He clapped his hands and directed one of the negroes to carry my trunk to the consulate, and I walked with him up the pier, the native soldiers saluting him awkwardly as he passed. He returned their salute with a flourish, and more to impress me I guessed than from any regard for them.
“That’s because I’m Consul,” he said, with satisfaction. “There’s only eight white men in Porto Cortez,” he explained, “and we’re all consular agents. The Italian consular agent is a Frenchman, and an Italian, Guessippi—the Banana King, they call him—is consular agent for both Germany and England, and the only German here is consular agent for France and Holland. You see, each of ‘em has to represent some other country than his own, because his country knows why he left it.” He threw back his head and laughed at this with great delight. Apparently he had already forgotten the rebuff from Captain Leeds. But it had made a deep impression upon me. I had heard Leeds virtually accuse the consul of being an agent of General Laguerre, and I suspected that the articles he had refused to deliver were more likely to be machine guns than sewing-machines. If this were true, Mr. Aiken was a person in whom I could confide with safety.
The consulate was a one-story building of corrugated iron, hot, unpainted, and unlovely. It was set on wooden logs to lift it from the reach of “sand jiggers” and the surf, which at high tide ran up the beach, under and beyond it. Inside it was rude and bare, and the heat and the smell of the harbor, and of the swamp on which the town was built, passed freely through the open doors.
Aiken proceeded to play the host in a most cordial manner. He placed my trunk in the room I was to occupy, and set out some very strong Honduran cigars and a bottle of Jamaica rum. While he did this he began to grumble over the loss of his sewing-machines, and to swear picturesquely at Captain Leeds, bragging of the awful things he meant to do to him. But when he had tasted his drink and lighted a cigar, his good-humor returned, and he gave his attention to me.
“Now then, young one,” he asked, in a tone of the utmost familiarity, “what’s your trouble?”
I explained that I could not help but hear what the Captain shouted at him from the Panama, and I asked if it was contrary to the law of Honduras for one to communicate with the officer Captain Leeds had mentioned—General Laguerre.
“The old man, hey?” Aiken exclaimed and stared at me apparently with increased interest. “Well, there are some people who might prevent your getting to him,” he answered, diplomatically. For a moment he sipped his rum and water, while he examined me from over the top of the cup. Then he winked and smiled.
“Come now,” he said, encouragingly. “Speak up. What’s the game? You can trust me. You’re an agent for Collins, or the Winchester Arms people, aren’t you?”
“On the contrary,” I said, with some haughtiness, “I am serving no one’s interest but my own. I read in the papers of General Laguerre and his foreign legion, and I came here to join him and to fight with him. That’s all. I am a soldier of fortune, I said.” I repeated this with some emphasis, for I liked the sound of it. “I am a soldier of fortune, and my name is Macklin. I hope in time to make it better known.”
“A soldier of fortune, hey?” exclaimed Aiken, observing me with a grin. “What soldiering have you done?”