There were but four life-size houses in Trojillo. Under the shade of the governor's mansion we stood and sang "The Star Spangled Banner." Out of deference to our guest Porter suggested that we render one verse of "God Save the King." The Britisher objected. "Don't make damn' nonsense of this occasion," he demurred.
We started out to shoot up the town in true Texas style, prepared to wind up the fireworks with a barbecued goat in the lemon grove near the beach. We never got to the barbecue. A revolution intervened.
We had shot up two estancas. Glass was shattered everywhere. The Carib barkeepers had fled. We were helping ourselves and scrupulously laying the money for every drink on the counter. Suddenly a shot was fired from the outside. Porter had just finished smashing up a mirror with a bottle. He turned with a quiet that was as ludicrous as it was inimitable.
"Gentlemen," he said, "the natives are trying to steal our copyrighted Fourth."
We made a clattering dash for the street, shooting wildly into the air. A little man in a flaming red coat came galloping by. About 30 barefoot horsemen, all in red coats and very little else, tore up a mighty cloud of dust in his wake. They fired off their old-fashioned muzzle loaders as if they really meant murder.
As the leader whirled past on his diminutive gray pony Porter caught him by the waist and dragged him off. I sprang into the saddle, shooting and yelling like a maniac.
"Reinforcements, reinforcements!" Like a song of victory the shout thundered from the rear. I don't know where or how I rode.
But the next day the governor and two of his little tan Caribs called at the consulate. He wished to thank the American patriots for the magnificent aid they had given in quelling the revolution. They had saved the republic! With a lordly air he offered us the cocoanut plantations that grew wild all over the country. The incredible daring of the American riders had saved the nation !
We didn't even know there had been a revolution. And we didn't know whose side we had taken. Porter rose to the occasion.
"We appreciate the government's attitude," he answered, with a touch of patronage in his tone. "So often patriots are forgotten."
It seems that in that moment when we rushed wildly to the door of the cantina we changed the tide of battle. The government troops were chasing the rebels and the rebels were winning. We had rallied the royal army and led it to victory. It was a bloodless battle.
Our triumph was short-lived. The government and the rebel leaders patched up their differences. The rebel general demanded amends for the insult to his troops. He demanded the lives of the outsiders who had impudently ended a revolution before it had decently begun.
The American consul advised a hasty and instant departure.
"Is there no protection in this realm for an American citizen?" I asked.
"Yes," Porter declared. "The State Department will refer our case to Mark Hanna. He will investigate our party affiliations. It will then be referred to the bureau of immigration, and by that time we will all be shot."
Flight was our only recourse. We started toward the beach. As we ran a little Carib girl about 15 came scooting out from a hedge and hurled herself against me. She was crying and talking and clutching my arm. I couldn't understand a word she was saying. Porter tried a little Spanish.
"The little girl is in great distress," he said. "She is saying something entirely beyond my comprehension of the Spanish language. I gather that she wants to be one of our party."
Scarcely were the words out of her mouth when a burly fellow much bigger than the natives broke through the hedge and grabbed the tiny creature by the hair. It interrupted our conversation. I landed him a smash on the head with my 45 gun.
Just then a signal rang out. It was the call to arms. The army was after us.
Porter, Frank and I, with the little maid at our heels, made for the beach. Porter stopped a moment to ask the little Carib, in the gravest English, her pardon for his haste. He had a most pressing engagement, he said, some 2,000 miles away. She was not satisfied and stood shrieking on the beach while we rowed out to the Helena.
It bothered Porter. Years afterward, when we were together in New York, he recalled the incident.
"Remember that little strip of brown muslin that fluttered down the street after us in Trojillo? I wondered what she was saying."
He didn't like "unfinished stories."
Bill, the newfound friend, had thrown in his lot with us. He didn't have a cent in the world. He didn't know where we were going or who we were.
"What is your destination?" he asked quietly, as the Helena steamed up.
"I left America to avoid my destination," I told him.
"How far can you go?"
"As far as $30,000 will take us."
It took us farther than we reckoned.
CHAPTER XII.
Voyaging at leisure; the grand ball in Mexico City; O. Henry's gallantry; the don's rage; O. Henry saved from the Spaniard's knife.
Like aimless drifters in a boat that has neither rudder nor compass, we started on that tour of investigation. We planned to loll along, stopping as we would, looking for a pleasant soil in which to plant ourselves. But we made not the slightest effort to map our course.
And then suddenly, across that idle way, there rippled a little stick of chance, an incident so trivial and insignificant we scarcely noticed it. In a moment t had broken the waters and our boat was all but wrecked by the unconsidered wisp. Bill Porter nearly lost his life for a smile!
The captain of the Helena was at our service. We stopped at Buenos Aires and rode out through the pampas country, but it did not attract us.
Peru was no more alluring. We were looking for big game. And the mighty pastime of this realm was the shooting of the Asiatic rats that stampeded the wharves.
For no particular reason, two of us being acknowledged fugitives and the third a somewhat mysterious soldier of fortune, we stopped off at Mexico City. We knew Porter only as Bill. I had told him the main facts of my life. He did not return the confidence and we did not seek it. Neither Frank nor I placed him in our own class. He was secretive, but we did not attribute the trait to any sinister cause. With the romance of the cowpuncher I figured that this fine, companionable fellow was troubled with an unhappy love affair.
We had loafed along, deliberately dodging issues. At the Hotel De Republic fate turned the little trick that compelled us to change our course.
I was sitting in the lobby waiting for Frank and Porter. Something like a clutch on my arm struck through my listlessness. It was a breath-taking moment. I felt a presence near. I feared to look up. Then a gigantic hand reached down to me. Jumbo Rector, idol of cadet days in Virginia, had picked me to my feet.
Rector was six feet six. I reached a bit above his elbow. We had been the long and the short of it in every devilment pulled in college. If there was one man on the earth I was glad to see at that moment it was this buoyant, healthy-hearted Samson.
Rector had built the Isthmian railroad. He had a palace of white stone and he brought us bag and baggage to his hacienda. That night I told him the things that had happened in the 16 years since we parted.
"Who is this friend of yours, this Bill?" he asked me later. "Are you sure of him? He looks to me like a detective."
"I don't like your friend Rector," Porter confided the same night. "He has a most unpleasant way of scrutinizing one."
Not many days later both Porter and I had proof of Rector's worth. The antipathy between the two was but superficial. There was to be a grand ball at the hotel. All the notables, Porfirio Diaz, the cabinet, the senoritas and the dons were to be present. Rector had us all invited.