第72章

``That is unnecessary,'' said one of the lieutenants.``We have no officers.If you do not command us, there is no one else to do it.We promise that our men will follow you and give you every obedience.They have been led by foreigners before, by young Captain Stuart and Major Fergurson and Colonel Shrevington.

They know how highly General Rojas thinks of you, and they know that you have led Continental armies in Europe.''

``Well, don't tell them I haven't until this is over,'' said Clay.``Now, ride hard, gentlemen, and bring your men here as quickly as possible.''

The lieutenants thanked him effusively and galloped away, radiant at the success of their mission, and Clay entered the office where MacWilliams was telegraphing his orders to Kirkland.He seated himself beside the instrument, and from time to time answered the questions Kirkland sent back to him over the wire, and in the intervals of silence thought of Hope.It was the first time he had gone into action feeling the touch of a woman's hand upon his sleeve, and he was fearful lest she might think he had considered her too lightly.

He took a piece of paper from the table and wrote a few lines upon it, and then rewrote them several times.The message he finally sent to her was this: ``I am sure you understand, and that you would not have me give up beaten now, when what we do to-day may set us right again.I know better than any one else in the world can know, what I run the risk of losing, but you would not have that fear stop me from going on with what we have been struggling for so long.I cannot come back to see you before we start, but I know your heart is with me.With great love, Robert Clay.''

He gave the note to his servant, and the answer was brought to him almost immediately.Hope had not rewritten her message:

``I love you because you are the sort of man you are, and had you given up as father wished you to do, or on my account, you would have been some one else, and I would have had to begin over again to learn to love you for some different reasons.I know that you will come back to me bringing your sheaves with you.Nothing can happen to you now.Hope.''

He had never received a line from her before, and he read and reread this with a sense of such pride and happiness in his face that MacWilliams smiled covertly and bent his eyes upon his instrument.Clay went back into his room and kissed the page of paper gently, flushing like a boy as he did so, and then folding it carefully, he put it away beneath his jacket.He glanced about him guiltily, although he was quite alone, and taking out his watch, pried it open and looked down into the face of the photograph that had smiled up at him from it for so many years.

He thought how unlike it was to Alice Langham as he knew her.He judged that it must have been taken when she was very young, at the age Hope was then, before the little world she lived in had crippled and narrowed her and marked her for its own.He remembered what she had said to him the first night he had seen her.``That is the picture of the girl who ceased to exist four years ago, and whom you have never met.'' He wondered if she had ever existed.

``It looks more like Hope than her sister,'' he mused.``It looks very much like Hope.'' He decided that he would let it remain where it was until Hope gave him a better one; and smiling slightly he snapped the lid fast, as though he were closing a door on the face of Alice Langham and locking it forever.

Kirkland was in the cab of the locomotive that brought the soldiers from the mine.He stopped the first car in front of the freight station until the workmen had filed out and formed into a double line on the platform.Then he moved the train forward the length of that car, and those in the one following were mustered out in a similar manner.As the cars continued to come in, the men at the head of the double line passed on through the freight station and on up the road to the city in an unbroken column.

There was no confusion, no crowding, and no haste.

When the last car had been emptied, Clay rode down the line and appointed a foreman to take charge of each company, stationing his engineers and the Irish-Americans in the van.It looked more like a mob than a regiment.None of the men were in uniform, and the native soldiers were barefoot.But they showed a winning spirit, and stood in as orderly an array as though they were drawn up in line to receive their month's wages.The Americans in front of the column were humorously disposed, and inclined to consider the whole affair as a pleasant outing.They had been placed in front, not because they were better shots than the natives, but because every South American thinks that every citizen of the United States is a master either of the rifle or the revolver, and Clay was counting on this superstition.His assistant engineers and foremen hailed him as he rode on up and down the line with good-natured cheers, and asked him when they were to get their commissions, and if it were true that they were all captains, or only colonels, as they were at home.

They had been waiting for a half-hour, when there was the sound of horses' hoofs on the road, and the even beat of men's feet, and the advance guard of the Third and Fourth regiments came toward them at a quickstep.The men were still in the full-dress uniforms they had worn at the review the day before, and in comparison with the soldier-workmen and the Americans in flannel shirts, they presented so martial a showing that they were welcomed with tumultuous cheers.Clay threw them into a double line on one side of the road, down the length of which his own marched until they had reached the end of it nearest to the city, when they took up their position in a close formation, and the native regiments fell in behind them.Clay selected twenty of the best shots from among the engineers and sent them on ahead as a skirmish line.They were ordered to fall back at once if they saw any sign of the enemy.In this order the column of four thousand men started for the city.