第43章

Clay slept for three hours.He had left a note on the floor instructing MacWilliams and young Langham not to go to the mines, but to waken him at ten o'clock, and by eleven the three men were galloping off to the city.As they left the Palms they met Hope returning from a morning ride on the Alameda, and Clay begged her, with much concern, not to ride abroad again.There was a difference in his tone toward her.There was more anxiety in it than the occasion seemed to justify, and he put his request in the form of a favor to himself, while the day previous he would simply have told her that she must not go riding alone.

``Why?'' asked Hope, eagerly.``Is there going to be trouble?''

``I hope not,'' Clay said, ``but the soldiers are coming in from the provinces for the review, and the roads are not safe.''

``I'd be safe with you, though,'' said Hope, smiling persuasively upon the three men.``Won't you take me with you, please?''

``Hope,'' said young Langham in the tone of the elder brother's brief authority, ``you must go home at once.''

Hope smiled wickedly.``I don't want to,'' she said.

``I'll bet you a box of cigars I can beat you to the veranda by fifty yards,'' said MacWilliams, turning his horse's head.

Hope clasped her sailor hat in one hand and swung her whip with the other.``I think not,'' she cried, and disappeared with a flutter of skirts and a scurry of flying pebbles.

``At times,'' said Clay, ``MacWilliams shows an unexpected knowledge of human nature.''

``Yes, he did quite right,'' assented Langham, nodding his head mysteriously.``We've no time for girls at present, have we?''

``No, indeed,'' said Clay, hiding any sign of a smile.

Langham breathed deeply at the thought of the part he was to play in this coming struggle, and remained respectfully silent as they trotted toward the city.He did not wish to disturb the plots and counterplots that he was confident were forming in Clay's brain, and his devotion would have been severely tried had he known that his hero's mind was filled with a picture of a young girl in a blue shirt-waist and a whipcord riding-skirt.

Clay sent for Stuart to join them at the restaurant, and MacWilliams arriving at the same time, the four men seated themselves conspicuously in the centre of the cafe' and sipped their chocolate as though unconscious of any imminent danger, and in apparent freedom from all responsibilities and care.While MacWilliams and Langham laughed and disputed over a game of dominoes, the older men exchanged, under cover of their chatter, the few words which they had met to speak.

The manifestoes, Stuart said, had failed of their purpose.He had already called upon the President, and had offered to resign his position and leave the country, or to stay and fight his maligners, and take up arms at once against Mendoza's party.

Alvarez had treated him like a son, and bade him be patient.He held that Caesar's wife was above suspicion because she was Caesar's wife, and that no canards posted at midnight could affect his faith in his wife or in his friend.He refused to believe that any coup d'etat was imminent, save the one which he himself meditated when he was ready to proclaim the country in a state of revolution, and to assume a military dictatorship.

``What nonsense!'' exclaimed Clay.``What is a military dictatorship without soldiers? Can't he see that the army is with Mendoza?''

``No,'' Stuart replied.``Rojas and I were with him all the morning.Rojas is an old trump, Clay.He's not bright and he's old-fashioned; but he is honest.And the people know it.If Ihad Rojas for a chief instead of Alvarez, I'd arrest Mendoza with my own hand, and I wouldn't be afraid to take him to the carcel through the streets.The people wouldn't help him.But the President doesn't dare.Not that he hasn't pluck,'' added the young lieutenant, loyally, ``for he takes his life in his hands when he goes to the review tomorrow, and he knows it.Think of it, will you, out there alone with a field of five thousand men around him! Rojas thinks he can hold half of them, as many as Mendoza can, and I have my fifty.But you can't tell what any one of them will do for a drink or a dollar.They're no more soldiers than these waiters.They're bandits in uniform, and they'll kill for the man that pays best.''

``Then why doesn't Alvarez pay them?'' Clay growled.

Stuart looked away and lowered his eyes to the table.``He hasn't the money, I suppose,'' he said, evasively.``He--he has transferred every cent of it into drafts on Rothschild.They are at the house now, representing five millions of dollars in gold--and her jewels, too--packed ready for flight.''

``Then he does expect trouble?'' said Clay.``You told me--''

``They're all alike; you know them,'' said Stuart.``They won't believe they're in danger until the explosion comes, but they always have a special train ready, and they keep the funds of the government under their pillows.He engaged apartments on the Avenue Kleber six months ago.''

``Bah!'' said Clay.``It's the old story.Why don't you quit him?''

Stuart raised his eyes and dropped them again, and Clay sighed.

``I'm sorry,'' he said.

MacWilliams interrupted them in an indignant stage-whisper.

``Say, how long have we got to keep up this fake game?'' he asked.``I don't know anything about dominoes, and neither does Ted.Tell us what you've been saying.Is there going to be trouble? If there is, Ted and I want to be in it.We are looking for trouble.''