On this particular voyage, however, it is pleasant to record that the “Barcelona,” in spite of various temptations to the contrary, had behaved in a most decorous manner, diplomatically avoiding the aforesaid mudbanks, submerged treetrunks and the like and giving promise of an early arrival at her destination in the Upper Magdalena.
In any part of the world except Colombia the progress of this steamer up the river on this occasion would have been followed with the liveliest interest from one end of the country to the other. News bulletins would have chronicled every detail of her voyage; there would have been editorial speculation as to the possible delays she might encounter; predictions of the outcome of her snail-paced journey and, finally, statements—bogus or otherwise—would have come every now and then from the important personage who headed the list of the “Barcelona’s” passengers. For there was an unhappily important personage on board—a personage who, much to his own amazement, had helped in the making of history, and who was now on his way to report to the President of the Republic the details of what he had done.
Some men, according to one familiar with the accidents common to humanity, have greatness thrust upon them. General Herran was neither born great, nor had he, of his own free will, achieved greatness. But it had been thrust upon him. Without thought or act of his own he awoke one morning to find himself famous. It was an unenviable kind of fame, won in an opera-bouffe sort of way, and might, in some countries, have cost the general his head. But in Colombia there was, happily, no danger of this. Having lost his head once why should he lose it a second time, and just because he had fallen a victim to the wiles of the Panamanians?
Here is the brief but important chapter of history in which General Herran played a leading part. In the performance of his duty to quell any and every uprising which might occur on the Colombian coast he had gone with his army to the Isthmus, where, he had been told, something like a revolution was in progress. At Colon he had been courteously met on shipboard by representatives of this revolution. On their friendly invitation, and without disembarking his troops, he and his staff of officers had then been escorted politely across the Isthmus to Panama where, much to their astonishment, they were promptly lodged in jail—a climax which any one but this unsuspecting general might have foreseen. During his absence his troops were sent back by the revolutionists to Colombia—and thus, without the firing of a shot, the Republic of Panama achieved its independence.
On board the “Barcelona,” freed from the problem of keeping the Isthmians within the Colombian Union, General Herran gave no evidence of any disastrous effect on his own fortunes following his memorable experience of Panama diplomacy. The center of a convivial group of admiring friends, flanked by an inexhaustible supply of “La Cosa Sabrosa,”—the suggestive title given by one enthusiast to the native rum which accompanied them in an endless array of demijohns—this excellent leader of armies appeared to be making a triumphal progress homeward, rather than a decidedly ignominious retreat. His large mirthful brown eyes, peering out of a boyish face fringed by a heavy black beard, were undimmed by regrets and gave no token of the wily, self-seeking politician their possessor was said, by his enemies, to be. “El General,” as he was usually called, was, in fact, the best of good fellows; one who, we can well imagine, might easily forget so paltry an adjunct as his troops, lured by the promise of a lively hour or so in a gay city with congenial companions. “Bobo” his detractors might call him, or “tonto”—but never “pendejo” nor “traidor.”
With General Herran on board the “Barcelona,” although not exactly of his party, and certainly not in the least of the military persuasion, was a round-paunched, bullet-headed little man who, arrayed in the flimsiest of apparel, a wide-flapping Panama sombrero coming down to his ears, paced restlessly about the deck, fanning himself vigorously with a huge palm-leaf fan. Although of pure Spanish lineage, there was nothing of the traditional polish of his race in this explosive person’s manner or speech. He had rolled about—one can hardly describe his mode of travel by another phrase—among many people and had recently settled down in a delightfully fever-ridden section of Colombia to practice medicine. “Doctor Quinine” he was called—behind his back—and it is said that he had simplified the methods of his profession by administering, on all occasions and for all diseases, the one simple, famous drug, discovered centuries ago by his ancestors in his native Peru. Quinine and a few drastic purgatives summed up his medical creed. If these remedies failed to cure—and they sometimes did fail—why, the unfortunate victim was simply a “canaille,” and had, through his own stupidity, or malice, defeated the otherwise infallible result of the doctor’s treatment.
The quininizing of the human race, however, was not the mission upon which Dr. Manuel Valiente Miranda had at present embarked. He had recently made a journey to the United States, whither he had gone to take out a patent on some marvelous “pildoras de quinina” of his own concoction. Having succeeded in the main object of his trip, and having failed incidentally to sell a single box of these same patented “pildoras” to any one of the benighted thousands whose faith was pinned to the ordinary medical practitioner, he had resolved to return to his old occupation of dosing with quinine the faithful on the Colombian coast. On his homeward journey, however, he met a party of Americans who induced him to abandon for a time his original project and to join them in a trip to Bogota. As he was a man of independent means, a political exile from his native land, with no family ties whatsoever, there was nothing to hinder this sudden change in his plans. Hence his presence on the “Barcelona,” where he had assumed guardianship over his American friends—whom he abused on occasion, as was his wont with those he liked—and where he engaged in sarcastic tilts with his old ally “El General.”
In the political upheaval caused by the secession of Panama Doctor Miranda took especial delight; nor did he hesitate to upbraid those in authority for what he called their lack of gumption in the present situation. He predicted, moreover, the coming supremacy of “los Yankees” in South America. In all of this Doctor Miranda was good naturedly tolerated by his Colombian friends, who suffered his sarcasm much as they did his quinine, ignoring the bitterness out of regard for the curative virtue behind it.
Harold and Una Leighton, David Meudon, Andrew Parmelee and Mrs. Quayle were the Americans to whom Doctor Miranda had attached himself on this pilgrimage to Bogota. It was an oddly assorted party. That the persons composing it should be voyaging together up the Magdalena, with an eccentric Peruvian physician as a sort of cicerone, and in friendly intimacy with a group of discredited army officers accused of a traitorous abandonment of the national cause, formed one of those curious situations not unusual in South American travel.
The reader has already learned of the decision reached by Harold Leighton and David to visit Bogota in order to solve there the mystery of the three months following the dynamite explosion in the Guatavita tunnel. As her uncle had foreseen, Una insisted on going with them, and had brought Mrs. Quayle along besides. There was no particular reason why that estimable lady should accompany them. She had rarely ventured beyond the borders of her native Connecticut, and could certainly be of no possible use on so long and difficult a journey as this. But something had to be done with her. She was afraid to be left alone at Stoneleigh, and as she was anxious about Una it seemed best on the whole to take her along. She proved an inoffensive traveler and gave amusement to more than one tourist by her extraordinary costumes, especially the massive, old-fashioned jewelry, with which her hands and neck were covered and from which she refused ever to be parted.