The White Mice

by Richard Harding Davis

“At present,” said Roddy, “I’m going to call on Madame Rojas.”

On their walk to Miramar, Caldwell found it impossible to break down Roddy’s barrier of good nature. He threatened, he bullied, he held forth open bribes; but Roddy either remained silent or laughed. Caldwell began to fear that in trying to come to terms with the enemy he had made a mistake. But still he hoped that in his obstinacy Roddy was merely stupid; he believed that in treating him as a factor in affairs they had made him vainglorious, arrogant. He was sure that if he could convince him of the utter impossibility of taking San Carlos by assault he would abandon the Rojas crowd and come over to Vega. So he enlarged upon the difficulty of that enterprise, using it as his argument in chief. Roddy, in his turn, pretended he believed San Carlos would fall at the first shot, and, as he intended, persuaded Caldwell that an attack upon the prison was the fixed purpose of the Rojas faction.

Roddy, who as a sentimental burglar had so often forced his way into the grounds of Miramar, found a certain satisfaction in at last entering it by the front door, and by invitation. His coming was obviously expected, and his arrival threw the many servants into a state of considerable excitement. Escorted by the major-domo, he was led to the drawing-room where Madame Rojas was waiting to receive him. As he entered, Inez and her sister, with Vega and General Pulido and Colonel Ramon, came in from the terrace, and Caldwell followed from the hall.

With the manner of one who considered himself already a member of the household, Vega welcomed Roddy, but without cordiality, and with condescension. To Inez, although the sight of her caused him great embarrassment, Roddy made a formal bow, to which she replied with one as formal. Señora Rojas, having ordered the servants to close the doors and the windows to the terrace, asked Roddy to be seated, and then placed herself in a chair that faced his. The others grouped themselves behind her. Roddy felt as though the odds were hardly fair. With the exception of Inez, who understood that any sign she might make in his favor would do him harm, all those present were opposed to him. This fact caused Roddy to gaze about him in pleasurable excitement and smile expectantly. He failed to see how the interview could lead to any definite result. Already he had learned from Caldwell more than he had suspected, and all that he needed to know, and, as he was determined on account of her blind faith in Vega to confide nothing to Señora Rojas, he saw no outcome to the visit as important as that it had so soon brought him again into the presence of Inez.

“Mr. Forrester,” began Señora Rojas, “I have asked you to call on me to-day at the suggestion of these gentlemen. They believe that where they might fail, an appeal from me would be effective. I am going to speak to you quite frankly and openly; but when you remember I am pleading for the life of my husband you will not take offense. With no doubt the best of motives, you have allied yourself with what is known as the Rojas faction. Its object is to overthrow the President and to place my husband at Miraflores. To me, the wife of General Rojas, such an undertaking is intolerable. All I desire, all I am sure he desires, is his freedom. There are those, powerful and well equipped, who can secure it. They do not belong to the so-called Rojas faction. You, we understand, have much influence in its counsels. We know that to carry out its plans you have quarrelled with your father, resigned from his company. If I venture to refer to your private affairs, it is only because I understand you yourself have spoken of them publicly, and because they show me that in your allegiance, in your mistaken allegiance to my husband, you are in earnest. But, in spite of your wish to serve him, I have asked you here to-day to beg you and your friends to relinquish your purpose. His wife and his children feel that the safety of General Rojas is in other hands, in the hands of those who have his fullest confidence and mine.” In her distress, Señora Rojas leaned forward. “I beg of you,” she exclaimed, “do as I ask. Leave my husband to me and to his friends. What you would do can only interfere with them. And it may lead directly to his death.”

She paused, and, with her eyes fixed eagerly on Roddy’s face, waited for his answer. The men standing in a group behind her nodded approvingly. Then they also turned to Roddy and regarded him sternly, as though challenging him to resist such an appeal. Roddy found his position one of extreme embarrassment. He now saw why Señora Rojas had received him in the presence of so large an audience. It was to render a refusal to grant her request the more difficult. In the group drawn up before him he saw that each represented a certain interest, each held a distinctive value. The two daughters were intended to remind him that it was against a united family he was acting; Caldwell was to recall to him that he was opposing the wishes of his father, and Vega and the two officers naturally suggested to whom Señora Rojas referred when she said her interests were in the hands of powerful and well-equipped friends. Should he tell the truth and say that of the plans of the Rojas faction he knew little or nothing, Roddy was sure he would not be believed. He was equally certain that if, in private, he confided his own plan to Señora Rojas and told her that within the next forty-eight hours she might hope to see her husband, she would at once acquaint Vega and Caldwell with that fact. And, after the confidence made him by Caldwell, what he and Vega might not do to keep Rojas off the boards, he did not care to think. He certainly did not deem it safe to test their loyalty. He, therefore, determined that as it was impossible to tell his opponents the truth, he had better let them continue to believe he was a leader in the Rojas party, and that, with it, his only purpose was an open attack upon the fortress.

“I need not say,” protested Roddy gravely, “that I am greatly flattered by your confidence. It makes me very sorry that I cannot be equally frank. But I am only a very unimportant member of the great organization that has for its leader General Rojas——”

“And I,” interrupted Señora Rojas, “am the wife of that leader. Are my wishes of no weight?”

“I fear, madame,” begged Roddy, in deprecatory tones, “that to millions of Venezuelans General Rojas is considered less as the husband than as the only man who can free this country from the hands of a tyrant.”

At this further sign of what seemed fatuous obstinacy, Señora Rojas lost patience.