The Key to Yesterday

by Charles Neville Buck

Into the canyon-like street where the frenzy of combat had blazed up with such a sudden spurt and burned itself out so quickly, Saxon had walked around the angle of a wall, just in time to find himself precipitated into one of the fiercest incidents of the bloody forenoon.

Vegas and Miraflores had not surrendered. Everywhere, the insistent noise told that the opposing forces were still debating every block of the street, but in many outlying places, as in this calle, the revolutionists were already giving back. The attacking army had counted on launching a blow, paralyzing in its surprise, and had itself encountered surprise and partial preparedness. It had set its hope upon a hill, and the hill had failed. A prophet might already read that Vegas y Libertad was the watchword of a lost cause, and that its place in history belonged on a page to be turned down.

But the narrow street in which Saxon lay remained quiet. An occasional balcony window would open cautiously, and an occasional head would be thrust out to look up and down its length. An occasional shape on the cobbles would moan painfully, and shift its position with the return of consciousness, or grow more grotesque in the stiffness of death as the hours wore into late afternoon, but the great iron-studded street-doors of the houses remained barred, and no one ventured along the sidewalks.

Late in the day, when the city still echoed to the snapping of musketry, and deeper notes rumbled through the din, as small field-pieces were brought to bear upon opposing barricades, the thing that Saxon had undertaken to bring about occurred of its own initiative. Word reached the two leaders that the representatives of the foreign powers requested an armistice for the removal of the wounded and a conference at the American Legation, looking toward possible adjustment. Both the government and the insurrecto commanders grasped at the opportunity to let their men, exhausted with close-fighting, catch a breathing space, and to remove from the zone of fire those who lay disabled in the streets.

Then, as the firing subsided, some of the bolder civilians ventured forth in search for such acquaintances as had been caught in the streets between the impact of forces in the unwarned battle. For this hour, at least, all men were safe, and there were some with matters to arrange, who might not long enjoy immunity.

Among them was Howard Rodman, who followed up the path he fancied Saxon must have taken. Rodman was haggard and distrait. His plans were all in ruins, and, unless an amnesty were declared, he must be once more the refugee. His belief that Saxon was really Carter led him into two false conclusions. First, he inferred from this premise that Saxon’s life would be as greatly imperiled as his own, and it followed that he, being in his own words “no quitter,” must see Saxon out of the city, if the man were alive. He presumed that in the effort to reach the legation Saxon had taken, as would anyone familiar with the streets, a circuitous course which would bring him to the “Club Nacional,” from which point he could reach the house he sought over the roofs. He had no doubt that the American had failed in his mission, because, by any route, he must make his way through streets where he would encounter fighting.

Rodman’s search became feverish. There was little time to lose. The conference might be brief—and, after that, chaos! But fortune favored him. Chance led him into the right street, and he found the body. Being alone, he stood for a moment indecisive. He was too light a man to carry bodily the wounded friend who lay at his feet. He could certainly not leave the man, for his ear at the chest, his finger on the pulse, assured him that Saxon was alive. He had been struck by a falling timber from a balcony above, and the skull seemed badly hurt, probably fractured.

As Rodman stood debating the dilemma, a shadow fell across the pavement. He turned with a nervous start to recognize at his back a newcomer, palpably a foreigner and presumably a Frenchman, though his excellent English, when he spoke, was only slightly touched with accent. The stranger dropped to his knee, and made a rapid examination, as Rodman had done. It did not occur to him at the moment that the man standing near him was an acquaintance of the other who lay unconscious at their feet.

“The gentleman is evidently a non-combatant—and he is badly hurt, monsieur,” he volunteered. “We most assuredly cannot leave him here to die.”

Rodman answered with some eagerness: