The Key to Yesterday

by Charles Neville Buck

As soon as Steele had ensconced Mrs. Horton and Duska at the Frances y Ingles, he hurried to the American Legation for news of Saxon. When he left Duska in the hotel patio, he knew, from the anxious little smile she threw after him, that for her the jury deciding the supreme question was going out, leaving her as a defendant is left when the panel files into the room where they ballot on his fate. He rushed over to the legation with sickening fear that, when he came back, it might have to be like the juryman whose verdict is adverse.

As it happened, he caught Mr. Pendleton without delay, and before he had finished his question the envoy was looking about for his Panama hat. Mr. Pendleton wanted to do several things at once. He wanted to tell the story of Saxon’s coming and going, and he wanted to go in person, and have the party moved over to the legation, where they must be his guests while they remained in Puerto Frio. It would be several days before another steamer sailed north. They had missed by a day the vessel on which Saxon had gone. Meanwhile, there were sights in the town that might beguile the intervening time. Saxon had interested the envoy, and Saxon’s friends were welcome. Hospitality is simplified in places where faces from God’s country are things to greet with the fervor of delight.

At dinner that evening, sitting at the right of the minister, Duska heard the full narrative of Saxon’s brief stay and return home. Mr. Pendleton was at his best. There was no diplomatic formality, and the girl, under the reaction and relief of her dispelled anxiety, though still disappointed at the hapless coincidence of missing Saxon, was as gay and childlike as though she had not just emerged from an overshadowing uncertainty.

“I’m sorry that he couldn’t accept my hospitality here at the legation,” said the minister at the end of his story, with much mock solemnity, “but etiquette in diplomatic circles is quite rigid, and he had an appointment to sleep at the palace.”

“So, they jugged him!” chuckled Steele, with a grin that threatened his ears. “I always suspected he’d wind up in the Bastile.”

“He was,” corrected the girl, her chin high, though her eyes sparkled, “a guest of the President, and, as became his dignity, was supplied with a military escort.”

“He needn’t permit himself any vaunting pride about that,” Steele assured her. “It’s just difference of method. In our country, a similar honor would have been accorded with a patrol wagon and a couple of policemen.”

After dinner, Duska insisted on dispatching a cablegram which should intercept the City of Rio at some point below the Isthmus. It was not an original telegram, but, had Saxon received it, it would have delighted him immoderately. She said:

“I told you so. Sail by Orinoco.”

The following morning, there were tours of discovery, personally conducted by the young Mr. Partridge. Duska had wanted to leave the carriage at the old cathedral, and stand flat against the blank wall, but she refrained, and satisfied herself with marching up very close and regarding it with hostility. As the carriage turned into the main plaza, a regiment of infantry went by, the band marching ahead playing, with the usual blare, the national anthem. Then, as the coachman drew up his horses at the legation door, there was sudden confusion, followed by the noise of popping guns. It was the hour just preceding the noon siesta. The plaza was indolent with lounging figures, and droning in the sleeping sing-song chorus of lazy voices. At the sound, which for the moment impressed the girl like the exploding of a pack of giant crackers, a sudden stillness fell on the place, closely followed by a startled outcry of voices as the figures in the plaza broke wildly for cover, futilely attempting to shield their faces with their arms against possible bullets. Then, there came a deeper detonation, and somewhere the crumbling of an adobe wall. The first sound came just as Mrs. Horton was stepping to the sidewalk. Duska had already leaped lightly out, and stood looking on in surprise. But Mr. Partridge knew his Puerto Frio. He led them hastily through the huge street-doors, and they had no sooner passed than the porter, with many mumbled prayers to the Holy Mother, slammed the great barriers against the outside world. The final assault for Vegas y Libertad had at last begun.