracas with you. You know I'm selling firearms to the general, and hardware to anybody else."
"Sí, señor," agreed Lubito, politely, "but why should you seek to make friends with this fellow and that fellow—the lowest and the meanest?"
The drummer was a little irritated.
"I want to make friends with everybody; in the long run it will be of advantage to my house."
"Your house?" from Esteban.
"I mean the commercial firm I work for."
The two peons nodded thoughtfully. Esteban observed:
"A lottery-ticket vender, who cannot afford clothes for his nakedness, will hardly buy guns and hardware...."
The salesman was growing weary of these innuendoes.
"Look here," he said in the perfectly friendly voice with a disagreeable content that is sometimes used by Americans in these circumstances, "I don't give a damn what you fellows think. I can't explain every look and word by my business. I'm friendly because I ... I'm just naturally friendly. I call a man who isn't friendly a damn fool. Here I am walking with you two guys. I don't expect to sell you guns and hardware, either, but I'm walking with you, just the same."
He looked at both of them after this little speech. Both were obviously and entirely unconvinced. They shrugged slightly.
"Pues, pues! Bien! Cá! Seguramente!" They walked slowly on, evidently in deep thought. Presently Lubito broke the silence:
"Señor, you will pardon me. We knew all the time you were telling us the precise truth. What I said was by way of jest. Esteban, there, misunderstood, because he is a little dull. There is just one other point Esteban does not understand, and I confess it puzzled me a bit, too. But I will not ask it if you are angry, señor. Perhaps, after all, we would better talk of other things. I think you have lost patience with your two poor stupid friends."
"No," denied the drummer, rather ashamed of his little outbreak, "I haven't lost patience, but you don't seem to believe what I tell you."
"Oh, sí, señor! yes we do!" chorused the two, earnestly. "Caramba! We would not think of doubting a caballero's word!"
"Well, then, what's your question?"
"Exactly this: you are not a military man?"
"No."
"You are going to fight at San Geronimo as a trooper?"
"Yes."
"You came here to sell hardware?"
"Yes."
"Then ... I am very stupid ... but why do you fight?"
"Can you sell hardware to dead men on a battle-field?" added Esteban.
Strawbridge looked at his questioners, with a misgiving that he would never make them understand the true situation. They would never realize the necessity of learning the complete details of a customer's business. He began talking very carefully, as if he were explaining a lesson to a child:
"I am joining the raid on San Geronimo to get a working idea of my patron's business conditions."
Lubito nodded.
"Before I sell a market, I like to know it thoroughly."
"Precisamente."
"Before I sell a man a tool, I want practical, first-hand knowledge of just how he is going to use it, what he needs, why he needs it. That's the American method." Launched on his favorite theme, Strawbridge spoke with a certain fervor.
"But why is that, señor?" puzzled Esteban. "If you sell a man anything, it is his. He has it. You have sold it."
"Sh! let him explain!"
"No, that's a good question," declared Strawbridge, with enthusiasm. "I sell you something. Why am I concerned about how you use it? The use of that article is your problem. But perhaps with my expert knowledge I can show you how to use it better, or perhaps I can devise a way to make you a better tool. Then you will be a satisfied customer, and a satisfied customer is the best advertisement in the world." Strawbridge shook his fist. "When you buy anything from me, gentlemen, you are not buying just my goods, you are buying human service!" He popped his fist into his palm. "You are buying the best in me to coöperate with the best in you, and between us we'll make this world a better world to live in." He nodded sharply. "See?"
The drummer paused. The bull-fighter and the peon looked at each other. After several seconds had passed, Esteban said:
"For example, señor, if I wanted to buy a dirk to cut Lubito's throat, you would come and cut it first to see what kind of knife I should use?"
Strawbridge was a little cooled.
"Well, ... that is just about the size of my San Geronimo trip; isn't it? You seem to have hit the nail on the head."
Esteban became thoughtful.
"So you are going to aid—" his voice sank—"General Fombombo."
"Yes, sure I am."
"And it makes no difference whether he is right or wrong. You will help him steal my Madruja, steal Señor Fando's horse, steal Señor Rosario's ranch, put Josefa in irons, do this, that, and the other, break our bodies, destroy our souls, cut us down, and grind us like corn in his mill. It makes no difference to you; you are going to help him in all that!"
Strawbridge was shocked at this sudden attack on the moral end of his business, by the peon who had lost his sweetheart. He became more carefully logical and less rhetorical. In fact, he was exploring new ground, a territory over which his old man had not coached him, so he was not so sure of himself.
"It's like this: I'm doing my part of this thing in a business way. If everybody would work in a business way, there wouldn't be any of this rough stuff you're talking about, because that's bad business. In fact, I was just on my way around to see the general. I'm going to get Josefa out of prison, and I think I can stop all this other sort of thing. I believe I can put this whole country on a business basis."
"But you, yourself, are going to San Geronimo to help kill men, just to show him how to work his guns!"
Here Lubito interrupted in a disgusted tone:
"Esteban, you fool, just because you've lost your Madruja, your head is hot and you see nothing in the light of reason. This tale Señor Strawbridge told us is the tale he tells the general, and makes him believe it. By this means he goes to San Geronimo with the cavalry. Caramba! I am amazed that even a stupid peon should not see so simple a thing!"
Esteban stared, and grinned faintly.
"Cá! He told it so cleverly that even I believed it, too!"
Strawbridge looked at his companions.
"What'n hell are you talking about?" he demanded.
Lubito held up a finger.
"Everything is well, señor." He nodded confidentially. "You are a much deeper man that I thought. Everything is as you would wish it. In only one way would I caution you."
"Damned if I know where you are heading in, but what do you want to caution me about?"
"It is this, señor—you will take it as a friend; we are brothers now—it is this: When our country became so bad under General Dimancho that it could go no farther, we appealed to General Miedo for aid, and he promised us if he won power we should have justice, that every peon should possess his wife and daughters and property in peace, señor, precisely as you say."
In the greatest astonishment Strawbridge stared at the bull-fighter.
"What's that got to do with me?"
"Nothing, nothing at all, señor, but General Miedo forgot his pledges when he reached power. He forgot his pledges as men are prone to do, and our country became even worse than when it was under General Dimancho. So we went to General—" Lubito dropped to a whisper—"to General Fombombo, who had a ranch down on the Orinoco near Ciudad Bolívar. And he promised our deputation if we raised him to the highest seat our wives and daughters and property should be our own. Señor Strawbridge, the monument to General Fombombo that stands back there in the plaza marks the spot where he stood General Miedo up before his soldiers and shot him through the heart."
A goose-flesh feeling brushed over the drummer.
"Lubito," he said, "what in hell has this got to do with me?"
"Nothing, señor, nothing at all. I merely mention this by way of information. You want information. All Americans want information. They want that the most badly of all the things they need. Also, there is a saying in Rio Negro, señor, that a gray-eyed man shall free us. And we have tried our own people so many times, señor, and so sorrowfully, that we are weary of trying Venezuelans, and would fain try a man of another nation."
Strawbridge was dumbfounded. He could do nothing but stand and stare at his companions. At last he made an effort and said in a queer voice:
"Men, you've got me wrong; you've got me completely wrong."
"Seguramente! You are a salesman of hardware, who goes to war to show the dictator what knife cuts a throat best." Lubito laughed briefly. "We do not know what throat you mean to cut first, señor—you are a deep man—but here we part for the night. This building on your left is the west wing of the palacio. In those lighted windows you will find the general with Madruja. You said you wished to find him. There he is. I do not know what you wish to say or do to the general. I will not ask. You say, yourself, that you are a maestro in the cutting of throats. No one knows when or where you may see fit to give a lesson." Lubito laughed. "Remember, Lubito and Esteban are your friends. Adio' hasta mañana."
"Adios," returned Strawbridge.
His two companions turned and moved away toward the plaza. In the distance the firemen's band had struck up a sensuous Spanish waltz. The drummer stood meditating on the amazing thing Lubito had told him. Such a usurpation was as remote from Strawbridge's temperament as the stars, but nevertheless he was profoundly moved. For some reason the Señora Fombombo came into his mind. He saw her as clearly as if she stood before him in bright day. He put her vision from him, and stared resolutely at the brightly lighted windows across the dark street. In an effort to bring his mind back to his own affairs, he drew out his silver cigar-case and lighted up. He tipped up his face in order that his eyes might escape the smoke. Out of the heavens a thousand brilliant stars offered him counsel. Presently Lubito and Lubito's insurgency faded from his mind. He finally sifted down the exact problem which he had to meet. Should he go over and ask for Josefa's release and extend to the general his views on the proper business methods to be used in Rio Negro?
Should he go now? That was his problem. An American caught in the presence of his mistress would probably be in a dour mood. On the other hand, the thought of the little monkey-eyed Josefa, lingering out another night in the filthy dungeons of La Fortuna, filled Strawbridge with pity and remorse. The youth was entirely innocent, and he, Strawbridge, had put him in his cell. On the other hand, a badly timed interview could very well be of no service to Josefa, and might lose the drummer a two-hundred-and-fifty thousand-dollar order for rifles.
He wondered what his old man would advise him to do in this emergency. The drummer looked up at the stars and sought advice just as earnestly as any religious martyr would have prayed to these same heavens. If he had known what his old man would suggest, he would have done it.
The coal on Strawbridge's cigar glowed and faded at long intervals, and presently there struggled up out of the drummer's subconscious a memory of a little framed motto which his employer had hung over his desk. It read:
The greatest assets of any firm are the honor and courage of its salesmen; next comes the quality of its goods.
Religious martyrs, in their extremity, have been known to receive answers from the heavens they interrogated. Thomas Strawbridge, also, had received his. He drew a deep puff of smoke, thumped away his cigar, which made a dull spiral of fire as it fell through the darkness; then he started briskly across the street.