The Crusade of the Excelsior Page 14

  "Fool that I was," continued Miss Montgomery; "in thinking of poor Markham's childlike, open grief, I forgot the deeper sorrow that the more manly heart experiences under an exterior that seems cold and impassible. Yes," she said, raising her languid eyes to Brimmer, "I ought to have felt the throb of that volcano under its mask of snow. You have taught me a lesson."

  Withdrawing her hands hastily, as if the volcano had shown some signs of activity, she leaned back on the sofa again.

  "You are not yet reconciled to Mr. Keene's expedition, then?" she asked languidly.

  "I believe that everything has been already done," said Brimmer, somewhat stiffly; "all sources of sensible inquiry have been exhausted by me. But I envy Keene the eminently practical advantages his impractical journey gives him," he added, arresting himself, gallantly; "he goes with you."

  "Truly!" said Miss Montgomery, with the melancholy abstraction of a stage soliloquy. "Beyond obeying the dictates of his brotherly affection, he gains no real advantage in learning whether his sister is alive or dead. The surety of her death would not make him freer than he is now—freer to absolutely follow the dictates of a new affection; free to make his own life again. It is a sister, not a wife, he seeks."

  Mr. Brimmer's forehead slightly contracted. He leaned back a little more rigidly in his chair, and fixed a critical, half supercilious look upon her. She did not seem to notice his almost impertinent scrutiny, but sat silent, with her eyes bent on the carpet, in gloomy abstraction.

  "Can you keep a secret?" she said, as if with a sudden resolution.

  "Yes," said Brimmer briefly, without changing his look.

  "You know I am a married woman. You have heard the story of my wrongs?"

  "I have heard them," said Brimmer dryly.

  "Well, the husband who abused and deserted me was, I have reason to believe, a passenger on the Excelsior."

  "M'Corkle!—impossible. There was no such name on the passenger list."

  "M'Corkle!" repeated Miss Montgomery, with a dissonant tone in her voice and a slight flash in her eyes. "What are you thinking of? There never was a Mr. M'Corkle; it was one of my noms de plume. And where did YOU hear it?"

  "I beg your pardon, I must have got it from the press notices of your book of poetry. I knew that Montgomery was only a stage name, and as it was necessary that I should have another in making the business investments you were good enough to charge me with, I used what I thought was your real name. It can be changed, or you can sign M'Corkle."

  "Let it go," said Miss Montgomery, resuming her former manner. "What matters? I wish there was no such thing as business. Well," she resumed, after a pause, "my husband's name is Hurlstone."

  "But there was no Hurlstone on the passenger list either," said Brimmer. "I knew them all, and their friends."

  "Not in the list from the States; but if he came on board at Callao, you wouldn't have known it. I knew that he arrived there on the Osprey a few days before the Excelsior sailed."

  Mr. Brimmer's eyes changed their expression.

  "And you want to find him?"

  "No," she said, with an actress's gesture. "I want to know the truth. I want to know if I am still tied to this man, or if I am free to follow the dictates of my own conscience,—to make my life anew,—to become—you see I am not ashamed to say it—to become the honest wife of some honest man."

  "A divorce would suit your purpose equally," said Brimmer coldly. "It can be easily obtained."

  "A divorce! Do you know what that means to a woman in my profession? It is a badge of shame,—a certificate of disgrace,—an advertisement to every miserable wretch who follows me with his advances that I have no longer the sanctity of girlhood, nor the protection of a wife."

  There was tragic emotion in her voice, there were tears in her eyes. Mr. Brimmer, gazing at her with what he firmly thought to be absolute and incisive penetration, did not believe either. But like most practical analysts of the half-motived sex, he was only half right. The emotion and the tears were as real as anything else in the woman under criticism, notwithstanding that they were not as real as they would have been in the man who criticised. He, however, did her full justice on a point where most men and all women misjudged her: he believed that, through instinct and calculation, she had been materially faithful to her husband; that this large goddess-like physique had all the impeccability of a goddess; that the hysterical dissipation in which she indulged herself was purely mental, and usurped and preoccupied all other emotions. In this public exposition of her beauty there was no sense of shame, for there was no sense of the passion it evoked. And he was right. But there he should have stopped. Unfortunately, his masculine logic forced him to supply a reason for her coldness in the existence of some more absorbing passion. He believed her ambitious and calculating: she was neither. He believed she might have made him an admirable copartner and practical helpmeet: he was wrong.

  "You know my secret now," she continued. "You know why I am anxious to know my fate. You understand now why I sympathize with"—she stopped, and made a half contemptuous gesture—"with these men Markham and Keene. THEY do not know it; perhaps they prefer to listen to their own vanity—that's the way of most men; but you do know it, and you have no excuse for misjudging me, or undeceiving them." She stopped and looked at the clock. "They will be here in five minutes; do you wish them to find you already here?"

  "It is as YOU wish," stammered Brimmer, completely losing his self-possession.

  "I have no wish," she said, with a sublime gesture of indifference. "If you wait you can entertain them here, while Rosina is dressing me in the next room. We sup in the larger room across the hall."

  As she disappeared, Quincy Brimmer rose irresolutely from his seat and checked a half uttered exclamation. Then he turned nervously to the parlor-door. What a senseless idiot he had become! He had never for an instant conceived the idea of making this preliminary confidential visit known to the others; he had no wish to suggest the appearance of an assignation with the woman, who, rightly or wrongly, was notorious; he had nothing to gain by this voluntary assumption of a compromising attitude; yet here he was, he—Mr. Brimmer—with the appearance of being installed in her parlor, receiving her visitors, and dispensing her courtesies. Only a man recklessly in love would be guilty of such an indiscretion—even Markham's feebleness had never reached this absurdity. In the midst of his uneasiness there was a knock at the door; he opened it himself nervously and sharply. Markham's self-satisfied face drew back in alarm and embarrassment at the unexpected apparition. The sight restored Brimmer's coolness and satirical self-possession.

  "I—I—didn't know you were here," stammered Markham. "I left Keene in your room."

  "Then why didn't you bring him along with you?" said Brimmer maliciously. "Go and fetch him."

  "Yes; but he said you were to meet him there," continued Markham, glancing around the empty room with a slight expression of relief.

  "My watch was twenty minutes fast, and I had given him up," said Brimmer, with mendacious effrontery. "Miss Montgomery is dressing. You can bring him here before she returns."

  Markham flew uneasily down the corridor and quickly returned with a handsome young fellow of five-and-twenty, whose frank face was beaming with excitement and youthful energy. The two elder men could not help regarding him with a mingled feeling of envy and compassion.

  "Did you tell Brimmer yet?" said Keene, with animation.

  "I haven't had time," hesitated Markham. "The fact is, Brimmer, I think of going with Keene on this expedition."

  "Indeed!" said Brimmer superciliously.

  "Yes," said Markham, coloring slightly. "You see, we've got news. Tell him, Dick."

  "The Storm Cloud got in yesterday from Valparaiso and Central American ports," said Keene, with glowing cheeks. "I boarded her, as usual, last night, for information. The mate says there is a story of a man picked up crazy, in an open fishing-boat, somewhere off the peninsula, and brought into hospital at San Juan las
t August. He recovered enough lately to tell his story and claim to be Captain Bunker of the Excelsior, whose crew mutinied and ran her ashore in a fog. But the boat in which he was picked up was a Mexican fishing-boat, and there was something revolutionary and political about the story, so that the authorities detained him. The consul has just been informed of the circumstances, and has taken the matter in hand."

  "It's a queer story," said Brimmer, gazing from the one to the other, "and I will look into it also to-morrow. If it is true," he added slowly, "I will go with you."

  Richard Keene extended his hand impulsively to his two elders.

  "You'll excuse me for saying it, Brimmer—and you, too, Markham—but this is just what I've been looking forward to. Not but what I'd have found Nell without your assistance; but you see, boys, it DID look mighty mean in me to make more fuss about a sister than you would for your wives! But now that it's all settled"—

  "We'll go to supper," said Miss Montgomery theatrically, appearing at the door. "Dick will give me his arm."

  CHAPTER II.

  THE MOURNERS AT TODOS SANTOS.

  There was a breath of spring in the soft morning air of Todos Santos—a breath so subtle and odorous that it penetrated the veil of fog beyond the bay, and for a moment lingered on the deck of a passing steamer like an arresting memory. But only for an instant; the Ometepe, bound from San Francisco to San Juan del Norte, with its four seekers of the Excelsior, rolled and plunged on its way unconsciously.

  Within the bay and over the restful pueblo still dwelt the golden haze of its perpetual summer; the two towers of the old Mission church seemed to dissolve softly into the mellow upper twilight, and the undulating valleys rolled their green waves up to the wooded heights of San Antonio, that still smiled down upon the arid, pallid desert. But although Nature had not changed in the months that had passed since the advent of the Excelsior, there appeared some strange mutations in the town and its inhabitants. On the beach below the Presidio was the unfinished skeleton of a small sea-going vessel on rude stocks; on the plaza rose the framed walls and roofless rafters of a wooden building; near the Embarcadero was the tall adobe chimney of some inchoate manufactory whose walls had half risen from their foundations; but all of these objects had evidently succumbed to the drowsy influence of the climate, and already had taken the appearances of later and less picturesque ruins of the past. There were singular innovations in the costumes: one or two umbrellas, used as sunshades, were seen upon the square; a few small chip hats had taken the place of the stiff sombreros, with an occasional tall white beaver; while linen coat and nankeen trousers had, at times, usurped the short velvet jacket and loose calzas of the national costume.

  At San Antonio the change was still more perceptible. Beside the yawning pit of the abandoned silver mine a straggling building arose, filled with rude machinery, bearing the legend, painted in glowing letters, "Excelsior Silver Mining Co., J. Crosby, Superintendent;" and in the midst of certain excavations assailing the integrity of the cliff itself was another small building, scarcely larger than a sentry-box, with the inscription, "Office: Eleanor Quicksilver Smelting Works."

  Basking in that yellow morning sunlight, with his back against his office, Mr. Brace was seated on the ground, rolling a cigarette. A few feet from him Crosby, extended on his back on the ground, was lazily puffing rings of smoke into the still air. Both of these young gentlemen were dressed in exaggerated Mexican costumes; the silver buttons fringing the edge of Crosby's calza, open from the knee down to show a glimpse of the snowy under-trouser, were richer and heavier than those usually worn; while Brace, in addition to the crimson silk sash round his waist, wore a crimson handkerchief around his head, under his sombrero.

  "Pepe's falling off in his tobacco," said Brace. "I think I'll have to try some other Fonda."

  "How's Banks getting on with his crop?" asked Crosby. "You know he was going to revolutionize the business, and cut out Cuba on that hillside."

  "Oh, the usual luck! He couldn't get proper cultivators, and the Injins wouldn't work regular. I must try and get hold of some of the Comandante's stock; but I'm out of favor with the old man since Winslow and I wrecked that fishing-boat on the rocks off yonder. He always believed we were trying to run off, like Captain Bunker. That's why he stopped our shipbuilding, I really believe."

  "All the same, we might have had it built and ready now but for our laziness. We might have worked on it nights without their knowing it, and slipped off some morning in the fog."

  "And we wouldn't have got one of the women to go with us! If we are getting shiftless here—and I don't say we're not—these women have just planted themselves and have taken root. But that ain't all: there's the influence of that infernal sneak Hurlstone! He's set the Comandante against us, you know; he, and the priest, the Comandante, and Nelly Keene make up the real Council of Todos Santos. Between them they've shoved out the poor little Alcalde, who's ready to give up everything to dance attendance on Mrs. Brimmer. They run the whole concern, and they give out that it's owing to them that we're given parole of the town, and the privilege of spending our money and working these mines. Who'd have thought that sneak Hurlstone would have played his cards so well? It makes me regularly sick to hear him called 'Don Diego.'"

  "Yet you're mightily tickled when that black-eyed sister of the Alcalde calls you 'Don Carlos,'" said Crosby, yawning.

  "Dona Isabel," said Brace, with some empressement, "is a lady of position, and these are only her national courtesies."

  "She just worships Miss Keene, and I reckon she knows by this time all about your old attentions to her friend," said Crosby, with lazy mischief.

  "My attentions to Miss Keene were simply those of an ordinary acquaintance, and were never as strongly marked as yours to Mrs. Brimmer."

  "Who has deserted ME as Miss Keene did YOU," rejoined Crosby.

  Brace's quick color had risen again, and he would have made some sharp retort, but the jingling of spurs caught his ear. They both turned quickly, and saw Banks approaching. He was dressed as a vaquero, but with his companions' like exaggeration of detail; yet, while his spurs were enormous, and his sombrero unusually expansive, he still clung to his high shirt-collars and accurately tied check cravat.

  "Well?" he said, approaching them.

  "Well?" said Crosby.

  "Well?" repeated Brace.

  After this national salutation, the three Americans regarded each other silently.

  "Knocked off cultivating to-day?" queried Crosby, lighting a fresh cigarette.

  "The peons have," said Banks; "it's another saint's day. That's the fourth in two weeks. Leaves about two clear working days in each week, counting for the days off, when they're getting over the effects of the others. I tell you what, sir, the Catholic religion is not suited to a working civilization, or else the calendar ought to be overhauled and a lot of these saints put on the retired list. It's hard enough to have all the Apostles on your pay-roll, so to speak, but to have a lot of fellows run in on you as saints, and some of them not even men or women, but IDEAS, is piling up the agony! I don't wonder they call the place 'All Saints.' The only thing to do," continued Banks severely, "is to open communication with the desert, and run in some of the heathen tribes outside. I've made a proposition to the Council offering to take five hundred of them in the raw, unregenerate state, and turn 'em over after a year to the Church. If I could get Hurlstone to do some log-rolling with that Padre, his friend, I might get the bill through. But I'm always put off till to-morrow. Everything here is 'Hasta manana; hasta manana,' always. I believe when the last trump is sounded, they'll say, 'Hasta manana.' What are YOU doing?" he said, after a pause.

  "Waiting for your ship," answered Crosby sarcastically.

  "Well, you can laugh, gentlemen—but you won't have to wait long. According to my calculations that Mexican ship is about due now. And I ain't basing my figures on anything the Mexican Government is going to do, or any commercial speculation. I'm reckoning on t
he Catholic Church."

  The two men languidly looked towards him. Banks continued gravely,—

  "I made the proper inquiries, and I find that the stock of rosaries, scapularies, blessed candles, and other ecclesiastical goods, is running low. I find that just at the nick of time a fresh supply always comes from the Bishop of Guadalajara, with instructions from the Church. Now, gentlemen, my opinion is that the Church, and the Church only, knows the secret of the passage through the foggy channel, and keeps it to itself. I look at this commercially, as a question of demand and supply. Well, sir; the only real trader here at Todos Santos is the Church."

  "Then you don't take in account the interests of Brimmer, Markham, and Keene," said Brace. "Do you suppose they're doing nothing?"

  "I don't say they're not; but you're confounding interests with INSTINCTS. They haven't got the instinct to find this place, and all that they've done and are doing is blind calculation. Just look at the facts. As the filibuster who captured the Excelsior of course changed her name, her rig-out, and her flag, and even got up a false register for her, she's as good as lost, as far as the world knows, until she lands at Quinquinambo. Then supposing she's found out, and the whole story is known—although everything's against such a proposition—the news has got to go back to San Francisco before the real search will be begun. As to any clue that might come from Captain Bunker, that's still more remote. Allowing he crossed the bar and got out of the channel, he wasn't at the right time for meeting a passing steamer; and the only coasters are Mexican. If he didn't die of delirium tremens or exposure, and was really picked up in his senses by some other means, he would have been back with succor before this, if only to get our evidence to prove the loss of the vessel. No, sir sooner or later, of course, the San Francisco crowd are bound to find us here. And if it wasn't for my crops and our mine, I wouldn't be in a hurry for them; but our FIRST hold is the Church."