by Charles King
CHAPTER XIII.
Like many another man's that summer and autumn of '98, Mr. GerardStuyvesant's one overwhelming ambition had been to get on to Manila. Theenforced sojourn at Honolulu had been, therefore, a bitter trial. He hadreached at last the objective point of his soldier desires, and with allhis heart now wished himself back on the Sacramento with one, atleast,--or was it at most?--of the Sacramento's passengers. The voyagehad done much to speed his recovery. The cordial greeting extended byhis general and comrade officers had gladdened his heart. Pleasantquarters on the breezy bay shore, daily drives, and, presently, gentleexercise in saddle had still further benefited him.
He had every assurance that Marion Ray's illness was not of an alarmingnature, and that, soon as the fever had run its course, herconvalescence would be rapid. He was measurably happy in the privilegeof calling every day to ask for her, but speedily realized the povertyof Oriental marts in the means wherewith to convey to the fair patientsome tangible token of his constant devotion. Where were the gloriousroses, the fragrant, delicate violets, the heaping baskets of cool,luscious, tempting grapes, pears, and peaches with which from Saco toSeattle, from the Sault de Sainte Marie to Southwest Pass, in any cityoutside of Alaska in the three million square miles of his own nativeland, he could have laid siege to her temporary retreat? Ransack thecity as he might,--market, shops, and gardens,--hardly a flower could hefind worthy her acceptance--a garish, red-headed hybrid twixt poppy andtulip and some inodorous waxen shoots that looked like decrepithyacinths and smelled like nothing, representing the stock in trade atthat season of the few flower-stands about Manila. As for fruit, somestunted sugar bananas about the size of a shoehorn and a few diminutiveChina oranges proved the extent of the weekly exhibit along the Escolta.Once, La Extremena displayed a keg of Malaga grapes duly powdered withcork, and several pounds of these did Stuyvesant levy upon forthwith,and, after being duly immersed in water and cooled in the ice-chest,send them in dainty basket by a white-robed lackey, with anunimpeachable card bearing the legend "Mr. Gerard Stuyvesant,One-Hundred-and-Sixth New York Infantry Volunteers," and much were theyadmired on arrival, but that was in the earlier days of Maidie'sconvalescence, and Dr. Frank shook his head. Grape-seeds were "perilousstuff," and Mrs. Brent knew they would not last until Maidie was wellenough to enjoy them, and so--they did not.
Military duty for the staff was not exacting about Manila in the autumndays. It was the intermission. The Spanish war was over; the Filipinoyet to come. There was abundant time for "love and sighing," andStuyvesant did both, for there was no question the poor fellow had foundhis fate, and yet thought it trembling in the balance. Not one look orword of hers for him could Stuyvesant recall that was more winsome andkind than those bestowed on other men. Indeed, had he not seen withjealous eyes with what beaming cordiality and delight she had met andwelcomed one or two young gallants, who, having been comrades of Sandyin "the Corps" at the Point, had found means to get out to theSacramento, obviously to see her, just before that untimely illnessclaimed her for its own? Had he not heard his general, his fellow staffofficers, speaking enthusiastically of her beauty and fascinations andtheir destructive effects in various quarters? Had he not been compelledin silence to listen again and in detail to the story of old SamMartindale's nephew?--Sam Martingale, the cavalry called him--"MartinetMartindale" he was dubbed by the "doughboys"--that conscientious,dutiful, and therefore none too popular veteran, whose sister's childrenmuch more than supplied the lack of his own.
Farquhar of the cavalry, scion of a Philadelphia family well known tothe Stuyvesants of Gotham and "trotting in the same class," had comeover from department head-quarters, where he had a billet as engineerofficer, to call on Stuyvesant and to cheer him up and contribute to hisconvalescence, and did so after the manner of men, by talking on allmanner of topics for nearly an hour and winding up by a dissertation onBilly Ray's pretty daughter and "Wally" Foster's infatuation. Farquharsaid it was the general belief that Maidie liked Wally mighty well andwould marry him were he only in the army. And Stuyvesant wondered how itwas, in all the years he had known Farquhar and envied him his being aWest Pointer and in the cavalry, he had never really discovered what abore, what a wearisome ass, Farquhar could be.
Then just as Miss Ray was reported sitting up and soon to be able to"see her friends,"--with what smiling significance did Mrs. Brent soassure him!--what should Stuyvesant's general do but select Stuyvesanthimself to go on a voyage of discovery to Iloilo and beyond. Thecommanding general wanted a competent officer who spoke Spanish to makea certain line of investigation. He consulted Vinton. Vinton thoughtanother voyage the very thing for Stuyvesant, and so suggested his name.
It sent the luckless Gothamite away just at the time of all others hemost wished to remain. When he returned, within a dozen days, the firstthing was to submit his written report, already prepared aboard ship.The next was to report himself in person at Colonel Brent's, to be askedinto the presence of the girl he loved and longed to see, and, as hasbeen told, ushered out almost immediately, self-detailed, in search ofSandy.
He had found the lad easily enough, but not so the man with the fit,whom, for reasons of his own and from what he had seen and heard,Stuyvesant was most anxious to overtake. His carriage whirled himrapidly past the parade-ground and over to the First Reserve Hospital,whither he thought the victim had been borne, but no civilian, with orwithout fits, had recently been admitted.
Inquiry among convalescent patients and soldiers along the road withoutresulted at last in his finding one of the party that carried thestricken man from the field. He had come to, said the volunteer, beforethey had gone quarter of a mile, had soused his head in water at ahydrant, rested a minute, offered them a quarter for their trouble,buttoned up the light coat that had been torn open in his struggle, andnervously but positively declared himself all right and vastly obliged,had then hailed a passing _carromatta_, and been whisked away across themoat and drawbridge into the old city. There all trace was lost of him.
Baffled and troubled, Stuyvesant ordered his coachman to take him to theLuneta. The crowd had disappeared. The carriages were nearly alldeparted. The lights were twinkling here and there all over the placidbay. It was still nearly an hour to dinner-time at the general's mess,and he wished to be alone to think over matters, to hear the soothingplash and murmur of the little waves, and Stuyvesant vowed in his wrathand vexation that Satan himself must be managing his affairs, for, overand above the longed-for melody of the rhythmic waters, he was hailed bythe buzz-saw stridencies of Miss Perkins, whose first words gave the lieto themselves.
"I'm all out of breath, and so het up runnin' after you I can't talk,but I was just bound to see you, an' I've been to your house so oftenthe soldiers laugh at me. Those young men haven't any sense of decencyor respect, but I'll teach 'em, and you see they'll sing another song.Where can we sit down?" continued the lady, her words chasing eachother's heels in her breathless haste. "These lazy, worthless Spanishofficers take every seat along here. Why, here! your carriage will do,an' I've got a thousand things to say!" ("Heaven be merciful," groanedStuyvesant to himself.) "I saw you driving, and I told my cabman tocatch you if he had to flog the hide off his horse. Come, aren'tyou--don't you want to sit down? I do, anyhow! There's no comfort in mycab. Here, I'll dismiss it now. You can just drop me on the way home,you know. I'm living down the Calle Real a few blocks this side of you.All the soldiers know me, and if _they_ had _their_ say it wouldn't bethe stuck-up Red Cross that's flirting with doctors and living high onthe dainties our folks sent over. The _boys_ are all right. It's yourgenerals that have ignored the P. D. A.'s, and I'll show 'em presentlywhat a miss they've made. Wait till the papers get the letters I havewritten. But, say--"("And this is the woman I thought might beliterary!" moaned Stuyvesant as he meekly followed to the little opencarriage and, with a shiver, assisted his angular visitor to a seat.)
"A Key!" she shouted, "A Key, Cochero! No quiere mas hoy. Manana! Ocho!Sabe, Cochero? Ocho! Now d
on't chewbe--What's late in their lingo,anyhow? 'Tisn't tardy, I know; that's afternoon. Tardeeo? Thank you.Now--well, just sit down, first, lieutenant. You see _we_ know howto address officers by their titles, if the Red Cross don't. I'd teach'em to Mister me if I was an officer. Now, what I want to see you aboutfirst is this. Your general has put me off one way or another every timeI've called this last two weeks. I've always treated him politely, butfor some reason he'll never see me now, and yet they almost ran after meat first. Now, you can fix it easy enough, and you do it and you won'tregret it. I only want him to listen to me three minutes, and that'slittle enough for anybody to ask. You do it, and I can do a good dealmore for you than you think for, an' I will do it, too, if certainpeople don't treat me better. It's something you'll thank me formightily later on if you don't now. I've had my eyes open, lieutenant,an' I see things an' I hear things an' I know things you mighty littlesuspect."
"Pardon me, Miss Perkins," interposed Stuyvesant at this juncture, hisnerves fairly twitching under the strain. "Let us get at the matters onwhich you wish to speak to me. Malate, Cochero!" he called to the pygmyFilipino on the box. "I am greatly pressed for time," he added, as thecarriage whirled away, the hoofs of the pony team flying like shuttlesthe instant the little scamps were headed homeward.
"Well, what I want mostly is to see the general. He's got influence withGeneral Drayton and I know it, and these Red Cross people have poisonedhis ears. Everybody's ears seem to be just now against me and I can getno hearing whatever. Everything was all right at first; everything waspromised me, and then, first one and then another, they all backed out,and I want to know why--I'm bound to know why, and they'd better come tome and make their peace now than wait until the papers and the P. D.A.'s get after 'em, as they will,--you hear my words now,--they _will_do just as soon as my letters reach the States. _You're_ all rightenough. I've told them how you helped with those poor boys of mineaboard the train. Bad way they'd been in if we hadn't been there, youand I. Why, I just canvassed that train till I got clothes and shoesfor every one of those poor burned-out fellows, but there wouldn'tanybody else have done it. And nursing?--you ought to have seen thoseboys come to thank me the day I went out to the Presidio, an' mostcried--some of them did;--said their own mothers couldn't have donemore, and they'd do anything for me now. But when I went out to theircamp at Paco their major just as much as ordered me away, and thatlittle whipper-snapper, Lieutenant Ray, that I could take on my kneeand spank---- He--Lieutenant Ray--a friend of yours? Well, you may_think_ he is, or you may be a friend of _his_, but _I_ can tell youright here and now he's no friend, and you'll see he isn't. What'smore, I hate to see an honest, high-toned young gentleman justthrowing himself away on people that can't appreciate him. I couldtell you----"
"Stop, driver!" shouted Stuyvesant, unable longer to control himself."Miss Perkins," he added, as the little coachman manfully struggled tobring his rushing team to a halt at the curb, "I have a call to make andam late. Tell my coachman where to take you and send him back to thiscorner. Good-night, madam," and, gritting his teeth, out he sprang tothe sidewalk.
It happened to be directly in front of one of those native resortswhere, day and night, by dozens the swarthy little brown men gatherabout a billiard-table with its centre ornament of boxwood pins, bettingon a game resembling the Yankee "pin pool" in everything but thepossibility of fair play. Hovering about the entrance or on theoutskirts of the swarm of men and boys, a dozen native women, some withbabies in their arms and nearly all with cigars between their teeth,stood watching the play with absorbing interest, and a score of dusky,pot-bellied children from two to twelve years of age sprawled about thepremises, as much at home as the keeper of the place.
The lamps had been lighted but a few minutes and the game was in fullblast. Some stalwart soldiers, regulars from the Cuartel de Malate fromdown the street or the nipa barracks of the Dakotas and Idahos, werecuriously studying the scene, making jovial and unstinted comment aftertheir fearless democratic fashion, but sagely abstaining from tryingtheir luck and not so sagely sampling the sizzling soda drinks heldforth to them by tempting hands. Liquor the vendors dare notproffer,--the provost marshal's people had forbidden that,--and only atthe licensed bars in town or by bribery and stealth in the outlyingsuburbs could the natives dispose of the villainous "bino" with which attimes the unwary and unaccustomed American was overcome.
Three or four men in civilian dress, that somehow smacked of the sea, asdid their muttered, low-toned talk, huddled together at the corner post,furtively eying the laughing soldiers and occasionally peering up anddown the darkened street. It was not the place Stuyvesant would havechosen to leave his carriage, but it was a case of any port in astorm,--anything to escape that awful woman. With one quick spring hewas out of the vehicle and into the midst of the group on the narrowsidewalk before he noticed them at all, but not before they saw him.Even as Miss Perkins threw forward a would-be grasping and detaininghand and called him by name, one of the group in civilian dress gavesudden, instant start, sprang round the corner, but, tripping on someobstacle, sprawled full length on the hard stone pavement. Despite theviolence of the fall, which wrung from him a fierce curse, the man wasup in a second, away, and out of sight in a twinkling.
"Go on!" shouted Stuyvesant impatiently, imperiously, to his coachman,as, never caring what street he took, he too darted around the samecorner, and his tall white form vanished on the track of the civilian.
But the sound of the heavy fall, the muttered curse, and the suddenquestion in the nearest group, "What's wrong with Sackett?" had reachedMiss Perkins's ears, for while once more the little team was speedingswiftly away, the strident voice of the lone passenger was uplifted inexcited hail to the coachman to stop. And here the Filipino demonstratedto the uttermost that the amenities of civilization were yet undreamedof in his darkened intellect--as between the orders of the man and thedemands of the woman he obeyed the former. Deaf, even to that awfulvoice, he drove furiously on until brought up standing by the bayonetsof the patrol in front of the English Club, and in a fury ofdenunciation and quiver of mingled wrath and excitement, Miss Perkinstumbled out into the arms of an amazed and disgusted sergeant, anddemanded that he come at once to arrest a vile thief and deserter.