CHAPTER XIV
One of the palace guards delayed Strawbridge for a few moments at the entrance of the west wing of the palace, to ask his master if the American might be admitted. A little later the soldier returned and opened a door into a brightly lighted sitting-room which evidently corresponded to the music-room in the east wing. Some rugs made of Indian blankets, chairs, and a couch of colored native wickerwork gave a look of richness and rather intemperate color to the room. The high light of this ensemble, that which held it all together and subordinated it, was the peon girl Madruja. Strawbridge obtained rather a bewildered impression of her. In fact, no man ever gets the details of an unusually comely woman at first glance.
General Fombombo, rising from the wicker couch where he had been sitting beside the girl, begged permission to leave her for a moment, to which Madruja assented with a mute gesture. The President came forward to Strawbridge, with both hands outstretched, radiating welcome.
"Mi caro amigo," he greeted, "I am charmed to have you see my little ménage. What do you think of my color scheme?" He stood gripping the drummer's hand and looking about at the room with that detachment which the arrival of a third person always gives an artist toward his work. The general picked out a doubtful point: "What do you think of the clasp that holds down the drapery between her breasts?"
Strawbridge barely managed to see the clasp against the glow of the girl. He said he thought it was a very nice clasp.
"No, I mean would you prefer garnet or ruby just there? I tried garnet at first, but I found that her eyes would endure the fire of a ruby. Ah, Señor Strawbridge, you are doubtless aware that not one woman in fifty can wear a ruby in her bosom."
Strawbridge cleared his throat and said he knew rubies were very expensive.
This introduced a little gap in the conversation. The dictator changed his manner from the enthusiasm of an artist to the courtesy of a host:
"I believe you have not as yet had the pleasure of meeting Señorita Rosamel." Here he led Strawbridge nearer Madruja. "Señorita, may I present my dear friend Señor Tomas Strawbridge of Nueva York?"
The girl remained seated and simply extended a hand. Whether she did this out of timidity, or out of pride in her new silks and jewels, the drummer could not guess. The hand she placed in his was small and not badly shaped, but hard and rough from the work of a peon woman. She said nothing at all, but sat looking at Strawbridge out of black eyes which could endure the fire of a ruby. They were the shining, surfacy eyes one sees in wild animals and in entirely illiterate persons. Of what thoughts, if any, lay behind those surfaces, the drummer could not get the slightest inkling.
However, she seemed tractable enough. With a little sinuous movement she made room on the couch for the general. With perfect inertness she allowed him to possess her hand. He picked it up, spread it in his palm, and began patting and stroking it while his conversation returned to Strawbridge.
"You may light a cigar in here and be comfortable," he invited. "Madruja is no obstacle to relaxation; rather, an assistance. Have you never observed that your thoughts flow more smoothly when your arm is about a pretty woman?"
None of the scene was agreeable to Strawbridge, but this peculiar turn caused him to ejaculate:
"You can think better with your arm around a woman?"
"Seguramente, señor," agreed the dictator. "Have you not observed that some men twiddle a pencil when they think, others smoke, some walk up and down with their hands behind their backs? All of these are mere bachelorish makeshifts. Your true thinker meditates with a woman's head on his shoulder. It is, you might say, señor, the only connection between a woman's head and thought."
As the general's thought had become more involved, he had drawn Madruja to him and now sat caressing her, his fingers playing abstractedly with the ruby and along the faint indentures of her clavicles.
Strawbridge disapproved of this almost beyond patience. He resented this establishment in the west wing of the palace, on account of the señora. It seemed to him that it would have been much more decent and respectful if the dictator had taken away this second ménage, had hidden it out of sight and denied it as Americans do in such cases.
"I don't know about a woman giving a man ideas," he blurted out, with disapproval tingeing his tones.
"Read the life of Simon Bolivar," returned the general, easily, still caressing the source of his own inspiration. "In the 'Diario de Bucaramanga,' by de la Croix, we learn that Bolivar was unable to plan any of the great battles which freed the South American continent except when he was dancing with a woman. Every night, during his military campaigns, he danced till one or two o'clock, planning his next great stroke at Spain. That is what genius is, Señor Strawbridge—the ability to draw on outside sources of power. The women with whom Bolivar danced—what were they? Batteries. Bolivar was the motor. They furnished him the energy to lift this whole continent from tyranny to the untrammeled freedom enjoyed in Rio Negro to-day."
The general paused a moment and continued:
"Take me and Madruja. Out of the wealth of this woman's muliebrity, I will extend the state of Rio Negro from the Andes to the sea. She and I will build up great cities; gardenize the llanos; develop a people with the finesse of the French, the energy of the Americans, and the immensitude of the Spanish!" He pressed the girl to him passionately, moved with the magnificence of his vision, then put her beside him again and came down to a more normal mood by taking her hand once more and spreading it in his own.
This last ebullition was more than Strawbridge could tolerate. If all this had been expounded over Dolores Fombombo, had Dolores been alternately crushed and caressed, the drummer would have thought the relations between the President and his wife the most beautiful he had ever known. But the fact that Fombombo had shifted women rendered it outrageous. Strawbridge had to speak for the wife.
"Look here," he criticized. "That's all right. You seem to get a lot of pep out of this young lady, but look here—" at this point Mr. Strawbridge made one of those moral pauses which Americans inherit from their Sunday-school teachers—"had you thought of your wife?"
"Had I thought of my wife?"
"Yes; had you?"
"What is there to think of my wife?"
For some reason the drummer blushed slightly.
"It looks to me like she ought to come in there somewhere. Doesn't look like another woman should step in and ... er ... uh...." He waved his hand.
The general was enlightened.
"I see what you mean." He smiled. "That is a quaint American idea of yours."
"It's American," defended Strawbridge stoutly, "but I don't see that it's quaint."
"Perhaps 'quaint' is not the word, but if I may speak impersonally and in no way appear to criticize the American point of view, I should say it is very disrespectful in a man to think of a wife in such a way as this. I feel safe in saying that no Spanish caballero would consider it for a moment."
The drummer stared at this extraordinary statement.
"Disrespectful! Do you think it would be more disrespectful to plan your empire under your wife's inspiration than to set up an establishment like this?"
"Caramba, Señor Strawbridge! certainly! When I enter my wife's presence I am a Spanish gentleman." Here the dictator made a bow to a space which represented his wife. "I think of nothing but her. For example, if Dolores were in this room would our conversation have wandered about like this? Certainly not. Could we have smoked, or talked on risqué topics? Certainly not. The Spaniard keeps his mistresses, Señor Strawbridge, out of sincere respect and devotion to—" he made another slight bow toward the empty space—"to his wife."
It was an extraordinary attitude, and as far as the drummer could analyze it, seemed informed with a fine chivalry. He sat looking rather numbly at the dictator with the gorgeous peon girl in his arms. He gave up that point of attack, and shifted the topic of conversation, American fashion, by saying suddenly and rather loudly:
"Well, not to change the subject, General, I dropped around to-night to set right a little mistake we made the other day."
The President abandoned South America's favorite topic, Woman, with evident reluctance.
"Yes?" he questioned.
"Yes, it's about Josefa."
The President repeated the name emptily.
"The little clerk you put in prison the other day; don't you remember? You jailed him because he told me how you ran your government."
Even the diplomatic general showed surprise.
"Josefa? How do you know I imprisoned a man named Josefa?"
Strawbridge burst out laughing.
"You can't expect me to tell who told me. You might jug that person, too."
"Hardly that," said the dictator, drily. "Then will you tell me why this unmentioned person said I imprisoned a man named Josefa?"
"I'll tell you about Josefa. He's already in trouble. The other day I was down at the 'Sol y Sombra,' and I wanted to make a hardware display to boost trade in my line. Josefa was dead against it. I was about to put up the display anyway, when Josefa said if I did it would certainly cause the government tax on the store to advance, and maybe lead to its confiscation. I didn't believe it, but he went ahead to tell me how the Government had grabbed one man's ranch because it stood the dry season better than—"
"Señor Strawbridge," interrupted the general, with a little line coming around the lobe of his nose, "you have been made the victim of the usual calumnious gossip which circulates too freely in Canalejos. The ranch to which you probably refer was a deserted hacienda, and, rather than allow its lands to go to waste, the Government occupied it."
Strawbridge saw by the general's face that he would help no one by pursuing that course, so he said, "Oh, was that the way?" as if he had heard the explanation for the first time. He then shifted about to his next topic.
"General," he began, "I've been thinking about Canalejos and Rio Negro, and the way you run things down here. Don't you believe you would get more out of it if you would make all investments perfectly safe in your country?"
"I shall have to ask you to explain that, too."
"For example, Fando, that peon whose horse you took for your cavalry. No doubt the loss of his horse stopped the cultivation of his hacienda, and yet to some extent the wealth of Rio Negro depends upon Fando's land being cultivated."
"That is true," admitted the dictator, stiffly, "but it is more important that the liberty and independence of Rio Negro be maintained than that Fando have a horse. You must be aware, Señor Strawbridge, that the prime necessity of any government is its governmental existence. You are an American. Everything you possess, down to your body, is liable to conscription in time of military necessity, is it not?"
"Yes, that's true, but I get paid for what my Government seizes."
"What would it pay you?"
"Money, of course."
"There you are," smiled the general, getting back on comfortable abstractions again. "Money is a medium of exchange, a promise of goods in the future. The value of American money depends upon America's winning her wars. Unfortunately I have no Rio Negran money yet, though I think I shall print some. If I had it, of course I would pay Fando. Why not? It wouldn't cost me anything. On the other hand, if I finally win against the State of Venezuela, Fando will not be forgotten. In short, my dear Señor Strawbridge, I seize the goods of the people for the good of the people—just as every other government does."
Thomas Strawbridge nodded his agreement and, with a sense of frustration, arose to make his devoirs. He wished he could have got Josefa out. The poor little monkey-eyed clerk was at that moment lying in some loathsome dungeon of La Fortuna. Well, it could not be helped.
Strawbridge gave a little sigh, smiled mechanically, and advanced to the couch with outstretched hand.
"Well, I hope my talk has done no harm, General. I'm really keen to help you in a business way."
The dictator arose, and suggested that his guest remain. He said Madruja would be charmed if Strawbridge would stay. With the girl thrust on his attention like that, the salesman bent over her hand to make his adieus to her.
Her hand rested limply in his, and she remained mute while he expressed his pleasure at meeting her.
As she stood thus, looking at him over their clasped hands, with her black surfaced eyes, there came the sound of a door opening behind the men. The black eyes of the girl shifted a little from Strawbridge's face and stared over his shoulder. A change came over her features as if she had seen a ghost. Even her scarlet lips paled. With her lips she formed, rather than said the name, "Esteban!"
Both Fombombo and Strawbridge whirled. In the doorway stood a peon boy with a knife in his hand. He wore the cheap finery which peons don for concert night. Esteban's face was drawn and clay-colored, and he stood blinking in the bright light which bewildered his eyes.
The dictator evidently did not know who Esteban was. He rapped out sternly:
"Bribon, what do you mean entering this room without permission?"
The youth replied with a sudden lunge at the President. Strawbridge saw the flash of the knife, and, with a remnant of his old football interference, shot his body, shoulder down, straight into the midriff of the leaping figure.
The American's two hundred and ten pounds hit the boy like a catapult. It smashed him backward and down. His knife snapped out of his hands, his hat flew off, his head struck heavily on the tiled floor. The general was calling angrily for the guards. A moment later three of these little men entered the door, with their rifles.
The President pointed at the youth on the floor.
"Take that bribon. He made an attack on me. You rascals will have to explain how he got in!"
The three guards, rather panic-struck, pounced on the peon. They got him up and held his arms behind him. Strawbridge's blow in the stomach had made Esteban sick, and now he bent over as far as his captors would permit, retching and slobbering, with anguished eyes looking at the girl.
"Madruja!" he gasped between his convulsions. "Eh, Madruja, mi vida, I would give my last breath for—"
"What are you saying to Madruja?" demanded the President.
"She is my wife," gasped Esteban, painfully. "You locked her up in this room and then ... took her!"
The dictator stared at the fellow.
"Locked her up and took her! Do you imagine I would take any woman? She came to me of her own will!" He turned to the girl and his voice changed: "Here, Madruja, my darling, my little heaven, deny this empty-headed rascal's charge!"
The girl stood staring at the two men.
"What, Señor el Presidente?" She trembled.
"Deny this charge. Or, rather, here is a villain who calls himself your husband; choose between us. You are free, you have always been free. And you, bribon, you too are free. I mean it.—Loose him men!—Choose between me and this wretch!"
The three guards released Esteban's arms. The peon looked about, then advanced a step toward the girl, with a bewildered joy coming into his sick face.
"Madruja!" he wavered, holding out his arms. "Madruja, did you hear what the Presidente said? Did you hear what the good Presidente said, little Madruja?" He was approaching her, shuddering with his sickness and his sudden rapture.
The girl looked at him fixedly. She withdrew a step.
"Caramba, Esteban!" she shrugged, "you smell of donkeys. You have done a mad thing coming here. I am not a peon girl any more. I am the mistress of Señor el Presidente. Look at me! See this silk, this ruby! Do you imagine I would grind cassava for a peon who smells like a donkey?" She shrugged, and turned away to a window.
In the silence that followed, one of the little guards saluted.
"What shall we do with him, your Excellency?"
"Kick him out of the palacio and let him go!"
The three soldiers obeyed literally and promptly. They seized Esteban from behind and trundled him toward the door, with hard kicks of their knees against his buttocks. The wretch moved, half falling, half held up, in a series of jounces which kept his head bobbing and his mop of shining youthful hair whipping from side to side. After the quartet passed through the door Strawbridge could still hear the muffled thuds of the guards' knees as they kicked Esteban down the corridor toward the entrance.
The incident left Strawbridge mute. The dictator interrupted his intellectual vacancy by saying:
"Señor Strawbridge, I have to thank you for your interference. I might have had a cut or two from that young madman before I could secure his knife." The general's arm encircled Madruja as he spoke. The girl submitted without any expression whatever on her wild, handsome face.
"It was nothing, General, nothing at all. As I have said before, any little service...." Strawbridge broke off and stood pondering a moment, then asked, "Will you tell me, General, why you imprison Josefa for merely speaking a word of criticism of your country, and then have Esteban kicked out and allowed to go free when he makes an attack on your life?"
The dictator shrugged.
"What I did to Esteban will stop Esteban; what I did to Josefa will stop Josefa." The President of Rio Negro stood faintly smiling and caressing the finely molded shoulders of his mistress.
Strawbridge was outraged.
"Why, there is no justice in that! Imprison a man for life for speaking a word; let another go free when he attempts murder!"
With amused eyes the President regarded his guest.
"Señor Strawbridge, what you say is a result of your unfortunate American commercial training. You Americans have a naïve idea that justice is a sort of balancing of an account. You try to make the severity of the punishment balance with the heinousness of the crime. It is your national instinct to keep a ledger.
"But what is justice? Is there any accountant in heaven or on earth calling for any such exactitude? Is punishment a thing that can be measured or weighed? What good does punishing a man do? Whom does it benefit? Nobody. There is only one object in punishment, and that is to stop crimes. Any effort to balance a punishment with a crime is absurd and the work of infantile intelligences. Take Esteban. He attacked my life. If I disgrace him before this lovely señorita here, if I kick him out of my palace, do you fancy he will ever have the hardihood to return? You know he won't. On the contrary, if I had imprisoned him, as I did Josefa, that would have made a hero of him, and every lover of every one of my mistresses would feel obliged to come and chop at me with his knife. If they know they will be kicked out and laughed at, they will not come. In short, the punishment cures the crime."
"But look at Josefa!" cried Strawbridge. "He did almost nothing, and you have put him in a dungeon for life!"
The dictator became stern.
"He talked too much. The only place for a man who talks too much is where there is no one to talk to. No other punishment on earth will stop an idle tongue."
Strawbridge stood thinking over this extraordinary code of law. It was not justice as the drummer knew it; it was a code of expediency. As usual, the President's reasoning appeared to be correct and unanswerable.