Samuel Hopkins Adams

“ Galpy’s teeth set and his cricket bat went up in the air.
“There’ll be killing for this,” he said. “I know these blightehs. That yell means blood. We must make a bolt for it. Is this all there is of us?”
At the moment of his asking, it was. One half a second later, it wasn’t, as the last of the legation’s stubborn bars yielded, the door burst open, and the four Americans tumbled out at the charge, Cluff yelling insanely, Carroll in deadly quiet, Sherwen alertly scanning the adversaries for identifiable faces, and Elder Brewster still imperiling his soul by the fervor of his language. ”

“ In one of the side caverns off the main dining-room of the Hotel Kast, the yacht’s owner, breakfasting with the yacht’s tutelary goddess and the goddess’s determined pursuer, discussed the blockade. Though Miss Polly Brewster kept up her end of the conversation, her thoughts were far upon a breeze-swept mountain-side. How, she wondered, had that dry and strange hermit of the wilds known the news before the city learned it? With her wonder came annoyance over her lost wager. The beetle man, she judged, would be coolly superior about it. ”

“ In silence, except for the outrageous rattling of the wheels on the cobbles, they drove through mean streets that grew ever meaner, until they drew up at the blind front of a building abutting on an arroyo of the foothills. Here they stopped, and Carroll threw his jehu a five-bolivar piece, which the driver caught, driving away at once, without the demand for more which usually follows overpayment in Caracuña. Convenient to hand lay a small rock. Perkins used it for a knocker, hammering on the guarded wooden door with such vehemence as to still the clamor that arose from within. ”

“ Tell it to me.”
“It runs like this: ‘Lady, who art nowise bitter to those who serve you with a good intent, that which thy servant is, that he is for you.’”
“Polly Brewster,” said the girl to herself, as she walked, slowly and musingly, back to her room, “the busy haunts of men are more suited to your style than the free-and-untrammeled spaces of nature, and well you know it. But you’ll go to-morrow and you’ll keep on going until you find out what is behind those brown-green goblin spectacles. ”

“ One day passes much like another in Caracuña City. The sun rises blandly, grows hot and angry as it climbs the slippery polished vault of the heavens, and coasts down to its rest in a pleased and mild glow. From the squat cathedral tower the bells clang and jangle defiance to the Adversary, temporarily drowning out the street tumult in which the yells of the lottery venders, the braying of donkeys, the whoops of the cabmen, and the blaring of the little motor cars with big horns, combine to render Caracuña the noisiest capital in the world. ”

“ If the wind wanted to blow his new panama into some lower treetop, compelling him to throw stones, perhaps to its permanent damage, in order to dislodge it, why, that was just one more cause of offense to pin to his indictment of irritation against the great island republic of Caracuña. Such is the temper one gets into after a year in the tropics.
Like as peas are panama hats to the eyes of the inexpert; far more like than men who live under them. ”

“ And Carroll had a nasty-looking knife-thrust in his shoulder.
All of them were disheveled, dilapidated, and grimy to the last degree, except the Hochwaldian, who still sat his horse, which he had ridden into the patio. But Miss Polly said to herself, with a thrill of pride, that no woman need wish a more gallant and devoted band of defenders. Leaning over them from the inner railing of the balcony, she surveyed them with sparkling eyes. ”

“ But if you mean sentiment, Fitz, after once having looked into the depths of those absurd goggles, can you, could you think of sentiment and the beetle man in the same breath?”
“No, I couldn’t,” he confessed, relieved. “But, then, I never have been able to understand you, Miss Polly.”
“Therein lies my fatal charm,” she said saucily. “Now, to the beetle man, I’m a specimen. He understands as much as he wants to. Probably I shall never see him after to-day, anyway. He’s going to get a message through for us that will deliver us from this land of bondage.” ”

“ No cabaret can hold a candle to it for variety of interest. When the sudden torrential storms sweep down the mountains at meal times, the little human champignons, beneath their insufficient cloche, rush about wildly seeking spots where the drippage will not wash their food away. Commercial travelers of the tropics have a saying: “There are worse hotels in the world than the Kast—but why take the trouble?” And, year upon year, they return there for reasons connected with the other hostelries of Caracuña, which I forbear to specify.
To Miss Polly Brewster, the Kast was a place of romance. ”

“ The departing whistle of the yacht Polly struck sharply to the heart of a desolate figure seated on a bench in the blazing, dusty, public square of Puerto del Norte, waiting out his first day of pain. A kiskadee bird, the only other creature foolish enough to risk the hot bleakness of the plaza at that hour, flitted into a dust-coated palm, inspected him, put a tentative query or two, decided that he was of no possible interest, and left the Unspeakable Perk to his own cogitations. ”

“ Carroll flushed.
“I would rather tell your father.”
“Are you implying a scandal in connection with my timid, little dried-up scientist?”
“I’m only saying,” said the other doggedly, “that there’s something secret and underhanded about that place of his in the mountains. It’s a matter of common gossip.”
The girl laughed outright.
“The poor beetle man! Why, he’s so afraid of a woman that he goes all to pieces if one speaks to him suddenly. Just to see his expression, I’d like to tell him that he’s being scandalized by all Caracuña.” ”

“ Long and loud Miss Polly blew the signal on the silver hunting-whistle.
In the club patio, Raimonda was chafing and wondering, and a score of his friends were drinking and waiting. That signal released their activities and terminated the battle of the American Legation most ingloriously for the forces of Urgante. For the gilded youth of Caracuña bears a heavy cane of fashion, and carries a ready revolver, also, although not so admittedly as a matter of fashion. Furthermore, he has a profound contempt for the peon class; a contempt extending to life and limb. ”

“ I might better have stuck to Fitz. Poor Fitz! I wonder if he’s lost.”
“Why should he be lost?”
“Because I lost him. Back there on the trail. Purposely. I sent him for water and then—I skipped.”
“Oh-h-h! Then he’s the goose.”
“Goose! Preston Fairfax Fitz—”
“Yes, the goose you said ‘Boo!’ to, you know.”
“Of course. You didn’t steal his hat, did you?”
“No. It’s my own hat. Why did you run away from him?”
“He bored me. When people bore me, I always run away. I’m beginning to feel quite fugitive this very minute.”
There was silence below, a silence that piqued the girl. ”

“ A man that you’d call your friend. Such had been Fitzhugh Carroll’s reference to the Unspeakable Perk. With that characterization in her mind. Miss Brewster let herself drift, after her suitor had left her, into a dreamy consideration of the hermit’s attitude toward her. She was not prone lightly to employ the terms of friendship, yet this new and casual acquaintance had shown a readiness to serve—not as cavalier, but as friend—none too common in the experience of the much-courted and a little spoiled beauty. ”

“ The double entente was unintentional, but the girl winced.
“Aren’t you coming with us on the yacht?”
“Am I?” His handsome face lighted hopefully.
“Of course. Dad expects you to. What kind of people should we be to leave any friend behind, with matters as they are?”
“Ah, yes.” The hope passed out of his face. “Dictates of humanity, and that sort of thing. I think, if you and Mr. Brewster—”
“Please don’t be silly, Fitz,” she pleaded. “You know it would make me most unhappy to leave you.” ”

“ Much aguardiente was in process of consumption, it being a half-holiday in honor of some saint, and nobody knew what trouble might break out.
“Bolas are rolling around like balls on a billiard table,” said young Raimonda, who had come after luncheon to call on Miss Brewster. “In this part of the city there will be nothing. You needn’t be alarmed.”
“I’m not afraid,” said Miss Polly.
“I’m sure of it,” declared the Caracuñan, with admiration. “You are very wonderful, you American women.”
“Oh, no. It’s only that we love excitement,” she laughed. ”

“ However, the young man was a good steadfast hater, and he came there every day to sit in the shade of the overhanging boulder, where there was a little trickle of cool air down the slope and a little trickle of cool water from a crevice beneath the rock, to despise that placid, unimpressionable ocean and all its works and to wish that it would dry up forthwith, so that he might walk back to the blessed United States of America. ”

“ Miss Brewster looked at him in surprise. It was borne in upon her, as she looked, that this man was not accustomed to being lightly regarded by other men, however busy or important; that his own concerns in life were quite as weighty to him, and in his esteem, perhaps, to others, as were the interests of any magnate; and that, man to man, there would be no shyness or indecision or purposelessness anywhere in his make-up. ”

“ After some deliberation as to the point of honor involved, he decided to go to Raimonda, who, alone in Caracuña City, seemed to be on personal terms with the hermit. He found the young man in his office. With entire frankness, Carroll stated his errand and the reason for it. The Caracuñan heard him with grave courtesy.
“And now, señor,” concluded the American, “here’s my question, and it’s for you to determine whether, under the circumstances, you are justified in giving me an answer. Is there a woman living in Mr. Perkins’s quinta on the mountains?” ”

“ A long patient sigh exhaled from below.
“Do you want me to guide you?”
“No,” she retorted, and was instantly panic-stricken, for the monosyllable was of that accent which sets fire to bridges and burns them beyond hope of return.
Slowly she got to her feet. Perhaps she would have dared and gone; perhaps she would have swallowed pride and her negative, and made one more appeal. She turned hesitantly and saw the devil.
It was a small devil on stilts, not more than three or four inches tall, but there was no mistaking his identity. ”

“ Each was armed with such casual weapons as he had been able to catch up. Carroll, a leap in advance of the rest, encountered an Indian drover, half-dodged a swinging blow from his whip, and sent him down with a broken shoulder from a chop with a baseball club that he had found in the hallway. A bull-like charge had carried Cluff deep among the Caracuñans, where he encountered a huge peon, whom he seized and flung bodily over the iron guard of a samon tree, where the man hung, yelling dismally. ”

“ Cluff brightened perceptibly.
“What kind of trouble?”
“Urgante is leading a mob up this way. They’re turning the corner now.”
“I’m going to wait and see them,” cried Miss Polly, with decision.
“Bend over, then, all of you,” ordered Sherwen. “The vines will cover you if you keep down.”
Around the corner, up the hill from where they were, streamed a rabble of boys, leaping and whooping, and after them a more compact crowd of men, shoeless, centering on a tall, broad, heavy-mustached fellow who bore on a short staff the Stars and Stripes. ”

“ Von Plaanden, in full uniform and girt with the short saber that is the special and privileged arm of the crack cavalry regiment to which he belonged at home, had dismounted to deliver personally a huge bouquet for Miss Brewster, from the garden of the Hochwald Legation, not even asking to see the girl, but merely leaving the flowers as a further expression of his almost daily apology, and riding on to an official review at the military park. ”

“ The present Government of Caracuia doesn’t believe in bubonic plague. I fancy our unfortunate friend in there will presently disappear, either just before or just after death. It doesn’t greatly matter.”
“What is to be done now?” asked Carroll.
“See that brush fire up there?” The hermit pointed to the hillside. “If we steep ourselves in that smoke until we choke, I think it will discourage any fleas that may have harbored on us. The flea is the only agent of communication.”
Soot-begrimed, strangling, and with streaming eyes, they emerged, five minutes later, from the cloud of smoke. ”

“ I’m crazy about aviation.”
“Ah, then you’ll be interested in this,” he said, now quite at his ease. “You know that the mosquito is the curse of the tropics.”
“Of other places, as well.”
“But in the tropics it means yellow fever, Chagres fever, and other epidemic illness. Now, the mosquito, as you doubtless realize, is a monoplane.”
“A monoplane?” repeated the girl, in some puzzlement. “How a monoplane?”
“I thought you claimed some knowledge of aviation. Its wings are all on one plane. The great natural enemy of the mosquito is the dragon-fly, one of which just paid you a visit. ”

“ She beat time with a pink and rhythmic finger as she chanted:—
“Scarab, tarantula, doodle-bug, flea.”
The beggar rapidly made the sign that protects one from the influence of the malign and supernatural. The scientist scowled.
“Repeat it!” she commanded.
“There is no such insect as a doodle-bug,” he protested feebly.
“Isn’t there? I thought I heard you mention it in your conversation with Mr. Carroll the other night.”
“You put that into my head,” he accused.
“Truly? Then life is indeed real and earnest. ”

“ For a moment Polly stood transfixed. What did it mean? Was it perhaps a servant’s dress. No; he had told her that there was no woman servant.
As she sought the solution, a woman’s figure emerged from the porch of the quinta, crossed the compound, and dropped upon a bench. Even at that distance, the watcher could tell from the woman’s bearing and apparel that she was not of the servant class. She seemed to be gazing out over the mountains; there was something dreary and forlorn in her attitude. What, then, did she do in the beetle man’s house? ”

“ It was a single-file trail, and he walked in advance, silent as an Indian. As they emerged from a thicket into the highway, above the red-tiled city in its setting of emerald fields strung on the silver thread of the Santa Clara River, she turned and gave him her hand.
“Be at your rock to-morrow, and when you see the yacht steam out, you’ll know I’ll be saying good-bye, and thank you for your mountain treasures. Send them to Miss Brewster, care of the yacht Polly. She’s named after me. Is there anything the matter with my shoes?” she broke off to inquire solicitously. ”

“ Only I’d like to have you out of the way first.”
“Oh, don’t send me away, Mr. Sherwen,” pleaded Miss Polly, with mischief in her eyes. “I’d make the cunningest little office assistant to busy old Dr. Pruyn. And he’s a friend of dad’s, and we surely ought to wait for him.”
“If only I could send you! The fact is, Americans won’t be very popular if matters turn out as I expect.”
“Shall we be confined to our rooms and kept incomunicado, while Dr. Pruyn chases the terrified germ through the streets of Caracuña?” queried the irrepressible Polly. ”