CHAPTER IV
NOW that his role of ignoramus and lout had been played, the black man introduced himself as Guillermo Gumersindo and glided into the usual selfexplanatory conversation. He was sure Señor Strawbridge would pardon his buffoonery, but one had to be careful when a police visitation was threatened. He was the editor of a newspaper in Canalejos, “El Correo del Rio Negro,” a newspaper, if he did say it, more ardently devoted to Venezuelan history than any other publication in the republic. Gumersindo had been chosen by General Fombombo to make this purchasing expedition to Caracas just because he was black and could drop easily into a lowly role.
To the ordinary white American an educated negro is an object of curious interest, and Strawbridge strolled along the streets of Caracas with a feeling toward the black editor much the same as one has toward the educated pony which can paw out its name from among the letters of the alphabet.
Gumersindo's historical interest exhibited itself as he and Strawbridge passed through the mercado, a plaza given over to hucksters and flower-venders, in the heart of Caracas. The black man pointed out a very fine old Spanish house of blue marble, with a great coat of arms carved over the door:
“Where Bolivar lived.” Gumersindo made a curving gesture and bowed as if he were introducing the building. The American looked at the house.
“Bolivar,” he repeated vaguely.
The editor opened his eyes slightly.
“Sí, señor; Bolivar the Libertador.”
The black man's tone showed Strawbridge that he should have known Bolivar the Libertador.
“Oh, sure!” the drummer said easily; “the Libertador. I had forgot his business.”
The black man looked around at his companion as straight as his politeness admitted.
“Señor,” he ejaculated, “ I mean the great Bolivar. He has been compared to your Señor George ”Washington of North America.“
Strawbridge turned and stared frankly at the negro.
“Wha-ut?” he drawled, curving up his voice at the absurdity of it and beginning to laugh. “Compared to George Washington, first in war, first in—”
“Sí, ciertamente, señor,” Gumersindo assured his companion, with Venezuelan earnestness.
“But look here—” Strawbridge laid a hand on his companion's shoulder—“do you know what George Washington did, man? He set the whole United States free!”
“But, hombre!” cried the editor. “Bolivar! This great, great man—” he pointed to the blue marble mansion—“set free the whole continent of South America!”
“He did!”
“Seguramente! And this man, who freed a continent, was at length exiled by ungrateful Venezuela and died an outcast, señor, in a wretched little town on the Colombian coast—an outcast!”
Strawbridge looked at Bolivar's house with renewed interest.
“Well, I be damned!” he said earnestly.“ Freed all of South America! Say! why don't somebody write a book about that?”
Gumersindo pulled in one side of his wide-rolling lips and bit them. The two men walked on in silence for several blocks west. They passed the Yellow House, the seat of the Venezuelan Government. On the south side of this building stands a monument with a big scar on the pedestal, where some name has been roughly chiseled out. The negro explained that this monument had been erected by the tyrant Barranca, who occupied the Venezuelan presidency for eight years, but that when Barranca was overthrown by General Pina, the oppressed people, in order to show their hatred of the fallen tyrant, erased his name from the monument.
Strawbridge stood looking at the scar and nodding.
“Did they have to rise against this man Barranca to get him out of office?” he asked in surprise.
“Rise against him!” cried Gumersindo. “Rise against him! Why, señor, the only way any Venezuelan president ever did go out of office was by some stronger man rising against him I But come: I will show you, on Calvario.” They moved quickly along the street, which was changing its character somewhat, from a business street to a thoroughfare of cheap residences. After going some distance Strawbridge saw the small mountain called Calvario which rises in the western part of the city. The whole eastern face of this mountain had been done into a great flight of ornamental steps. Half-way up was a terrace containing three broken pedestals.
“These,” decried Gumersindo, “were erected by the infamous Pina, but when Pina was assassinated and the assassin Wantzelius came into power, the people, infuriated by Pina's long extravagances, tore down the statues he had erected and broke them to pieces.” The black man stood looking with compressed lips at the shattered monoliths in the sunshine.
There was a certain incredulity in Strawbridge's face. The American could not understand such a social state.
“And you say they just keep on that way—one president overthrowing another!”
“Precisely. Wantzelius had Pina assassinated, Toro Tonne overthrew Wantzelius, Cancio betrayed and exiled Toro Tonne…”
The American arms salesman stood on the stairs of Calvario, beneath the broken pedestals, and began to laugh. “Well, that's a hell of a way to change presidents—shoot 'em—run 'em off—exile 'em! It's just exactly like these greaser Latin countries!” He sat down on the stairs in the hot sunshine and laughed till the tears rolled out of his eyes.
The thick-set negro stood looking at him with a queer expression.
“It… seems to amuse you, señor?”
Strawbridge drew out his handkerchief and wiped his eyes. He blew out a long breath.
“It is funny! Just like a movie I saw in Keokuk. It waB called ‘Maid in Mexico,’ and it showed how these damned greasers batted along in any crazy old way; and here is the wreckage of just some such rough stuff.” He looked up at the broken pedestals again with his face set for mirth, but his jaws ached too badly to laugh any more. He drew a deep breath and became near-sober.
Just below him stood the negro, like a black shadow in the sunshine. He stared with a solemn face over the city with its sea of red-tiled roofs, its domes and campaniles, and the blue peaks of the Andes beyond. Abruptly he turned to Strawbridge.
“Listen, señor,” he said tensely, and held up a finger. “My country has lived in mortal agony ever since Bolivar himself fell from his seat of power amid red rebellion, but there is a man who will remedy Venezuela's age-long wounds; there is a man great enough and generous enough—”
At this point some remnant of mirth caused Strawbridge to compress his lips to keep from laughing again. The dark being on the steps stopped his discourse quite abruptly; then he said with a certain severity:
“Let us understand each other, señor. You sell rifles and ammunition; do you not!”
“Yes,” said Strawbridge, sobering at once at this hint of business.
Gumersindo took a last glance at the city sleeping in the fulgor of a tropical noon:
“Let's get to the garage,” he suggested briefly.