XII
THIS is the story Torn Deblore told me that night. The matter of it is all here, though the manner is more mine than his.
Tom Deblore sailed the seas, east and south, for close upon fifteen years. He worked his way aft. Though he was not remarkable in that life, he was decently successful. For three years he was a master, berthed and certified as such. Then, in his thirty-fifth year, he accepted employment ashore in Dutch Guiana with Doctor Javais. Eugene Javais was a savant, an explorer, and a man of affairs, who had been continuously domiciled and active in and about the three Guianas and adjacent states ever since his early youth. He was recognized by governments, and in learned circles abroad, as an authority on the languages and histories and habits of several obscure tribes of the far interior. Socially, he was a delight to those planters, officials, merchants and ship-masters whom business or chance threw in his way and to whom he took a liking. He entertained almost every evening when at home in his fine house behind the town. He was famous for his wit and his wines. His local reputation as a host was as high as his reputation abroad as a savant. He was rich in more than knowledge, personal charm and friendship. Plantations, mines, even controlling interests in mercantile firms were his, some inherited from his father, others acquired later by purchase or personal enterprise. Having twice entertained him to dinner. Doctor Javais offered Captain Deblore a responsible and remunerative position ashore.
"I need a right-hand man," he had said, turning lightly in his chair and holding a candle from the table to Tom's cigar. "One of your quality, Captain. Resign from your command and join me tomorrow, to our mutual benefit and satisfaction."
Tom puffed his cigar alight, removed it from his lips and eyed the coal, then said, "Done, sir." That was the way it happened, on the veranda, after dining. It was done without formality and without attracting the attention of any of the other men lingering around after dinner.
Tom cabled to the owners next morning, handed the barkentine over to Mr. Spike and had his personal possessions moved ashore and up to the doctor's big house, where an airy suite was at his disposal, He found Javais to be as affable an employer as he had been an affable host. Not a word was said about his duties nor, for some time, about his salary. They rode together each morning, very early; and, after showers in the garden bath-house, they breakfasted together. During breakfast the doctor read letters and then passed them over to Tom (with a very occasional exception) one by one, without comment or instructions. Some were from managers of plantations near at hand and upcountry, some from foreign agents and a few from the superintendents of mines, Tom read them all with care and as intelligently as was possible under the circumstances. He was present in the library each morning, by request, when the replies to this correspondence were dictated to the young Scottish-Brazilian secretary, For the rest of the day, until dinner-time, he was free to do as he chose and come and go as he pleased. Thus two weeks passed; and then one night Javais said that he was starting for the hinterland next morning. He handed over a potent legal document known as a "Power of Attorney."
"You now have a very good idea of my affairs and of my policy," he said. "Use your own judgment. McPhail will advise you on minor points—routine, detail. I hope to be back in three months' time."
Tom was staggered, but he made an effort to conceal the fact. He promised to do his best. He did his best. He found that his knowledge of the doctor's numerous enterprises was greater than he had thought. He worked hard, and he used his own judgment upon occasions. McPhail, the young Scottish-Brazilian secretary, expressed wonder and admiration. Three months passed, and a fourth month; and then Doctor Javais drove up in a hired carriage just in time to bathe and dress before dinner, accompanied by a stranger. He was in his usual good spirits, though he was burned black and had lost fully twenty pounds of flesh. He embraced Tom, then presented the stranger to him as Señor Louis Romero.
Javais did not explain this Romero, Tom could not place him. He was swarthy as an Indian, but his eyes were Latin. He was lean as a hound, languid in his movements and yet capable of amazingly sudden and swift action. His manner, like his face, was at times animated, but more often as still and detached as an Indian's. Toward Deblore he was friendly, even cordial, from the first. He lived in the big house behind the town, rode with the doctor and Tom in the early mornings, dawdled around all day and took a dignified part every evening in those quiet social affairs that were so dear to the good heart of Eugene Javais. He had a way with the servants, the most indolent of whom quickened at a glance from him as if prodded with a pin. Young McPhail, the secretary, was quite obviously afraid of him. One night, after the last guest had gone, Tom received an informal visit from Louis Romero. Tom was in pajamas, smoking a last cigarette beside an open window. Romero was still in the smart but appropriate costume of white linen and silk which the doctor had long since established as the correct evening dress for that community.
"I have been ten weeks here," he said, in Spanish. "I find your society, and that of the honored doctor, truly delightful, but the life is too dull, too guarded, for me. All this is already made, sweltering here by the old sea—by the Spanish, by the Dutch, by officials and traders and by the Señor Doctor. To fully enjoy, I would first make for myself—a city—a nation. You are younger than I am, my dear Tomas, but I am young at forty. You are of the administrators, I am of the conquerors. In twenty-five years, perhaps, when I am of the honored doctor's present age, I, too, shall give dinner-parties—or perhaps within a shorter time—but in a finer city than this. I go tomorrow."
They conversed for two hours, Romero doing most of the talking. Tom asked a number of questitons without obtaining any definite information. Romero's talk was all on a grand and inexact scale, in the grand manner; and yet it carried conviction. Tom got the impression that he knew very well what he was talking about, that his city and his nation were even then not entirely imaginary. He started inland and hillward next morning by train, that Señor Romero—his eyes afire, his swarthy face like a mask and his manner languid. His last words to Tom were imparted in a whisper. "I shall need your help very soon, my dear Tomas."
A year passed; and if Javais had news of Romero during those twelve months, he made no mention of it to Tom Deblore. Tom and the doctor continued to live in the big house on the best of terms; but Tom did more and more of the business, and the doctor gave more and more of his time to historical and literary work and correspondence with learned societies and brother savants. And then the doctor set out on another trip up-country; and again, after an absence of four months, he returned with the Señor Louis Romero. But this was a different Romero, a sick Señor with bloodless cheeks and feeble hands and a bandaged head. And again the doctor neglected to explain him.
Romero regained his strength quickly. In a week's time he was able to walk around his room on the arm of his servant, or Tom or the doctor; and within two weeks of his arrival the last bandage was removed from his head. The wound was healed—but, Lord, the scar! When he was strong enough to dine downstairs and meet the doctor's guests, he always donned a skull-cap of black silk as a part of his evening dress. The cap came low, but not low enough to hide the cleft eyebrow. His manner toward Tom was even more friendly, if that were possible, than it had been during his previous visit. He told Tom that he had received his terrible wound in a battle from which he had been dragged out by a few faithful followers.
"But for the wound, I would have been victorious," he said, "and you would have been administrating a nation now."
He talked in a vein that went to Tom's head. His most amazing statements carried conviction. When fully recovered in health, he vanished again into the hinterland. It was soon after this that the doctor began to show signs of restlessness. He sold out his interest in the firm of Da Silva & McCall, importers and exporters.
"We have no time to bother our heads with these old, established enterprises," he said to Tom; and in that Tom saw the Romero touch.
He sold other interests of the same nature and several of his nearer plantations. He spoke of his fine house as "an elephant on his hands." He spoke disparagingly of the town, comparing it to a graveyard in one breath and to a country market in the next. He spoke slightingly of the society it afforded. Tom asked him if he contemplated a removal to Europe, to Paris. He answered that he was seriously considering something of the kind. The rest of his plantations were sold in the course of the week. On Saturday night he said, "My dear friend, we must come to a decision and an understanding. I am a rich man. Wealth makes a free man. Europe calls to my intellect, but the country behind calls to my heart. Shall we go east or west—eastward to the real civilisation, or westward to the unspoiled hills where there is nation-building to be done?"
Tom said that the doctor would have no use for his services in Europe. The doctor made no reply to that; but he drew an English coin from his pocket, flipped it into the air, caught it and clapped his hand on the edge of the table.
"Head, and I feed my brain: shield, and I feed my heart," he said.
He lifted his hand. Shield it was; and they were on their way two weeks later. They traveled by train, by saddle, afoot and by pirogue. They met friends everywhere, friends of the doctor; in towns, in villages, on lonely plantations and at isolated mines. Savages appeared from overhanging coverts and greeted Javais and talked with him in languages known to few white men. The good doctor received warnings at which he smiled and shook his head. They entered those masterless regions over which no force or government of white men have established a claim, but into which many reckless officials, Spanish, Dutch, French and British, have disappeared forever. There they were deserted by all the members of their numerous company save two. These two had joined them only the day before; and now they evinced neither surprise nor perturbation. One continued on the forward way in a small one-man pirogue, and the other lit a fire and then hung the white men's hammocks and mosquito-bars. Tom felt uneasy; but the doctor, smoking a green cigar in his hammock, assured him that all was well. The doctor was right. The fellow who had gone up-stream returned before dark, accompanied by a dozen armed Indians and a white man with a Springfield rifle. (From this point, Tom Deblore's narrative became somewhat fragmentary and confusing.) The town was reached two days later. It was situated in a sloping valley on a mountain. Its population numbered several thousands, about four hundred of whom were whites or near-whites. There were low houses of stone and lower huts of wattle. For generations, the town had been a refuge for outlaws and outcasts from civilization. Tom and Doctor Javais were escorted to the best house in the place. Romero was absent at the time, with his army, bringing an outlying village or tribe under subjection—rounding out his state. He returned a few days later and embraced the doctor and Tom, He was now known by the style and title of Don Louis. Tom became governor of the town and the Don's confidential adviser. And now a queer state of affairs came to Tom's notice. While Romero had been acquiring vast sections of this debatable land by conquest, from outlaws and savages, Javais had been purchasing large areas of it from such established governments as laid claim to it. Though he had paid twice, and in one case thrice, he had bought cheap. The doctor and Louis Romero were evidently in partnership; and the doctor's deeds from the governments of Venezuela, Colombia and Brazil gave a color of legality to the actions and acquisitions of the Don. Don Louis always spoke of himself, and officially signed himself, as President of the Republic of Uacayari; but he was an absolute monarch.
Tom was a great man, and Don Louis was his friend. Doctor Javais spent money with a free hand, laying out new streets, building houses, carving plantations from the jungle and building roads. Also, he studied the tribes and wrote books. "We are creators," he said. He built a school and taught in it himself. Don Louis never criticized the doctor's activities and benevolence, nor did he interfere with them, but he sometimes smiled at them. He, too, was having roads made and plantations cleared and streams bridged far and near—but he was not paying wages to the laborers. He and his army were seldom in the capital for more than a few days at a time. Doctor Javais built a hospital and put an outlawed Spanish medico in charge of it. His own degree of doctor was not in medicine, but in philosophy. There was a square at the lower end of the town which was used by the tradesmen and peons as a market-place. Here beggars and cripples sat all day, displaying or voicing their misfortunes and asking alms. One of these was a white man, evidently of Spanish blood. He was dumb, for he had lost his tongue; he was blind, for both eyes were gone; and his right hand and both feet were missing. He always sat apart from the other unfortunates, with his back against a wall, silent and motionless. He was brought to his place every morning, and taken away every night, in a little hand-cart drawn by a very old man. Tom questioned the people about him, and received only frightened shakes of the head in answer. He questioned the old man, but without success. He gave coppers to that extraordinary cripple almost every day, and often a silver coin.
Trading expeditions came in from time to time from the civilized world, under escort supplied by Don Louis. They brought mining machinery, rifles, linens and silks, drugs, and even a few books for Doctor Javais. Occasionally, members or followers of such expeditions remained in the hillside town and established businesses there, or settled on the land, under the protection of the governor. Thus the population grew. But this was not its only manner of increase. Don Louis sometimes brought in a hundred or more new citizens at a time. These were savages from the very back of beyond—from so far back that even the learned doctor was ignorant of their language. Until they realized that they were no longer laws unto themselves, they were forced to enjoy their new privileges of citizenship under somewhat exacting military and police surveilance. Six years passed, and still Tom and the Don were the best of friends. They often talked together late into the night. Tom talked of his childhood, of his family, of his distant home, of his brother Henry, even of old family legends. Romero never spoke of his youth, nor of his family, but always of this state he had made and was still making. It was extending westward every year. He said that its other boundaries would also move outward before long. He was for shouldering his big neighbors, whose symbols of power and seats of government were so far away as to seem of another world. He had won so many jungle victories that he was in danger of measuring the nations of the great world by jungle standards.
Don Louis had dozens of garrisons posted in hanging jungles and above river fords; but the total numerical strength of all his scattered garrisons and outposts was never permitted to equal the strength of that remainder of his army which he always kept under his own immediate command and eye. As his conquests extended, his garrisons increased and his army grew. The garrison of the capital was half a battalion of jungle infantry commanded by a score of white and half-caste officers.
Tom Deblore walked into the barrack-yard one morning, attracted by sounds of rifle-fire, and found a firing-squad, dead men on the ground and other men lined up against a wall. The commandant of the garrison himself was in charge of these operations. The dead men and those awaiting death were all Indians, some of them soldiers and others civilian laborers domiciled in the town. Tom had heard nothing of their crime or their trial. He put the commandant under arrest, investigated the whole affair, (with Doctor Javais assisting), released the survivors, compensated the families of the dead, had the ex-commandant shot and five other officers imprisoned for long terms.
Then Don Louis came marching home; and when he heard of the affair of the garrison's commandant he lost control of his temper for a moment and seized Tom Deblore by the throat with his right hand and pulled a knife with his left. Tom was astonished; but, in spite of his astonishment, he acted swiftly. He grabbed up a lump of iron ore that held down a pile of papers on the edge of his desk, and with this, striking blindly, he met the Don's left hand. The knife clattered to the floor, his throat was released, and Don Louis staggered back with blood dripping from his mashed and broken fingers. The doctor from the hospital dressed the injured hand. The Don apologized to Tom for his violence, blamed fever and fatigue for it, and begged him not to mention the unhappy incident to Doctor Javais. But Tom had glimpsed the real Romero in those mad seconds. He had seen more than one truth during that flash of violence. Now he knew, as surely as if he had been told, that his life would not be worth a penny's purchase but for the fact that the Don saw no way yet of replacing him in his scheme of things. He was a valuable official, loved and respected in the town and throughout the country for miles around. He was just; and he and the doctor administered the entire civil government of the country between them. He and the doctor were the only white men in the country whom Romero could trust. Whenever Tom suggested his accompanying the army on one of its extended expeditions, Don Louis discouraged the idea. He said that he could not spare Tom from the seat of government for even a day. His manner was as friendly as it had ever been.
They had been ten years in the wilderness when Doctor Javais suddenly sickened and died. Don Louis was absent from the capital at the time, controlling his western subjects. During the night before the dawn of his death, the doctor placed a little pouch of soft leather in Tom's hand. "I have saved this for you," he said. "Louis has everything else. I chose unwisely. Go back to the world, to civilization."
Tom had an Indian servant, one Pedro, who had served him ever since his arrival in the wilderness. Pedro begged Tom to depart before the Don's return. Tom replied that he was not in danger, because the Don needed him. But the servant had the better of the argument. It seems that Tom was in love and about to marry. Pedro pointed out that his master would not only lose his wife, but the doctor's gift as well, if he awaited Don Louis's return, for the Don was aware of and interested in both. And in a fit of jealousy, the great value of the Señor Governor to the state would be forgotten. To point his argument, he reminded Tom of the cripple who lacked both eyes, his tongue, his right hand and both feet, and assured him that the crippling had been the work of Don Louis. The unfortunate fellow had at one time been Romero's most trusted and useful lieutenant.
The woman was willing to flee with Tom and Pedro. She made her choice between the President and the Governor, perhaps with visions of Caracas, New York and Paris in her mind. The three reached civilization, after many hardships and dangers. There was a wedding. They put thousands of miles between themselves and the Republic of Uacayari. Tom carried wealth in the little leather pouch, the gift of the good Doctor Javais—diamonds. The three fugitives settled in Bahia, where Tom purchased a house. His wife died; and it was after her death that he got in touch again with his brother Henry, by correspondence. Henry proved himself to be a painstaking letter-writer and a sentimentalist—the damnedest rogues are frequently sentimentalists. Tom sold diamond after diamond and bought lands and houses. He speculated and lost large sums. He heard nothing of Don Louis, nothing of Uacayari, until Pedro came him one evening, shaking with terror, and told him that he had seen three of the Don's officers in the city. Tom was then close upon sixty years of age, but he was loathe to run away and leave his property. He hesitated; and his hesitation cost the life of the trusty Pedro. Tom himself escaped by a hair's breadth; and he kept on, with only a brief halt here and there, until he reached Moosemeadows.