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CHAPTER XXVIII
A Dash for Port

The Queen of Carlina, after a restless night, rose one fair morning early in October and dressed herself long before the appearance of her maids. There had been much to disturb her sleep, rumor upon rumor and arrest after arrest during the last few days, and last night a long conference with her advisers. Before she retired she had turned wearily to Otaballo, who remained a few minutes after the others departed.

“My General,” she said, “I’m tired of it all. Let them do as they will.”

“Not so long as there is a loyal man to carry a gun,” he answered stubbornly.

“You are old, General; it is time you had peace.”

“I am as young as my queen.”

“She is very old to-night,” she answered, with a weary smile. “I fear I am not a real queen,–just a woman. And women grow old quickly–without love.”

The General bit his moustache. He had long seen that it was more this than the plotting of the Revolutionists which was undermining his power. He did not know how to answer.

“You have the love of your people.”

“Not even that. The sentiment of love for their queen is dead. That is the root of the whole matter. There is but one thing, then, for me to do: to retire gracefully–to anticipate their wishes–to listen to their cry and declare a republic. Then you and I will go back to the cottage together and drink our tea in peace.”

“You are wrong. That is not the wish of the people; it is the wish only of a few hundred blackguards led on by those devils brought here from over the sea.”

“You mean Dick’s men?”

“The devil’s men. If you give me authority, I’ll have every mother’s son of them shot before morning.”

She shook her head.

“Not even to please my bloodthirsty general. They have played us false but–still they are countrymen of his.”

“You insult him. They belong to no country.”

“Why,” she asked thoughtfully, “why should I expect them to fight for me? Perhaps they think I played Dicky false. They have reason–he is not here where he won his right to be.”

“Then for the love of God, bring him here,” he answered, forgetting himself. She started at that.

“No! No!” she cried hastily, as though fearing he might make the attempt to find him; “not to save the kingdom. You should listen to me to-night, General; I am very wise. The reports which have come in are without exception bad. You arrest here, you arrest there, but still the people gather and still they state their wishes. I know how it is; at first they were amused to have their queen,–it was like a holiday. Especially when Dicky talked to them. But freedom is in the blood and it is as foolish to fight against it as against the foreign ships we once tried to keep out of our harbor. Carlina–the old Carlina, your Carlina and mine, is no more.”

She paused at the look of horror which had crept over his withered face. She dropped her hand to his arm.

“Do I sound disloyal? It is only because the kingdom remains as it used to be in your dear heart and yours alone. I am your queen, General, because you are still in the past. But the others are not. They are of the present and to them I am only a tradition. If they were all like you, my heart and soul, my life and love would all be theirs. It is to save what is left of the former things–to save you and the few others of that old kingdom–to have our dear Carlina as we used to have it out there in the sunshine of the garden–that I would leave this turmoil before it is too late.”

The white head drooped as she spoke,–drooped low over the wrinkled hands clasped upon the jeweled sword handle. Dreams–dreams that had seemed about to come true in these his later years now faded before his misty eyes. He had thought to see, before he died, the glory of the former times returned; and now his queen was the first to call them dead. For the moment he felt himself as solitary as one returned from the grave. But, as she had said, if there were more like Otaballo, the kingdom would still be, without all this strife. His stubborn thoughts refused to march into the present. He raised his head again, still a general of Carlina.

“Your Majesty,” he said, “there is but one way in which a servant of the house of Montferaldo may save himself.”

And clicking his heels together, he had turned with military precision and left her. Then she had tossed the night long, dreaming horrible things. Now she sat in her private apartments staring with troubled eyes over the sunlit grounds. So an hour passed, when without warning, the door snapped open, closed, and she looked up, startled, to see Danbury himself.

Her breath was cut off as though her heart had been stopped, as when one thrusts in a finger and halts a clock. There was the same dead silence that closes in upon the cessation of the long-continued ticking–a silence as though the whole world paused a moment to listen. He limped across the room to her side. She saw that his hair was dishevelled, his coat torn, as though he had been in a struggle. Then his arms closed about her and she felt a great sense of safety, of relief, as though everything had suddenly been settled for her. There was no kingdom, no throne, no Otaballo, no cityful of malcontents,–nothing but Dicky. She felt as much at peace as when they used to sit in the garden together. All this other confusion had been only some story which he had told her. But in a minute he drew back from her and thrust the present in again.

“Come,” he whispered, “we must hurry.”

“But Dicky–what is it?”

“The city is up in arms. We haven’t a second to spare.”

“And Otaballo–my general?”

He clenched his fists at the memory.

“Dead. They killed him and a handful of men at his side.”

“Dead–my general dead?”

“Like the brave general he was.”

She put her hands to her face. He drew her to his shoulder where he let her weep a moment, his own throat big.

“Oh, but they shall answer for it!” he cried. “Hush, dear. I’m coming back with a thousand men and make ’em sweat for that.”

His quick senses caught a sound without.

“Come,” he commanded, “we shall be cut off here.” He took her arm and hurried her along. They scurried down the stairs and across the palace grounds to a small gate in the rear. Here a carriage was waiting for them. Danbury helped her in and stooped to kiss her lips before he jumped up beside the driver.

“Now drive for your life!” he commanded.

The whip fell across the quivering flanks of the nervous animals and they leaped forward. The driver kept to the deserted side streets where they raced along unchallenged, but soon it became necessary to turn into the main thoroughfare in order to reach the water front and the boat. In the four minutes it would require to go those dozen blocks their fate would be decided. If the army had not yet advanced that far, they would be safe; otherwise he must depend upon a dash for it, covering the mob with the two revolvers he had. Eight shots to ward off the attack of a thousand men!

Danbury leaned far out over the box as the horses took the turn at a speed which almost swung the rear wheels clear of the ground. The animals had become panic-stricken now and were bolting madly ahead like horses from a burning stable.

But though the road looked clear they had not advanced a block before men sprang up as though from the ground. The populace had heard of the advancing column and such as had not already joined it prepared to meet it here. In order to avoid immediate suspicion, they were forced to steady the horses down to something like a walk. To Danbury it seemed as though they had stopped stock-still. He was not a good man in such a position as this; he was all for dashing action. He could hardly sit still. They received many side glances from the excited groups, but they passed merely as a carriage full of nervous foreigners. Danbury himself was not recognized. So they crept along and Danbury gained hope, until they were within two hundred yards of the turn which would take them out of the line of march. Then with hoarse shouting, the advance line of the revolutionists swept around a corner and directly towards them.

They were a yelling horde of half-drunken maniacs,–a disordered horde eager for the noisy excitement their Southern blood craved. With half of them it was more the frenzied love of flags and noise that had brought them out than any deep-seated conviction of right. But the thing that brought Danbury to attention was the sight of Splinter with forty of his fellows from the boat leading the crowd. In an instant he was off the box and inside the carriage. He realized what it would mean to be recognized by him. He had but one thought–to guard the safety of her within.

The driver advanced at a walk, keeping as close as possible to the curbing. There was just one chance in a thousand that the crowd might be too intent upon their goal to bother with passing vehicles. They were not after the Queen herself, for they looked upon her as a mere girl influenced by Otaballo. Should they chance upon her, undoubtedly they would feel obliged to arrest her, but she was not at the moment of such supreme importance as to make them alert to prevent her escape. Danbury knew this. The danger lay in the impudent curiosity of some one of the soldiers. Each felt the license of the law breaker. It was the spirit that led them to destroy property for the sheer joy of destroying that he had to fear. He held his weapon ready, sitting far back. The girl was white and calm. They watched the first few stragglers pass in dead silence; they heard the clattering confusion yet to pass.

Then a soldier thrust his musket through the glass with a coarse laugh. He peered within, but the girl’s face was shielded so that the most he saw was that she was a girl. The muzzle of Danbury’s revolver was within a foot of his head and a finger trembled upon the hair trigger. Still he forced himself to wait a second longer.

“Get out, my pretty lady–get out an’ join us,” he shouted.

“What have you there?” shouted his comrade.

Then someone started the cry:

“The Queen! It may be the Queen!”

There was a rush towards the carriage. Danbury fired through the bottom–a signal to the driver to dash for it. The horses sprang but were brought back upon their haunches. Beatrice spoke to Danbury.

“Wait. Not yet,” she pleaded as he raised his weapon.

It was almost like Providence; a shout from across the street which grew in volume until it drowned out all other cries. Then a rush in that direction which was followed blindly by every man of them. In a few seconds the carriage was deserted. Danbury rose to his feet and looked out. He almost lost his breath as he saw Stubbs, Wilson, and a girl, the center of a thousand excited men. The girl, white-cheeked, turned a moment in his direction. He was dumbfounded. Then he caught the cry, “Down with the traitors!”

The cry was taken up and voiced by a hundred throats. He saw Stubbs thrust his fists in the faces of the crowding men,–saw him fight them back until his own blood boiled with the desire to stand by his side. But the driver had whipped up the horses again and the carriage was taking him away–out of danger to her. In spite of the look of quick relief he saw in the face of Beatrice, he felt almost like a deserter.

It was what Stubbs took to be a return of the bad luck which had pursued him from childhood–this chance which led the three into the city at such a time as this. They had thought of nothing when they rose early that morning but of pushing through as soon as possible to Bogova. Wilson felt that it was high time that the girl reached civilization even as crude as it was in that city, with some of its comforts. The hardships were beginning to show in her thin cheeks and in dark rings below her eyes. The outskirts of the city told them nothing and so they trudged along with joyous hearts intent only upon finding decent lodgings. They had not even the warning of a shout for what was awaiting them. The upper street had been empty and they had turned sharply into this riot as though it were a trap set to await them.

Both men were quick to understand the situation and both realized that it meant danger. But Stubbs was the first to shake himself free. He recognized the crew at the head of the motley army. It roused his ire as nothing else could. Instantly he felt himself again their master. They were still only so many mutinous sailors. He turned upon them with the same fierceness which once had sent them cowering into the hold.

“Ye yaller dogs,” he roared. “Get back! Get back!”

They obeyed–even though they stood at the head of a thousand men, they obeyed. Once these fellows admitted a man their master, he remained so for all time. They shrank before his fists and dodged the muzzle of his revolver as though they were once again within the confines of a ship. In a minute he had cleared a circle.

“Now,” shouted Stubbs, “tell ’em we’re through with their two-cent revolution. Tell ’em we’re ’Mericans–jus’ plain ’Mericans. Tell ’em thet and thet I’ll put a bullet through the first man that lays a hand on one of us. Splinter, ye blackguard,–tell ’em that! Tell ’em that!”

Through a Carlinian lieutenant who understood English, Splinter made the leaders understand something of what Stubbs had said. They demurred and growled and shouted their protests. But Splinter added a few words of his own and they became quieter.

“Huh?” exploded Stubbs, impatiently; “perhaps some of ’em ’members me. Tell ’em we’re goin’ home, an’ tell ’em thet when a ’Merican is bound fer home it don’t pay fer ter try ter stop him. Tell ’em we ain’t goneter wait–we’re goin’ now.”

He turned to Wilson.

“Come on,” he commanded. Throwing up his arms he pressed back the men before him as a policeman brushes aside so many small boys. Whether it was the sheer assurance of the man, whether it was his evident control over their allies, or whether it was all over before they had time to think, they retreated and left a clear path for him.

“You boys guard our rear,” he shouted back to Splinter, “and when we’re outer sight ye can go ter hell.”

Obedient to the command, the small band of mercenaries took their place behind the three retreating figures. The latter made their way across the street without hurrying and without sign of fear. They turned a corner and so disappeared from sight. The army paused a moment. Then someone raised a new cry and it moved on, in three minutes forgetting the episode.

Stubbs at the corner found himself in the arms of an excited man, who, revolver in hand, had run back to meet him.

“Lord!” exclaimed Danbury, “I was afraid I was too late.”

Without further parley he hurried the girl into the closed carriage and with a yell over his shoulder for the two men to follow, clambered back upon the box.

“The boat’s at the dock,” he shouted. “Steam all up. Get on behind!”

The two men had their hands full to keep pace on foot with those wild horses, but the distance was short. In less than an hour the group was all on board the yacht which had her nose pointed straight for the open sea.

CHAPTER XXIX
The Open Door Closes

It was an excited but happy group of people who sat down that night in the cozy cabin of the yacht after a good day’s rest. Each of them had more than he could tell, for no one would allow the other to omit any details of these last adventurous weeks. Each had been held in the clutch of a widely differing set of circumstances and each had been forced to make something of a lone fight of it. Here in the calm and luxury of this cabin their lives, by the grace of God, had come to a focus. First Danbury, as the host, was forced to begin from the time he was lost at the gate to the palace.

He told of how he awoke in a certain house and found himself under the care of the best nurse in the world. But that didn’t last long, for the next thing he knew he was on board his yacht and fifty miles out at sea with a mutinous captain–a captain who refused to put back to port when ordered to do so at once. Instead of that, the fellow ran him into a strange port, took on board a surgeon (shanghaied him, in fact) and refused to obey orders until three weeks later Danbury was himself again plus a limp. Then he had come back to Bogova only to be refused permission to anchor in the harbor. He had come ashore one night in a dory, been arrested and carried before Otaballo who refused to recognize him and gave him the alternative of going to jail or leaving the coast at once. It had all been an incomprehensible mystery to him; the only explanation he could think of being that the Queen was seized by the General who had usurped the throne. He tried once more to land and this time learned of the movement afoot by the Republican party. He had made a dash for the palace, forced his way through the guards, and reached the Queen. Now he’d like an explanation from her Majesty of the unfair advantage she had taken of a wounded prisoner.

Her Majesty with an excited, happy laugh said that if boys would get excited and act foolishly, the only thing to do was to keep them out of trouble by force. It was true that she had conspired to have him transported and kept safe aboard his ship, because she knew that if he came back, he would resent a great many things she was forced to bear as a matter of diplomacy, and would end by getting stabbed in the back. She thought it was better to have a live lover, even though he were a hundred miles away, than a dead soldier. He scowled in disgust, but she reached his hand under the table. She had given orders to Otaballo and then she had lain awake all night crying because he had carried them out. Her plan had been to get the kingdom all straightened out and at peace, and then to abdicate. But things had gone wrong and she told them a story of plots and counterplots, of strange men arrested at her very door with knives in their hands, of a bomb found in the palace, that held them breathless. Danbury fairly boiled over with excitement.

“And you had me tied up while those things were going on? Trix–I’ll never forgive you. I might have been a regular story-book hero.”

“Not in Carlina; you’d have been killed before night.”

“Rot! Don’t you think I’m old enough to take care of myself?”

“No,” she answered. “And that’s why I’ve come with you.”

“I’d have cleared up that trouble in a week,” he exploded. “And as for those beggars of mine–do you know I risked my life to get their pay to them through an agent? And then they turned against us.”

“Still for pay,” she said.

“Well, their life will be a short one and a merry in that crowd. Once the darned republic is running again, they will be got rid of.”

If Danbury squirmed at having missed the excitement at Bogova, he fairly writhed with envy of Stubbs and Wilson. As he listened he hitched back and forth in his chair, leaned over the table until he threatened to sprawl among the glasses, and groaned jealously at every crisis. Wilson told his story as simply as possible from its beginning; the scenes at the house, his finding the map, his adventures in Bogova, the long trip to the cave, his danger there, and their dash back with the treasure, omitting, however, the story of the Priest’s relation to the girl as of too personal a nature. At this point the black coffee was brought on, the steward dismissed, and as a climax to the narrative the contents of the twenty bags of jewels poured out upon the table. They made a living, sparkling heap that held everyone of them in silent wonder. Beneath the electric lights, they took on their brightest hues, darting rays in all directions, a dazzling collection which in value and beauty was greater than any which has ever been gathered at one time. To-day they are scattered all over the world. There is not a collection in Europe which is not the richer for one or more of them. They flash upon the fingers of royalty, they sparkle upon the bosom of our own richest, they are locked tight in the heavy safes of London Jews, and at least four of them the Rajah of Lamar ranks among the choicest of what is called the most magnificent collection in the world. But the two finest of them all, neither the money of Jews nor the influence of royalty was powerful enough to secure; one came as a wedding gift to Mrs. Danbury, and the other was a gift from Stubbs to Jo.

For a few minutes they lay there together, as for so long they had lain in the cave–a coruscating fortune of many millions.

“Well,” gasped Danbury, “you fellows certainly got all the fun and a good share of the profit out of this trip. But–did you say you left a pile behind?”

“In gold. Twenty times what these are worth,” said Wilson.

“And you could locate it again?”

“It’s buried under a mountain now, but you’re welcome to the map if you wish to dig for it. I don’t want any more of it. I found what I was after.”

He looked at Jo who had become as silent as ever the wife of Flores was. She had learned the same trick of the eyes–a sort of sheep-like content.

“But, Stubbs,” broke out Danbury, “will you go back with me? We’ll take dynamite and men enough to blow out the whole mountain. Say, it will be bully and–”

He felt warm fingers close over his own. It sent a thrill the length of him, but also it told him that things were different now–that he must not plan for himself alone.

“Well,” he added slowly, “perhaps some day we can go–say ten years from now. Are you with me, Stubbs?”

“It’s good enough to stow erway ter dream about,” smiled Stubbs, catching a warning glance from Beatrice, “but as fer me, I h’ain’t gut th’ taste of rope outer my mouth yet.”

They swept back the jewels into the bags and locked them up in Danbury’s safe. The latter agreed to take them to New York and see that they were properly appraised so that a fair division could be made. Stubbs protested that it wasn’t worth while.

“Jus’ give me one bag of ’em an’ I guess thet will last me out.”

But Wilson insisted on the literal carrying out of their bargain, share and share alike.

The remainder of the trip was a sort of extra honeymoon for Danbury and Wilson, while Stubbs was content to act as chaperone and bask in the reflected happiness about him. The climax came with the double wedding held on board the ship in Boston Harbor just as soon as they could get a parson on board. The little cabin was a bower of flowers and what the two girls lacked in gowns (both Danbury and Wilson insisting that to prepare a trousseau was a wholly unnecessary waste of time) they made up in jewels. The dinner which followed was worthy of the Astoria, for Togo, the Japanese steward, was given carte blanche.

Stubbs was to go on to New York with Danbury, but as to where he should go from there, he was mysterious.

“There’s a widder at Lisbon–” he hinted to Wilson.

“If you don’t find her, come back to us.”

“Maybe so; maybe so. It’s God bless ye both, anyhow, an’ perhaps we’ll meet in the end at the Home port.”

From the dark of their unlighted room in the hotel Wilson and his wife stood side by side staring down at the interminable procession of shuffling feet in which, so short a time ago, they had been two units. It had been just such a dusk time as this when she had first got a glimpse of this man by her side. The world had seemed very big and formidable to her then and yet she had felt something of the tingling romance of it. Now as she gazed down through the misting rain at the glazed streets and the shadows moving through the paths of yellow lights from the windows, she felt a yearning to be a part of them once more.

Once again she felt the gypsy call of things beyond; once again she vibrated attune to the mystic song of the dark. She felt stifled in here with her love. For the moment she was even rebellious. After the sweep of sky-piercing summits, after the unmeasured miles of the sea, there was not room here for a heart so big as hers. Somehow this room seemed to shut out the sky. She wanted to go down into the crowd for a little and brush shoulders with these restless people. It would seem a little less as though she had been imprisoned.

It seemed to her as though she would then be more completely alone with him–alone as they were those first few hours when they had felt the press of the world against them. For this night of nights, she craved the isolation which had once been thrust upon them. They were such guarded creatures here. An hundred servants hedged them about,–hedged them in as zealously as jailers. The law–that old enemy–patroled the streets now to keep them safe where once it had thrust them out into the larger universe. Outside still lay the broad avenues of dark where one heard strange passings; where one was in touch with the ungoverned. The rain sifted gently from the uncharted regions above. It was there lovers should be–there where one could swing the shoulders and breathe deeply.

The girl snuggled uneasily closer to his side. The two pressed to the window as though to get as far away as possible from all the man-made furnishings about them.

“Jo,” he whispered, “we oughtn’t to be shut in.”

She found his hand and grasped it with the strength of one who thrills with the deeper understanding. She trembled in the grip of that love which, at least once in a woman’s life, lifts her to a higher plane than can be reached outside a madhouse. She felt a majestic scorn of circumstance. She was one with Nature herself,–she and her man. She laid her hot cheek against his heart. She had not yet been kissed, withdrawing from his lips half afraid of the dizzy heights to which they beckoned.

“Let’s get back into the dark, Jo,” he whispered again, drawing her towards him; “back where I found you, Jo. I want to get outside once more–with you. I want to be all alone with you once more.”

“David! David!” she cried joyously, “I know.”

“I don’t want to start life with you from here. I want to start from where we stood before the fire all wet. It was there I found you.”

“Yes! Yes!” she answered, scarcely able to get her breath.

“It was meant for us to begin there. We were turned aside for a little into strange paths, but we’ll go back now. Shall we?”

“Now,” she panted. “Let us start now.”

“Come,” he said.

They hurried out of the room and down the broad marble stairs to the hotel foyer as though fearing something was behind them to seize and hold them prisoner. The smug, well-dressed men and women who were lounging there staring listlessly at the rain, glanced up with a quicker interest in life at sight of their flushed cheeks and eager eyes. They caught in them the living fire which in their own breasts was ash-covered by the years.

The man at the swinging doors straightened at their approach.

“Shall I get you an umbrella, sir?”

“No,” answered Wilson, with a smile.

“It is raining hard, sir?”

“Yes, it is raining, thank God.”

They moved out upon the steps and the carriage porter put his whistle to his lips. Wilson shook his head and gripped the arm of the excited girl by his side.

“But, sir–” gasped the porter.

“I’m afraid you don’t belong to the night,” said Wilson.

“Lord!” muttered the porter as he saw them step into the wet. “Lord! they’re mad–mad as hatters.”

They swung into the damp stream of men and women with a fresh influx of strength. They felt the action of the world–the vibrating pulse of the engines. The Law still stood on the outside like an umpire, but there were still many forces at work which the Law could not detect, many opportunities for Chance to work, for the quick hand to move stealthily. It was something of this they felt, as they brushed along.

But they wished freer play even than this,–they wished to get where the Law alone stood between them and their ego–and then once more face down the Law. They turned into the big, dripping park with its primeval furnishings of earth and grass and trees and deep shadows. It was amid such surroundings alone that their own big, fundamental emotions found adequate breathing space. They plunged into the silent by-paths as a sun-baked man dives to the sandy bottom of a crystal lake. And into it all they blended as one–each feeling the glory of a perfected whole. Each saw with his own eyes and the eyes of the other, too. It was as though each were given five new senses.

Near one of the large trees a shadow detached itself and stepped towards them. It was a man in a rubber coat and a helmet.

“See,” she whispered to him, “it is one of them!”

He saw and the old fighting instinct returned–the old rebellion. But with it came a new responsibility. It was no longer just himself against this thing–no longer the same wild freedom that took no account of consequences.

“See,” she trembled. “Shall we run?”

Then she clutched his arm more tightly. There was no need of running now. He was there to face things–to stand firm and batter off.

“Oh, David!” she broke out, “we–we can’t run any more.”

“No,” he answered steadily, “we must go straight ahead and pass him.”

So they did, and as the policeman stooped a little the better to see their faces, they each lifted their eyes to him and laughed. He tipped his helmet.

“A bad night, sir,” he said genially.

“A bully night,” answered Wilson.

They went on more slowly after this, across the park and toward the broad avenue. They came to where the brownstone houses blinked their yellow eyes at them. The boards were all down now and the street all a-twinkle with fairy lights.

“Do you remember how they did that before?” he asked.

“And how warm it looked inside? David–David–they can’t make me feel lonesome any more.”

“No, but we can’t laugh at them; we must laugh with them.”

She made up a little face at a big French window which seemed to stare insolently at them.

“We don’t need you any more,” she said to it.

They came to the only house on the street which was still boarded against the heat of the summer. Here they paused. She seized his arm.

“That is it,” she exclaimed. “That is where we began!”

“Yes, but–it looks different, doesn’t it?”

“It has grown older–more sober.”

“Shall we go in?”

She looked up and down the street.