BHffiWfWIMIffOTM^^^ Baron Montez of Panama and Paris ARCHIBALD CLAVERIMG GUTTER IHii mmmt i^ Digitized by the Internet Arcinive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/baronmontezofpanOOguntrich BARON MONTEZ OF PANAMA AND PARIS a Kobel ARCHIBALD CLAVERING CxUNTER // AUTHOR OF MR. BARNES OF NEW YORK, MR. POTTER OF TEXAS, **THAT FRENCHMAN !"" MISS NOBODY OF NO- ^ WHERE," ''A FLORIDA ENCHANTMENT," "miss DIVIDENDS," ETC., ETC. NEW YORK THE HOME PUBLISHING COMPANY 3 East Fourteenth Street Copyright, 189a, By a. C. GUNTER. All rif^kts reserved. Press of J. J. Little & Co. Astor Place, New York ARCHIBALD CLAVERIN6 GDNTER'S Celebrated Novels. MR. BARNES OF NEW YORK. MR. POTTER OF TEXAS. THAT FRENCHMAN ! MISS NOBODY OF NOWHERE. A FLORIDA ENCHANTMENT. MISS DIVIDENDS. Siory for Children of All Ages. SMALL BOYS IN BIG BOOTS. ILLUSTRATED. M202656 CONTENTS. BOOK I. A TRAGEDY OF THE EARLY ISTHMUS. PAGE Chapter I. — The Returning Californians, - - 7 II.— "A Toboga Breakfast in '56," - 14 III.— The Railroad Station at Panama. - 23 " IV. — What the Moon Saw in Panama, - 31 BOOK II. THE FRANCO-AMERICAN. Chapter V. — Black Blood Changes to Blue, - 41 " VI. — Jessie's Letter, - - - -53 VII.— " No ! By Eternal Justice ! " - 61 BOOK III. THE AMERICAN BROTHER. Chapter VIII. — The Stenographer's Day-Dream, 69 IX.— The Angel of the Blizzard, - 81 " X. — A Chance Meeting at Delmonicos', 92 " XI. — An Exile from the Four Hun- dred, 105 XII.— A Wild-Goose Chase, - - -118 XIII.— The Bundle of Letters, - - 127 XIV.— Little Paris, - - - - 140 6 CONTENTS. BOOK IV. THE STRUGGLE IN PANAMA. PACE Chapter XV.- — Winterburn's Museum, - 151 XVI.- —The Duplicate Tintype, - - 162 XVII. — Vadalia Cardinalis, - - 172 XVIII.- — Bebe's Little Present, - 183 XIX.- —Whispers of the Dying, - - 192 XX. —Domingo of Porto Bello, - 201 XXI.- —After Her ! - 209 BOOK V. THE HURLY-BURLY IN PARIS. Chapter XXII. — The Mind of a Lunatic, - - 217 XXIIL— The Honor of France, - - 225 XXIV.— Baron Montez' Wedding Day, 232 XXV.— The Preferred Creditor, -251 BARON MONTEZ OF PANAMA AND PARIS. BOOK I. A Tragedy of the Karly Isthmus. CHAPTER I. the returning californians. "Anita ! " *' Fernando, light of my heart ! Returned from the Pearl Islands ! " cries the beautiful Indian girl rushing to his arms and covering Mr. Fernando's olive face with the kisses of youth and love. Anita is but fifteen, and the heart grows fast under the sun of the Equator. Fernando himself is scarce twenty, but he does not seem so ardent. He replies carelessly, " Yes, last night, by the Columbus'' pointing to that little unseaworthy steamer as she lies languidly upon the blue waters of the Bay of Pan- ama, about three miles from the town, and seven from the lovely Island of Toboga, from which these two are gazing at it. " Last night, and you did not come to me ? you — away five days I " answers the girl, tears coming into her eyes that flash through mists of passion like topaz stones. " Last night I had business in Panama — great business. " Then the young man says anxiously, " Is the Americano well?" "Yes." •'8 t.-RON MONTEZ. "And hereV "Still here." " He has not gone yet ! Blessings on God ! And his wife— the beautiful Senora Alicia, the lady with the white skin ? She has recovered from her touch of the fever Panama ? " " She is better. They go to the mainland this after- noon." " Ho-oh ! " " To-morrow morning they take passage on the rail- way, to Aspinwall, and then go on the big vessel with the smoke to the great America beyond the sea." "A-ah, she is well enough to travel ? " " Yes, she is yellow no more ; her cheeks are red as the blossoms of the manzanilla." " For Dios ! She must be lovely as a mermaid of Las Islas de las Perks ! " murmurs Fernando half to himself, but still not sufficiently low to miss the sharp ear of an Indian ; for at his words the dark eyes of Anita flash ominously, her full, round bosom pants under its white semi-transparent cotton drapery, and she mutters sav- agely to herself. " What' are you saying under your breath, Anita ? " cries the young man. " Nothing ! I — I was only whispering a prayer to the Virgin for the young American lady's recovery, in the language of my tribe," answers the girl hesitatingly. ^^ 'Diablo ! No more of the language of your tribe ! I don't understand the language of your tribe ! " sneers Seiior Fernando, giving the girl a little slap on her shapely brown shoulder and a nasty glance out of his bright eyes. To this she does not reply, as she passes round the corner of the bamboo cottage, apparently overcome by some emotion she would sooner the gentle- man who has been speaking to her would not discern in her face. " By all the saints of the cathedral, I believe the fool is jealous of my passion for the beautiful Ajnericana ! Anita jealous ! Did she but know there is an Anita at Cruces, another at the Island del Rey^ and half a dozen more scattered between Aspinwall and Panama, little Anita of Toboga would have fine cause for jealousy," chuckles the young gentleman, smoothing his elaborate EARON MONTEZ. p and spotlessly white shirt front, and settling the bright red sash around his hips, in the conceited way peculiar to South American dandies. A moment after, he thinks : " What matters one Indian girl, more or less ? Besides, to-day I have other things — they are going away to-day. How lucky I returned from the Pearl Islands in time ! But now, For Dios ! — every- thing is arranged for the departure to-night of the American, his treasure, and his — beautiful — wife." He lisps this through his white teeth, as he looks lazily out over the Bay of Panama, and dreams a day-dream which seems to be a pleasant one. It is shortly interrupted by a hearty American voice saying : " Back at last, Senor Montez. I hope you have brought the pearls. I was afraid we would not be able to wait for you. A gleaming necklace would be a very pretty present for my little girl in the United States." With these words, a brown-faced, hardy and stalwart American, George Merritt Ripley, steps upon the bamboo portico and gives the man he addresses a hearty grasp of the hand. Ripley's manners are those of one who has been educated as a gentleman, but has to a limited extent thrown off the veneer of society among the rough and ready companions of Alta California. This is apparent as he continues.' '' Light a cigar, my Spanish friend, and enjoy the view with me, this beauti- ful morning ; " and, taking a camp chair, places his feet lazily upon the bamboo railing of the veranda, making a fine picture of a returning Californian of the fifties in his light woollen turn-away shirt, Panama hat, black trousers, high boots and belted revolver. " Gracias ! " The Spaniard accepts the offered weed and then suggests : *' Your wife, I understand, is now sufficiently recovered, to continue her journey to the United States." " Yes, thank God! " answers the American. Then his lip trembles a little, as he says: " Though our first day in Panama, I was afraid my Alice would leave me for ever ; " and sighs : " That would have been the saddest parting on earth. My wife going to the embraces of our daughter she has not seen for four years — since we left her to journey to California." lO BARON MONTEZ. '* Why did you not take her with you to the land of gold ? " " What ! take a child of twelve across the Isthmus in 1852 ? With its boat travel on the Chagres — its night at Gargona, amid the clicking of dice and the curses of the gamblers — its morning of miasma, going up the river to Cruces, and its mule ride through tropical forests infested by thieves and banditti ? That would have been too great a risk ; but now, with the railroad, our return is dif- ferent and safe." At the American's mention of gamblers at Gargona, and bandits on the Cruces road in 1852, a slight smile has rippled the olive features of the young man to whom he is talking. As the returning Californian speaks of the railroad, the smile on the Spaniard's features changes to a scowl, but a moment after he assents laughingly : '' Yes, it is differ- ent. " Then a gleam of diabolical hope comes into his face, as he says : " I am glad the Senora is well enough to travel." " Yes, we leave here this afternoon. That reminds me I must thank you for your kindness of the week. Had it not been for you, Alice would have remained in Panama, and perhaps have succumbed to the fever ; but here on this beautiful island, the sea breezes and the perfume of the tamarind groves have been better for her than all the quinine in the universe, and all the doctors on earth. So I shall take her back to the East to meet our child, and a re-united family will settle down to a life of civilization, blessing God for the gold placers of the Sierras, for I hive been very fortunate in California. My wife will be dressed very shortly, Sefior Montez. Would you mind suggesting to the kind Anita that sea breezes bring appetite for breakfast ? " With this the gentleman returns into the little cottage of bamboo walls and palm-thatched roof, and Fernando Gomez Montez, looking after him, murmurs : " He has been very fortunate ! " and thinks covetously of a strong iron-bound chest the returning Californian carries with him, whose weight indicates that it contains the gold of the Sierras. Then his agile though sensuous mind wanders to the beauty that he knows the slight bamboo walls keep from BARON MONTEZ. II his prying, inquisitive, hungering eyes — the beauty of the American lady — the white lady whose loveliness he has longed for since he has seen it — more than for the big- gest pearl ever fished up from the blue waters of the Gulf of Panama. So he chuckles, looking over his own personal charms which he thinks are great, for he has very nice regular white teeth and sparking dark eyes ; his skin is a very mild chocolate color, and his slight, wiry, petite figure is clothed in immaculate white linen save where his bright red sash circles his dapper waist and falls down his right leg almost to his highly polished patent leather Wellington boots. Then hearing a woman's soft voice within the bam- boo walls, he mutters : " The Calif ornian is bigger than 1 ; but she will forget him for me — the prettiest boy in Panama ! " and, gazing over the bay, sees in the distance, on the shore, the ramparts of the town, the white walls of its houses, and the glittering domes of its cathedrals. Back of it are the savannas, green as emeralds, that glisten in the rising sun ; beyond, the Cordilleras droop to the lowest gap of that great ridge that divides the Atlantic and Pacific — so low here that twenty-five years after, they will draw all the gold from the stockings of the saving peasants of Brittany and Normandy, in the vain attempt to make the waters of the Pacific and Atlantic meet. Behind the South American town rise two green hills — the nearest, called Ancoti; the other, farther back, an advance peak of the Sierras, is the Cerro de Filibusteres — thus ominously named because Morgan, the buccaneer, first gazed upon the old Panama that he and his two thousand miscreants (gathered from all quarters of the earth) three days afterwards destroyed with lust and pil- lage and rapine and fire and blood. Looking on this, Montez murmurs: "How peaceful! how beautiful ! " Even his soul is struck by the lovely view before him, though he has seen it a hundred times, for to devils' eyes, heaven is sometimes lovely : and this looks like heaven — though it is not. The sea breezes bring to him the scent of the tamarind, lime and orange groves. Around him is a mass of green — feathery green— of palms and bamboos, brightened 12 BARON MONTEZ. here and there by red and yellow blossoms, that are strung, as if on florist's wreaths, from tree to tree, and often dangle and droop into the limpid waters that. lave the shore of fair Toboga Island. In front of him, and round to right and left, are waves clear as blue diamonds, in which the fish are seen as in some gigantic aquarium : the white shark, mixing with shoals of baracuta, and now and then a shiver of pearly water thrown into the air by flights of flying fish, that glisten in the sun. A little to his right, concealing a portion of the modern town of Panama, are three or four islands — green to the water's edge. Were he nearer to them, they would also be brightened by the colors of innumerable tropical flow- ers, and made joyous by the songs of tropic birds. Beyond these, on the mainland to the south, lie the ruins of the old town of Panama — the one that Morgan made no more. Farther towards the Equator, the mountain range, grow- ing higher, disappears in j:he blue sky. To the southeast, but beyond his eye, lie the beautiful Is/as de las Perlcs. Around him it is all green and golden yellow and brilliant red — the foliage, fruits, and flowers of the tropics ; about him blue ; at his feet the waters of the Gulf ; above him the ether of a fairy atmosphere. Its dreamy effect appeals to his sensuous soul. He gazes entranced. But as he looks his restless eyes catch, just on the right of the new town of Panama, a little smoke that goes peacefully into the air above it, and mingles with it. It comes from one of the locomotives of the Panama Rail- way, completed but eighteen months before, and a glearri- ing smile, as bright and sunny as the day he looks on, comes into the eyes of Fernando Gomez Montez, as he thinks: "Our mulateros and the Chagres boatmen hate this railroad that has taken from them the just dues they filched from the stupid Gringos who travel across our land. This iron track robs our honest banditti of their chances of spoil and plunder on the Cruces mule trail. To-night this helps me ! To-night I have both the American's treasure and his wife ! " Then he giggles and chuckles to himself, emotions running over his mobile countenance, as fantastic, bizarre, and changing as the many drops of the blood of BARON MONTEZ. 13 the various human races who in two centuries have passed across this highway of the world ; and Montez of Pan- ama has a drop of nearly all the races of the earth within his despicable carcass, and each drop — the basest. He has the drop that gives the cunning of the Spaniard ; the drop that holds the bourgeois greed of the French- man ; the drop that makes the watchful stealth of the Indian ; the drop that contains the savage cruelty of the Zulu warrior ; the drop that gives the finesse of the Italian ; the drop that comes from the Corsican and makes undying hate ; and, above all, one drop left by one of Morgan's buccaneers, that makes him more dangerous than all the other drops of wickedness in his blood, for it gives to him the determination and the bulldog pluck of the Anglo-Saxon. Brute and bully as this buccaneer had been, he left his drop of blood to flow in the veins of this fantastic crea- ture of all nations, to make him dangerous ; because it gave him that unflinching determination that has carried the Anglo-Saxon race to all quarters of the world, and made it dominant in every one of them. But Montez awakes with a start. A merry voice is in his ear, a white, aristocratic hand is held toward him in friendly greeting. These belong to Alice Ripley, who with joy, hope, and happiness on her fair American face, is saying : " Seiior Montez, our kind friend, you have been to the Pearl Islands for us — another favor for which to thank you ! " "You are now quite well ? " he stammers, a little con- fused, though his eyes are bold enough to linger over the beautiful woman, as she stands before him, a white muslin dress floating about her graceful form, and some ribbons in her golden hair, giving color to a fair Saxon face, that is lighted up by radiant, happy violet eyes. *' Yes — quite well ! " she laughs. " So well, appetite has returned to me. I am impatient for breakfast, which kind Anita says is ready in the tamarind grove." " You are — quite changed — you are more beautiful — " " No," she laughs, " more happy. I am well once more — my husband is by my side. In ten days I shall kiss my daughter. Am I not a fortunate woman ? But break- fast. En ava?it, George, and forward Montez ! " and Alice Ripley flits over the veranda towards the breakfast 14 BARON MONTEZ. bower, made girlish by joy, and stands beside the green palms and red flowers, a picture that makes Senor Montez's eyes grow tender, and he would pity this lovely American lady he hopes this night to cut off from husband and friends, and home and child — but in all the polyhsema drops that run in his vile veins, there is no drop of pity. But there are in his body, drops of blood that carry unbounded passion and intense desire, and gazing on this fair woman's blue eyes, and white skin, and graceful mo- bile figure, his eyes grow misty, as he mutters : ''A rare flower for Fernando Gomez Montez of Panama to pluck — Ah ! This is a lucky day for the naughty boy of the Isthmus ! " CHAPTER II. " A TOBOGA BREAKFAST IN '56." Then this little disciple of Satan runs over what has brought him this great chance of good luck. He thinks of his earlier days. He is scarce twenty now, but people develop rapidly un- der the hot sun of the Equator. He remembers the quiet little town of Cruces, in the mountains — at the head of navigation of the Chagres, where the good priest taught him his Faterfiosters, and where he chanted them each day in- his class, mingling his Latin with howls produced by blows of a cutting rawhide in the hands of the padre's athletic and vigilant assistant. This mixture of penance and prayer pleased the young Montez but little. His mother, who lived in a palm hut by the rapids of the Chagres, did ih^ padre s washing ; his father was — Heaven knows where or who. There seemed no way of escape. They were about to make him an altar boy, and rebellious little Fernando cursed as he chanted and saw no prospect save of a life of prayer and penance, and candle carrying behind a decorated image of the Vir- gin, in its daily religious procession through the lanes of the little town. But just at this moment Cruces — buried from the world in the hills of the Cordilleras in the deadly slumber that had fallen upon the Isthmus when the route to Chili and Peru round Cape Horn succeeded BARON MONTEZ. I5 the route via Panama, and the jingling bells of its mule trains were no longer heard crossing the mountain paths between Panama and Porta Bella — awoke and lived again. The first rush of the gold seekers for California in '49 crossed the Isthmus. Flying from church and prayer and penance, young Montez dodged fasting and discipline in the hurly-burly of tii''at early Isthmus excitement. At thirteen he peddled water, for ten cents a glass, to thirsty Gringos. A year after he did a thriving business in unripe bananas, oranges, and pineapples in the streets of Chagres. Next taking up with a monte shop, became '•^ muchacho diablo'' in a gambling establishment at Gar- gona, where he learned card sharping and thimble rigging. In the years 1851, 1852, and 1853 he was a handler of bad mules, which he leased out at exorbitant prices to the embryo pioneers and argonauts of California to cross worse roads from Gargona in the dry season, and from Cruces in the wet time, to Panama. Perchance, he took a flyer or two, with one or two successful bandits, and some looted treasure came to him. He had a knack of recovering lost children who dis- appeared together with their native carriers in this rush across the Isthmus, and restoring them to fond parents for large sums of money. And during this time he learned one great principle that has been of much use to Napoleons of finance both in America and Europe — that is, not to steal often, but to steal much. The first invariably leads to disgrace and a prison — the second often to honor and a palace. While doing all this, his facile mind became educated. He picked up PVench, from some Parisians crossing the Isthmus. Spanish was his native tongue. A smat- tering of Latin he had from the priest. English came to him from his vocation with the Californian adven- turers ; and by devoting himself to one or two Portuguese, who travelled tremblingly across the Isthmus in those days, he stole from them a smattering of their language and any doubloons and Spanish dollars they might leave within reach of his grasping paws. At length, the railroad completed in 1855 destroyed young Montez's means of livelihood ; but by this time he had sufficient to engage in other occupations, and turned l6 BARON MONTEZ. his attention to dealing in pearls, precious stones, and other valuables he could pick up about the Isthmus, sometimes making trips to the Pearl Islands, and once or twice going as far as Ecuador and Peru, upon the English steamers that were now running down the coast of South America, and to Acapulco to the north, on the Pacific Mail boats, trading always with a rare facility and shrewdness that had come to him in a drop of Yankee blood left by a New Bedford whaler at Darien some hundred years before, and by a globule of the vital fluid of Israel, that had entered his roly-nation veins from an unfortunate Jewish pedler the Inquisition had burned, before the time of Morgan. He was even now considered well to do, and his orders were good in the Hotel Fran(;a.s in Panama, or in the restaurant of Monsieur Victor, t^ie Isthmus Del- monico those days, but still as yet no grand coup had come to him. Some ten days before the time he sits upon the ver- anda of the villa on the Island of Toboga, the steamer JoJm L. Stevens, from San Francisco, brought its lot of passengers from California, to take route across the Isthmus by railway to Aspinwall, and so on to New York ; among them this American gentleman and his wife, who are occupying the pretty pa'"* cottage this morning — Ripley ruddy in health, Ali^^ beautiful as a pale lily, .stricken with the fever picked up during a six hours' stay in Acapulco, and too ill to proceed on her journey. But for this, the American would h"ve been the happiest of men, for he was a successful pioneer to California. George Merritt Ripley had left a clerkship in Balti- more, and taken his wife with him, leaving his little daughter of twelve at school in the East, and had gone to California in 1852. He had made his first start in gold mining in Calaveras County, at Mokelumne Hill, and being sensible enough to see that placer digging was un- certain, and that trade in California at that time was a sure road to wealth, had taken 'tis few thousand dollars, and entered into business in the thriving town of Stock- ton on the San Joaquin. In three years he had accumu- lated some sixty thousand dol'ars, which, in those days of cheap prices, large interest, and small capital, was the equivalent to half a million at the present. BARON MONTEZ. 1 7 Having enough to live upon in the East, his money properly invested in the growing towns of New York or Boston would in time make him even wealthy. His wife, anxious to see her child (for four years is a long time to a mother's heart), had implored him to return to the Eastern States, which in those days all Californians caiied "home." So, though his life on the plains of the San Joaquin had been a pleasant one, Ripley was delighted to turn his face from the crudities of the early California, to the more civilized existence of the Eastern world. He had come on his way rejoicing, until the fever struck the woman he loved, so he had brought her to Panama to rest there — perchance to die there. His trunks, checked through to the East, had gone on, all save one that contained their immediate necessities of apparel, and the othe}- one ; the one that never left his eye — the heavy one — the one that took three natives to handle. These, together with his wife, were in Panama, when he chanced to meet Montez, who, having many arts and graces of a gentleman, had soon made George Ripley think him his friend. Montez had recommended the change from the pesti- lent miasma of the mainland to the breezes that came fresh up the Gulf to the Island of Toboga, and in these zephyrs, health had come to George's wife, and despair had left the heart of the strong man who loved her. During these days of his wife's convalescence, in one of his conversations with Montez, Ripley had mentioned a de- sire to invest a little of the gold he was bringing with him in the pearls of the Isthmus — which were cheap at Panama compared to New York. This treasure was all in his own care, for Wells Fargo's charges in these days, for the transmission of specie, were very high, and George Ripley thought himself strong enough to take care of his own money, having stood off bandits from his Mokelumne Hill mine and possessing that peculiar self-confidence that seemed to come with the air of the Sierras to all Califor- nians in those early days. Therefore this foolish Ripley had evaded Wells, Fargo & Co.'s charges, and had everything he held valuable in this world with him in Toboga this sunny day — save his daughter in her Eastern school. l8 BARON MONTEZ. Musing over this, Fernando chuckles to himself : *' Brave Ainericano — fool Americano ! " Just here he is awakened from his reverie by the brave Americano' s voice in his ear, and the hearty grasp of the fool Americano's hand upon his shoulder. The voice says : " Come along, Don Fernando Montez ! We are hungry. The odor of the breakfast is delicious — but my wife insists upon our v/aiting for our kind host." The hand drags in friendly play the petite carcass of Fernando Gomez Montez to see the prettiest sight his sparkling, all- nation eyes have ever gazed upon — the blonde beauty of the temperate zone contrasted with the dark loveliness of the Equator, surrounded by a tropic breakfast al fresco. It is under the shade of the tamarind trees, the perfume from which is mingled with the odors of a feast for the gods ! The aroma of Costa Rica coffee just burnt and ground comes from a steaming urn that stands on the ground near the fire of perfumed orange wood, upon which turtle steaks are broiling, and luscious plantains and mealy yams are cooking in its ashes. A stew of rice and freshly killed Iguano lizard, made hot with Chili Colorado, and a slight suspicion of garlic — for Anita is an artist in the cooking line — stands ready to their hands ; and fruits, gorgeous as the sun that gave them their ripe beauty, lie about them everywhere. The American lady, lazily seated in a hammock, looks coolly beautiful under the leaves that shade her — the abandon of careless ease shows her still girlish figure in graceful motion. Her blue eyes would be very bright this morning, were they not wistful at times when gazing towards the East. Anita posed like a bronze statue stands near the fire, her orbs sparkling also, save when looking at la Americana they glow with some unknown passion like those of a Voodoo priestess ! So breakfast passes, Anita the presiding goddess of the feast ; for to this Indian girl all the beauty of the tropics has come in the fifteen years of her life. She is robed in white — some soft clinging Isthmus stuff, which drapes her lithe figure, and displays the beauties of her graceful limbs at every motion — and her little feet, bare as when she was born, step so lightly they hardly rustle the leaves under them. FA RON MONTEZ. I9 The girl flits about, ministering to the appetites of Senor Montez and his guests, which seem to be very good, Montez apparently being happy, and a great joy beaming in the eyes of the American. His beautiful wife has roses on her fair cheeks, and in ten days they will be in their Eastern home; with them the one child of their love. Health and appetite are theirs, and their breakfast is almost like that of Arcady. The coffee is of the sweetest aroma, thelguano is done to a nicety, and the turtle steaks are juicy as those from a two-year-old buffalo cow. These being finished, they revel in the fruits of the tropics — oranges green as an olive, thin-skinned as a lady's glove, with one blood red shot upon each, to prove that it has ripened; melons, sweet limes, Avigado pears, and the mangoes for which Toboga is famous. As appetite is appeased, conversation becomes easy. *' Why did you not ask Anita to tell me that I was keeping you from breakfast ? It is such a good one," laughs the every-nation gentleman. " Anita did not seem to care for your coming," returns the American lady. " Perhaps she did not think her breakfast was as perfect as it is." " Ah, Anita was sulky, eh .? " says Fernando, a little mocking snarl curling over his white teeth. " Anita has an Indian temper and Indian moods." He regards the girl with a sneer, and she returns him several flashes from her eyes, that would be reproachful, were they not almost vindictive. '• A little sullen, Anita — eh ? " jeers the host. His tone would drive the girl to frenzy, did not the American hdy suddenly say, " Please don't be cross with her. You do not know how kind she has been to me during your absence and my sickness ! " Then she turns to her husband and suggests : " We must not forget Anita's services when we leave her." *' No," cries the jovial Californian. " Anita shall have the biggest pearl that Montez has brought from the Islands." At this mention of personal adornment, a smile runs over the volatile features of the Indian girl. Fernando smiles also. What is Anita's is his. And everything is fish that comes to his net. 20 BARON MONTEZ. A second after, he gives a start. The American lady is remarking in grateful tones : *' And what shall our of- fering be to you, Senor Montez, whose hospitality has given me health ? " "A present for me ? Miamadre! you are too kind." '' Yes, mention what you like and you have it, " inter- jects the CaHfornian. " Oh, if you wish me to say what I should regard with the greatest favor, it would be your — your beautiful re- volver. There is none like it on the Isthmus, — none that shoots so truly, for I have seen your skill with it," answers Fernando, looking with longing eyes upon the fatal weapon of the American. " My revolver," echoes the CaHfornian with a start. Then he says, after a pause of consideration : " I will send it to you by express from New York. Until this journey is over, I cannot part with it. It has guarded my life and my property before. I feel safer with it by my side." " Yes," returns Alice, " at his side by day, near his hand at night. George is superstitious, I think, with re- gard to it." This conversation apparently does not please Sefior Montez very greatly. The revolver has seemed to fascinate him. All through the meal his glances have sought the long Colt's pistol that carries six lives in its six loaded chambers as it hangs in the Californian's belt, A little spheroid of timid Cingales blood, poured into his veins from some East Indian ancestor, now brings a coward faltering into his bright eyes. He does not seem to enjoy the Avigado pear that he was eating with a good appetite a second before. Throwing it away with a "pish " of disgust, he cries : "Anita, quick, a cigar I" for nicotine soothes this gentleman's excitable nerves. The Indian girl, at his command, draws out from a bundle of fragrant Toboga tobacco a fresh leaf, and roll- ing it in her deft and agile fingers, in half a minute it becomes a cigar. Thirty seconds more, a second leaf be- comes another cigar. This she offers to the American, who follows his host's example. So lighting up, the two men puff away contentedly. A moment after, Alice gives a start of amazement, for a third cigar has been tendered to her, and to her aston- BARON MONTEZ. 21 ished refusal, Anita laughs : " You are not well enough yet to smoke. I had supposed now you are ill no longer you would enjoy it as I do." Then throwing herself into a hammock, this lazy bird of the tropic surrounds herself wi{^i wreaths of smoke, puffing them out between her white teeth, and playing with them as a juggler does with his baubles. The sensuous scene appeals to even the energetic Cali- fornian's senses. He mutters: " This week at Toboga has seemed like a week of — of " " Of paradise ! " interjects his wife. " Since I have become well again, we have made a fairy land of it. Daytime in the hammock, sipping coccanut milk and chicha under the tamarind leaves ; dinners at Jacques' petite restaurant in the cocoanut trees, and moonlight in a canoe on the water. George said," here the lady blushes slightly, gazing at her husband with bride's eyes, *' that it was more romantic than our wedding tour." " A-ah, a — neiv honeymoon ! " sighs Montez. Look- ing at the beauty of this Northern violet, as she sits before him in the ease of this tropic Arcady — for Alice Ripley has imitated Seiiorita Anita in the hammock business, and sits lazily under the green leaves, one perfect ifoot and one delicate ankle carelessly swinging from under her white laces and muslin and ribbons — this gentleman's face suddenly flushes with a great delight, as he thinks : " A new honeymoon ! — Yes — for ?ne f " Then visions come to him, entrancing as the dreams of opium sleep, as he gazes at Alice Ripley through the clouds of his cigar smoke. Mingled with the rustling breezes in the tamarind groves, as they sit there, the "silence — of — the — smoker " coming on them, is heard the voice of a rushing stream, which issues gurgling and foaming fiom the hill-side, and splashes into a little basin, a short hundred yards away, suggesting coolness. The day is already burning, and the noise of this foam- ing stream apparently puts an idea into the fertile mind of little Montez, as he sits looking with sleepless eyes at the big Californian, through his wreaths of smoke. He says : " How is a cool plunge this hot morning? Why not a bath, Serior Georgio Ripley ? " " A bath — delicious ! " ejaculates the American. Then 22 BARON MONTEZ. looking over the green water of the bay, he suggests, " But the sharks ! " " No sharks here," and Fernando points with a little finger, adorned with some diamonds and a very delicately trimmed almond-shaped nail, to the cool, limpid basin worn in the rock by the unceasing flow of the living stream for centuries. "That is nature's bathing place." So the two go off together, through the thickets to the shady pool, bearing with them handfuls of javoncilla leaves, that will act as vegetable soap and make their skins soft as those of children. Looking on its limpid waters, dark under the palms and only golden where the sun steals in upon it through little breaks in the leaves, the American mutters : " This is perfection." Then Montez cries, " Quick, I'll beat you into the water. You need not fear to undress here. Toboga has no deadly lance-vipers or coral snakes like the mainland." So undressing himself in the little thicket of broad- leaved palms and feathery bamboos, George Merritt Ripley, as he takes his plunge into nature's bath-tub, for the first time in his journey really parts himself from his revolver. It is but for a short fifteen minutes, and Montez bathes with him ten of them, but leaves the water y^rj-/. But in that five minutes, that one last plunge for Ripley, something has happened to his weapon of trust that had saved his life and his treasure from the bandits of the Sierras and the highwaymen of the Californian trails. Not knowing this, George comes laughingly up the bank, crying, " That last plunge was the most refreshing of my life ! I hope you enjoyed your bath as v.^ell as I did, Seiior Montez." " Perhaps better," returns his companion, who has as yet hardly begun to dress. Fernando is apparently a lazy man, and he has had something to occupy him, and a little file that he has brought with him, during the five minutes of Ripley's last plunge. From now on, a confident air seems to come over this every nation gentleman ; and when his eyes look at the revolver which the American is strapping around him again, they no longer shrink from it, but gaze at it in BAKON MONTEZ. 23 confident triumph. So, walking up the path to the tama- rind grove and bamboo cottage, Fernando chuckles to himself : " I am sure now — treasure and beauty. " CHAPTER IIL THE RAILROAD STATION AT PANAMA, On the veranda once more, George Ripley suggests : " Would you mind showing us your pearls ? My wife is anxious to see your jewels, and we must be soon getting under way for the mainland." "Yes, the Illinois arrived this morning at Aspin- wall," returns Montez. " Her passengers will soon reach Panama. Soon there will be a Pacific Mail steamship in the bay. The Golden Age from San Francisco is one day overdue. When she comes in, her passengers will be moved eastward rapidly. If you are not at the rail- way station you may be left to spend ten days more with us. That would please me, mi amigo ; but you — you are an American, and in a hurry. You do not enjoy life. You fly through it." " And you dream through it, I imagine, Sefior Montez," laughs Alice, coming on the veranda to meet the return- ing bathers. Then she says archly, '■'• Dream no more ; show us your pearls, and become a man of business. " " That I will ! " cries Montez, as he displays his jewels, and descants on the beauties of the large pink pearl he has, and the perfection of the white ones he holds caress- ingly in his hands, with the vehemence and volubility of an Armenian in the bazaar at Constantinople, and the shrewdness of a Hebrew pawn-broker in Seven Dials*. Fernando's trading powers, however, are thrown away ; for the American takes all the pearls at the seller's own prices, which though exorbitant for Panama, are cheap for New York. " Come in and get our business over,'' says George ; and Montez following him and Alice into the bamboo cottage, the affair is completed. Opening a large buck- skin bag, that is part of his belt, after the manner of early Californians, Ripley makes payment in gold-dust ; 24 BARON MONTEZ. for at that time gold was plenty, though coin was scarce, in the Western world. Upon this yellow dross, Fernando's eyes linger lovingly, and from it roam gloatingly to the heavy iron-bound trunk of the Californian, and turning from this to the beautiful Americana^ who was thrown her pearls in a string of white radiance around her fair white neck, his glance becomes more longing than ever. Here George laughingly suggests : " Montez, you think jewels become her? Alice should have had these pearls when she stood in Edouart's gallery in Washington Street, San Francisco, and had this taken," producing from his pocket a tintype of his wife, a style of picture just come into fashion. " Yes, I had two of them taken ; one for my husband, the other for my daughter ; Mary's was sent to her two months ago. It will remind her of my coming," replies the lady ; then blushes a little, for Montez, in his native way, has cried out : "^/^, Dios ! It is celestial — but the sun has not done you justice, Senora Ripley ! " The sun, however, has done very well, and the tintype has the blue eyes and fair hair of this charming American. So charming, Montez fears to stay ; his passion may betray itself. He mutters, " I will go and engage your boat, Senor Ripley." " Yes ! Get a safe one, I don't care for speed. Some- thing there is no chance of capsizing," calls the Califor- nian after him. " I will be sure of that for my own sake, as well as yours," cries back the little gentleman, as he glides down the pathway, brushing with a bamboo switch the dust from his patent leather boots. At the white glistening beach he selects carefully a boat, and is delighted to find among its crew a swarthy boatman, who is called Domingo. Addressing him familiarly, and slapping him on the back, Montez says in his ear : *' Old bravo, are you still up to banditti work as in '52, on the Cruces roads ? " To this, Domingo, a gentleman with a pirate counte- nance adorned by two fearful scars, with a stalwart black frame, and a stout black heart beating in his black body, replies : " Si, Senor^ mouches dinero^ mouches sanguis mouches Domingo." BARON MONTEZ. 25 So Fernando knows he has at his hand, for this night's work, a man who will not be turned back for pity, nor blood, nor danger, from doing any wickedness that may come to his hand. While this has been taking place on the beach, Ripley and his wife, during hurried preparations for their de- parture, are holding a conversation that makes the Californian open his honest eyes in astonishment. His wife says to him, under her breath : " Now that Montez is away, I wish to tell you something : I am glad we are going ! " " Of course ! To-morrow we will be one day nearer our daughter." " It is not entirely that," whispers the lady, nervously, "but I fear to stay here." '^ Why ? " " Anita hates me." " Impossible ! No one could have nursed you more faithfully during the fever, than the bright-eyed Indian girl." " It is her bright eyes that make me fear her. Some- thing new has come into them. Besides that, while you were taking your bath she told me that we had better go away as soon as possible. She told me " "Well, what?" says the American impatiently. " Only — that — if the fever returned to me here — I would not throw it off again. Toboga breezes are good for the first attack, — but after that, — like other medicines, — they lose their value." While she says this in a hesitating, disjointed manner, a bright red flush has come over the features of the beautiful American lady, for Alice Ripley is telling her husband her first falsehood. Anita's words had been to her : " Beware of Montez ! Montez loves you ! " and suspicion coming to her quick feminine mind at these words, Alice had noted some of the uncanny glances the polyhsema gentleman at times could not restrain himself from indulging in. But at the last moment, even when warning was on her lips, she has hesitated to tell her husband what she has heard and suspects — because the very thought of the thing brings blushing shame upon her. So the modesty of this beautiful woman takes from her 26 BARON MONTEZ. husband one of his ropes of safety this day — his one chance of suspecting the man he thinks his friend, but who is even now bent upon his robbery and ruin. " Well, let us give Anita her pearl— perhaps that will reconcile her to our going away," laughs the Californian. This being done, they leave the palm-thatched bamboo villa, and come down the little rocky pathway to the beach at Toboga, to take departure for Panama. Three stalwart natives carry the iron-bound trunk, and find it all they can handle ; another swings easily the lighter one that contains the wardrobe of George Ripley and his wife. l>ooking around, Montez is happy ; for there is only a steamer of the ICnglish Steam Navigation Company in the harbor, one or two trading brigs and schooners, and the Columbus just returned from her voyage to the Islas de las Perks, and no vessels of war of any nation. No blue jackets can be landed to interfere with a plan that he has already set on foot among the desperate native classes of the town of Panama this fifteenth day of April, 1856. Toboga is slumbering in the mid-day sun, as they stand upon the sandy beach. A lazy steward from the English steamer is buying fish and fruit from a big Indian hofigo that has come from a neighboring island. There is a drowsy hum from a few bamboo huts, and pine board edifices that do duty as shops, and ship chandlers' stores, for this Island of '1 oboga is really the port of Panama, as the depth of water permits vessels to lie there at all times ; while off the mainland, the tre- mendous rise and fall of the ocean compels ships of burden to keep three or four miles out in the bay. " I am glad you got a good, big, safe boat," remarks the Californian, " and I hope competent boatmen." " Yes, that is all arranged. On board, mi amigo^'' cries Montez, offering a gallant hand to assist the pretty Americana. But what the Indian girl has said to her makes this lady blind to his attentions, and she carelessly and lightly steps over the gunwale of the boat, and tripping to its stern, takes seat under its awning of many colors, ignor- ing the gentleman whose eyes follow her, an unknown suspicion m them. BARON MONTEZ. 27 A moment after, they are under way, black Domingo pulling a strong stroke oar, and three lithe natives keep- ing 'time with him, and dashing foam that looks like pearls and diamonds from the water, as they glide over this aquarium, in which Alice looking down sees countless fish. As they move, she carelessly drops a dainty hand into the cool water, playing with its ripples. The next instant Montez quietly takes it in his and replaces it in the boat. Perchance, unable to control himself, he has given its delicate fingers a tender pressure, for the lady's face grows angry. *' Would you like to leave your arm in that fellow's maw ? " is Fernando's reply to her indignant glance, and he points to a huge white shark that is lazily patrolling the water a cable's length or so from the English steamer's stern. Following his gesture with their eyes, the crew start and Domingo mutters : " Diablo I Toboga Bill ! " " Yes, that is the gentleman ! " laughs Montez. " This desperado has just come up after the Peruvian steamer from a trip down the coast to Callao." " So that is the terror of Panama P)ay ? " queries George, turning his eyes upon the great fish, who is as long as a ship's cutter, and whose dorsal fin makes a big swash of foam with every movement. " Yes ! There will be one or two less native boatmen, perhaps, before he leaves harbor ! " returns Montez. Then he suddenly cries : " For your life, No ! " and places a deterring hs^nd upon the Californian's pistol, for Ripley is about to draw it. " There is no danger in this big boat. Let me have a pop at the desperado," says George, still fingering his ready revolver . " No, no ! Your wife is here. He might charge the boat. He has upset canoes ! Don't use your pistol ! " murmurs the little every-nation rascal, his lips trembling and growing white. " If he is so awful — don't shoot at him ! " gasps Alice to her husband. " If you tremble, of course not ! " says the American, returning his revolver to his belt. ''Though I had im- agined Montez had better nerves." 28 BARON MONTEZ, This idea is that of the boatmen ; for one of them says in Spanish to his fellow : " Caramba ! I never saw the muchacho diablo tremble before — at a shark, too ! " But Domin^^o knows his old master better, and chuckles to himself : '• What was there about that pistol of the Americano that Fernando did not wish him to use it ? Ah ! It has been tampered with. This man and this woman are to be our prey." And from now on, the whites of his eyes grow blood-shot when they look on the Californian and his fair-haired wife. As they leave "Toboga Bill " behind them, fear seems to depart from Montez ; he regains his spirits, but when- ever a stray gull offers a tempting shot he looks nervous ; perchance Ripley will test his pistol. Three hours after, they make the landing at Panama, having been assisted by the incoming tide, which has just turned, and is here tremendous. They come to the end of the long wharf of the rail- road, finding there a little light-draft iron steamboat — the Toboga — used in transferring passengers and mail to the great Pacific steamers that cannot come nearer than three miles of the town. Not six inches of water is under the Toboga's keel. It must wait for the incoming tide to free it, and make it float again, which will be somewhere about ten or eleven o'clock this evening. Clambering upon this wharf, which rises at this stage of the tide quite high above the boat, Montez and Ripley assist the American lady, who soon stands beside them. " There will probably be no train for Aspinwall before to-morrow morning. I think we Jiad better go to one of the hotels in the main town. It will be more com- fortable," remarks Ripley. " Very well," answers Montez, a shade of disappoint- ment crossing his face, '' the Hotel Frangais. But what will you do with your trunk — the heavy fellow ? It seems all that the three boatmen can manage." " Of course, George, they can never carry it into the town in this hot sun," remarks Alice, who, having hoisted a dainty parasol over her head, stands watching the men. '' Let me suggest the Pacific House," returns Fernando, pointing to a white board hotel just across the road from the station. " It is but a step for your wife — and your trunk." bARON MONTEZ. 29 To this proposition George assents, and they walk up the wharf, followed by three of the boatmen, who struggle under the heavy iron-bound chest, upon which the Caii- fornian, turning ever and anon, casts a wary glance. Be- hind them tramps old Domingo, slinging easily upon his stalwart shoulder the light trunk containing the wardrobe of the Californian, which does not soem to interest Ripley at all. Walking along the tracks of the Panama road, which run upon this wharf, they soon come to dusty terra firnia^ and find themselves in quite a crowd of passengers from the Illinois^ which has landed them at Aspinwall, on the Atlantic side of the Isthmus, some few hours before. These are making their preparations for departure, some of them checking their baggage, and others having their tickets examined ; a few, even now (fortunately for them- selves), are taking their families on board the Toboga^ as the Golden Age, the incoming Pacific Mail steamer, has been sighted. Hearing this, Montez whispers to the Californian : " The train for Aspinwall will be sure to leave early in the morning. The Pacific House is the one for you, it is so near the railroad depot." So they pass in, and registering their names with McFarlane, the proprietor, soon find themselves in a little room on the eastern, and now shady, side of the house, for the sun is already declining in the heavens. This chamber is one flight up, retired and quiet as any room can be in a house m^ade of thin boards with parti- tions of canvas and paper. To this the three natives stagger with the heavy trunk, Domingo accompanying them with the lighter one. Here Montez says to the American, *' jiu rcvoir ! " but while doing this, suggests : " Won't you take a stroll with me into the town ? You will find lots of the passengers who are bound for California, seeing the sights. Why not make an evening of it with me ? Dinner at the Cafk Victor, and then, I believe, we have a circus in town to-night." " That would be delightful ! " cries Alice. A moment after, she says thoughtfully, " but I am afraid I am too fatigued for it." *' No thank you, Montez, old boy,". answers George. 3© BARON MONTEZL ** I think I'll stay here with my baggage and my tired wife." " Then au revoir a-gain ! " murmurs Fernando, and turns to go, but the Californian comes after him, and seizing his little fingers in his stalwart grip, says gratefully ; " This must not be the last we shall see of you ! Promise to come back here this evening. My wife and I must thank you again for your hospitality, and what you have done for us. I'll not forget to express the revolver to you from New York." " Oh, do not fear — I'll return to you ! " answers Montez, the Armenian drop in his blood coming to the fore, and giving his eyes a far-seeing, peculiar, subtle look. " Until this evening ! " and whispering these words, he skips down the steps, giving one last longing parting glance at the fair American lady, who makes a pretty picture, her bright beauty being in strong contrast to the bareness of the room, as she carelessly sits upon the iron-bound trunk. Thus grouped these two treasures of the American look very beautiful to Senor Montez — they are now, he thinks, so nearly his. As he reaches the doorway of the hotel he suddenly starts and says : '• But I have much to do ! " and so passes rapidly out of the Pacific House, where there is a good deal of drinking going on, and many glasses are being emptied to the first sight of the Pacific, by passen- gers eager to reach the land of gold. Left together Ripleyturns to Alice, saying: '' It looks as if you would have a dull time, little woman, till to-morrow morning when we get upon the railroad for Aspinwall." ''Oh, I'll pass a little of it writing to Mary." " Why, the child'll see us as soon as the letter ! " "Not quite. We'll have to remain a day in New York probably. The letter will go right on. I'll tell her of our week in Totoga," returns the lady, taking from her trunk the articles for a hasty epistle. " Had you not better see about our tickets ? " " They'll do in the morning," replies the gentleman who is looking out of the hotel window. " Besides, the crowd bound for California are giving the railroad officials all they want to attend to just now." And (}eorge amuses himself inspecting the movements of the throng outside as the sun goes down upon Panama. BAROX MONTEZ. 3I After a little, his wife closes an epistle full of a mother's love to her absent dear one, telling her the day after she receives it she will be in her arms, and says, " George, just step down and put this in the mail at the railroad depot, before you forget as usual." *' Then the usual bribe," laughs her husband. " Two, if you like," and the lady's lips receive his kisses, for these two are as much lovers as when they first became man and wife. " Now hurry. For Mr. McFarlane's gong is going to sound for dinner soon," cries Alice. So George Ripley goes down and posts the letter to Mary, his daughter, putting it in the strong grip of Wells, Fargo & Co., but does not come back to dinner with his wife — for this is the night of the fifteenth day of April, 1856 — a night that at Panama severed husbands from wives and parted children from parents' love. CHAPTER IV. WHAT THE MOON SAW IN PANAMA. MoNTEZ, after gliding through the crowd about the railroad station, joins Domingo, who has been waiting for him, and the two stroll together along the dusty lane leading to the Cuinago, a quarter of the city composed of vermin, filth and native huts, in which the lower orders of this town of Panama make their habitat. " You half understand my design, my worthy old des- perado," murmurs Montez. ^' Si, Capitano fnio," returns the swarthier and more stal- wart bandit. "Then I will explain the rest to you. Listen ! " and Fernando hastily outlines a plan, which makes the other grind his teeth together in a wild kind of unholy chuckle. '^Diablo I This will be a better night than any one of the wild days of my youth I " and Domingo had once been a ship's boy with Lafitte, the last pirate of the Gulf of Mexico. " Yes — it will ht—finej'' laughs the other. ''There are women and children among this crowd of passengers. 32 BARON MONTEZ. These people are not like the adventurers of '49. They are going to be California farmers, not miners. Few of them carry a revolver ; fewer still know how to use it." " But your American friend bears a very large one." "Yes, and is a dead shot ; but that is arranged," says Montez. "Ah, trust e/ i?iuchacho diablo !'' laughs Domingo, look- ing in admiration at his little mentor. Then he says suddenly : " But the plan you have mentioned, will take much time. The natives must be aroused." " It is almost arranged now. You have but very little to do. The keg of powder I have ordered is already in those huts. You see our savage boatmen and muleteers are prepared to use it," and Montez points to the crowd of excited Indians, sambos, mulattos, negroes, Spanish gypsies, and every other vile race of the Isthmus, who are stimulating themselves in the streets of the native quarter with aguardiente for some work they have on hand, and are even now nearly all armed with old muskets, machetes^ or pistols. Looking upon this, Domingo says : " That little steamer," pointing to the Toboga, whose smoke-stack is still visible at the end of the wharf, " has taken away their livelihood from the honest barqueros here, by trans- ferring the passengers that were their customers. Their hatred will be an assistance to us. Besides, the railroad has ruined our mulateros — they will not be backward." " Not with American plunder in sight," laughs Montez. " But they will need a leader — Domingo, you are the man for that kind of thing : you like blood !" "Ah, but, demonios ! we have forgotten the police I " " We have not forgotten anything ! " replies the brighter scoundrel. "The police are arranged for; the gover- nor, I think, is arranged for also. A Dios till six o'clock ! Do your work here ; I will do mine in the town ! Remem- ber at six — the railroad station. There Montez will make his start in life." Leaving Domingo surrounded by a crowd of his old cronies and chums, whom he will excite with strong pul- que and bad aguardiente^ Montez, turning away from the native quarter, strolls through the Gargona gate, along the Calle de la Merced^ into the middle of the old town of Panama. BARON MONTEZ. 33 Here he sees many of the passengers of the Illinois, who^^re buying jewelry of Choco gold and Panama pearls, sombreros de Guayaquil, and bright-hued stuffs, to take with them to California. The sun is going down rapidly, flaming lanterns are beginning to appear in the shops ; a few Spanish ladies, in short white petticoats and light chemises, scarcely concealed by graceful mantillas and nelosos floating from their dark hair, and draping their bare and gleaming necks and arms, are tripping with slippered feet hurriedly homeward. ^ The lights are twinkling in the Cafe Victor and the Hotel Frangais. The tingling of bells announces mules, ridden by dashing caballeros adorned with all the splendor of Spanish horse trappings. Still the streets seem curi- ously deserted ; the lower classes have left them ; few mulateros, boatmen, or ladrones are here ; they are nearly all in the Cuinago, and those that are not yet there are hurrying towards the native quarter, as if going to a ren- dezvous. Looking on this, Montez thinks : " This will be a glo- rious evening ! But to make sure, I must see His Excellency." He passes rapidly to the street San Juan de Dios, and stops before a low stone building, in front of which a negro sentry is parading, with dirty gun and bare feet. He says to him: "Colonel Garrido is here?" *'Yes, Senor, inside." " I must see him." And word being sent in, Garrido, Commander of Police, makes his appearance. He is half negro, quarter Spanish, quarter cur — all devil. Adorned with great tawdry epaulettes, and buttons and sashes, and a big sword, he wears long dark oily mustachios, which he strokes in an affected and military way. "Ah, Senor Montez, miof" he laughs, looking at the little man who has already placed his hand in his pocket and is chinking doubloons together. " You have come at last. I have been waiting for you ! " " Yes, I represent the law," says Montez. " There is going to be an outbreak. The Americanos, the passen- gers at the railway depot, will attack to-night our poor fruit pedlers." 34 BARON MONTEZ. "You told me of that yesterday." " Yes ! I am a prophet ! Are the police prepared ? " *' The police will do their duty. They are now ready," and Garrido chuckles and points into \.\\^ patio where he has already mustered and armed the hundred vagabonds he calls the police of Panama. '' Then the Americanos will bully us no longer," re- joins Montez. " I thought that would be your decision. The Americanos have women and children with them, also considerable sums of money with which they are going to buj ranchos in California." " But the men — those awful Yankee fighters," stammers the police colonel, growing nervous ; " I remember them in '49 and '50. How they handled their revolvers ! " " Now — they do not carry many, besides — " Here Fer- nando's hand chinks a roll cf doubloons into the out- stretched palm of the officer of the law. " Besides — they are unprepared to fight — these rioters." *' A-ah, that settles los Americanos," laughs Garrido. " But the governor — " suggests the other. "Ah, the governor," mutters the colonel of police. " He is wavering." " Wavering ? Diablo ! Caramba ! " moans Montez. Then the drop of Morgan's buccaneer's blood coming to the front in this little man, he becomes tremendous. He cries out : " 111 see him at once ! He shall waver no longer ! " So he directs his way to His Excellency's house, and begs that he may see the Governor of the town of Panama, but word is brought him that His Excellency is engaged. At this Mr. Era Diavolo grinds his teeth, writes four words on a slip of paper, and says : " Give that to His Excellency, curse him, and see if he dares to be engaged." A moment after, the answer comes that he can see the potentate of Panama. Young Fernando is received by this functionary, with a suggestive snarl. He says to this little every-nation gentleman : " What mean your threats, Seiior Montez ? " " Nothing, only if the President at Bogota knows what I know, the Governor of Panama will occupy six feet of our quiet little cemetery within the month, though he will not die of yellow fever. Shall I tell him ? " " Certainly not ! " BARON MONTEZ. 35 " Not if you do as you promised. There is no dan- geF^!'' The American Consul is a nothing ! If it were EngUshmen we were killing — Santos ! that would be different." " Very well, then ! Garrido is arranged for? " " Perfectly ! Besides, these people are mostly un- armed ; they have women and children with them. They will be easy. Likewise, the plunder will be great ! " " And my share ? " *'Will be great also, as I promised." "Ah ! then I will know nothing about it ! I shall go to sleep ! 1 will not be awakened. Buenas noches, Senor Montez ! Tell my people that I piust be disturbed on no account — not for an earthquake — not even if a riot — nothing till to-morrow morning ! " " Very well, I will give your orders ! " laughs Fer- nando. He is about to depart, when suddenly the governor queries : " How will the riot commence ? " ''The Americanos shall do that ! " " The Americanos — how ? " " There are nine hundred and forty passengers ; some one of them is sure to be drunk. Drunken men are quarrelsome ! " With these words Montez departs, whistling to him- self a jaunty air from one of Verdi's first operas — the ones with melody divine in them — for this little gentle- man has a drop or two of Italian blood, that make him a devotee to the Muses. So passing along, he joins the stream of passengers bound for the railway depot. Arriving there, the scene is much the same as when he left it, only there is a greater throng of passengers check- ing their baggage and seeing about their tickets. More ladies and children are going on board the Toboga, and the laughter coming from the saloons of McFarlane's hotel and the Ocean House (a rival hostelry) is louder. One or two drunken Americans are strolling about in front of the depot, and bantering in an alcoholic way some negro fruit hucksters, who are plying their trade with a defiant bloodthirsty vim, for they are waving the knives by which they cut up watermelons and pineapples, in a threatening and ferocious manner. Just back of these stands Domingo and fifty or sixty $6 BARON MONTEZ. of his cronies, and perhaps a hundred more are scattered from the depot, along the lane leading to the Cuinago. Several American ladies, and their husbands and chil- dren, together with one or two Spanish seiioras of the better class, from the town, are looking at the scene, which is made picturesque by torches, as darkness is coming down. It is a peculiar contrast of civilization and barbarism. On one side, the long train of yellow railway passenger cars ; the giant locomotive, that is powerless now because it has lost its steam ; the railroad track ; the puffing steamer at the end of the pier ; ladies and gentlemen of Anglo-Saxon race, in the costumes of Paris and New York, for some of the ladies wear little crinolines, that are just now commencing to make their appearance on the Boulevards and Broadway. On the other side, the flaming torches of the negroes ; their black, swarthy faces ; the waving palms and bam- boos and cocoanuts of the tropics ; the wild gesticulations and jargons of the savage races who are half clothed, and seem to excite themselves not only with />i//^ue and aguar- diente, but with some more subtle yet potent stimulant, for their eyes blaze under the torch glow with some unholy fire. Between these aggregations— one white and civil- ized, one black and barbarous — stands one man — drunk and disorderly — and he, alas ! of the Anglo-Saxon race. He is bargaining with a negro huckster for a slice of watermelon. He takes the watermelon, the watermelon disappears ; the negro holds out his hand, demanding a real. *' Go to the — the — d — devil ! " hiccups the drunken American. ^^ K real, or your life's blood, 6^/'/«^^/^'2Z.'/^'^^^ '-^ Panama and Paris This looks so beautiful to him that he cannot refrain from trying its effect early next morning. Old Domingo, who is older by twenty-four years since the night he assisted to make Montez rich, lives with him, not as servant, but as kind of half-way guest, for the old man is well-to-do. The old pirate knows the buccaneer maxim : " Every man his share ! " And he had had pirate enough in him to compel the moiety of the American's gold due him from Montez. On this he has lived and prospered, and though well over seventy, is still as hale and hearty and old a sinner 52 BARON MONTEZ. as can be found in South America— which furnishes as fine a sample of ruffians as Hades itself. " How now, Senor ? You seem happy ! " is Domingo's greeting, as his mentor saunters on to his portico, having finished his alligator pear, sucked his orange, and drank his cup of coffee. " How now, Senor Montez ? " " Baron Montez ! " corrects the gentleman addressed, severely. '' Caramba ! " " After this, Baron Montez ! I have been ennobled," remarks Fernando, shoving his ornamental pasteboard beneath Domingo's rolling orbs. " Ho oh ! By the great fat Frenchman who is here ?" " Yes, the great Frenchman, who will make us all rich." " Sant Jago ! Another massacre ! There are lots of them here now ! Beauties, too ! Would I were younger ! " mutters the ex-pirate, his eyes glowing with pirate gleam. *' No, not this time. They have more to give us if we let them live ! " returns Montez in grim significance. ■ But the remembrance brought to his mind of that night in 1856, does not seem to please him. He looks curiously at Dommgo, then gives a little sigh of relief ; the appearance of his co-laborer indicates he will be forever close-mouthed. Time has made the rest safe. They are dead ; even the beautiful Indian girl, Anita of Toboga, had become a hag at twenty-five, and died at thirty. Beauty that the sun nourishes most fondly, it soon scorches to death in these tropic climes. So, with a contented smile, Fernando strolls off, to put his new nobility to use. He sends up his card, wuth its coronet, to the Franco- American, and very shortly following it to that gentle- man's parlor in the Grand Hotel, is greeted by a '' Good morning, Baron ! " and an effusive grasp of the hand. For one second he starts, thinking some one else is addressed — it is not easy to get accustomed to nobility over night — then, with" a smile, the "new creation" replies with affable hauteur. Soon after, all others address him as Baron ; none seeming to doubt his title, for these curious reasons : The French, knowing but Httle about him, think he is a BARON MONTEZ. 53 true Spanish Hidalgo. His Colombian confreres, some of 'Whom have known him even when he was an altar-boy in the Cruces chapel, think Fernando has received his patent of nobility in some peculiar manner from le grand Fraii^ais De Lesseps. Besides this, they are very much occupied about a revolution that they have been intend- ing to put in progress, but have postponed, fearing their political shooting and slaying might delay the opening of this canal. They will, however, go at this quite merrily, as soon as Monsieur de Lesseps leaves Panama. So it comes to pass that the ex-mule-boy of the Gargona trail, el muchacho dtablo, becomes accepted by men as Fer- ando Gomez, Baron Montez, and prepares to air his title m the salons of Europe and the Parisian Bourse. CHAPTER VI. JESSIE S LETTER. After this, the time passes pleasantly for the great Frenchman and his party at Panama in picnics, sight- seeing, and excursions around the beautiful bay. They run down to the Pearl Islands, and visit Montez' villa at Toboga. They view the ruins of the old city, and finally, the preliminary reports from the engineers being received, they one day put a little dynamite cartridge into the great mountain of Culebra, which will be the deepest cut on the whole line, and blow out an infinitesi- mal portion of its great side, little Mademoiselle Fernanda de Lesseps touching off the giant powder fuse, and an- nouncing that work has really commenced on the great canal. Then they depart. Monsieur de Lesseps taking steamer from Colon to the United States to obtain the proper concessions from the Panama Railroad Company ne- cessary to his legally carrying out his project. Baron Montez and his Franco-American friend, however, leave the Isthmus direct for France, via Martinique and St. Lucia. At Martinique they stop a day or two, and chance in a local museum to see one of the deadly snakes of 54 BARON MONTEZ. that Island, the fer-de-lance, at which they all shudder, but Fernando turns very white and trembles ; so much so, that little Jessie, holding her governess' arm, says : *' Mademoiselle, why is Baron Montez so afraid of a snake ? " "J/^« Dieu ! my dear," replies the Frenchwoman, " everybody trembles at such hideous, crawling, deadly things. You did— so did I ! " '* But I didn't nearly faint — and he is a man, and I am only a Httle girl ! " And she looks with wondering, child-, ish eyes after Montez, who has moved away from the sight. But they soon leave this island. Two weeks later finds them at that centre of the French universe — the great city on the Seine — where Francis Leroy Larchmont settles down in a beautiful villa on the residential part of the Boulevard Malesherbes near the pretty little Pare Mo7ieeau with his little ward and attendants, and Baron Montez engages fine apartments just off the Boulevard de Capu- cines, where he can be near the Press Club and baccarat, an amusement in which he takes great delight. He soon has hosts of friends, for he spends his money freely, hoping to get return from the same in the near future, with usurer's interest. In this capital of France, De Lesseps, soon after re- turning from the United States, inaugurates his great scheme. The shares are taken by the peasants of France, every village has its subscriber, work is begun in reality upon the canal. Then comes the time of harvest for Montez. He founds the firm of Montez, Aguilla et Cie. — Aguilla be- ing practically a clerk, with a nominal interest — and for it obtains a contract for a portion of the work, at great figures. He circulates between Paris and Panama, dab- bling in contracts, dabbling in shares, and making money in everything, for he knows what takes place on the Isthmus, as well as what goes on in Paris. All the time he is doing this, investors' money is being squandered like water, and the shares of the Canal Com- pany go lower and lower. But Montez loses not. He has become too near the Board of Directors to suffer; he knows too much of the inside politics of the scheme to permit its magnates to let him lose a single franc in this Canal Interoceanic. BARON MONTEZ. 55 Besides, he, by the diplomatic arts of entertaining and o'pen pocket book, is now a boon companion with many a space-writer for the press — a class vigorously strong in shrieking their incorruptibility, and very pliable to the persuasive check book and bank bill, as impecunious classes generally are. Again, he has a few easy deputies of the Corps Le'gislatifs under his thumb, owing to post- poned debts at baccarat and many little suppers at Des Ambassadeurs and le Madrid and the Alcazar. In fact, he is a power at which the directors of the canal stand aghast, and would strike down were their enterprise upon a basis sufficiently solid for them not to fear what Fer- nando Baron Montez' ready tongue might hint to stock- holders already becoming suspicious. But stock and preferences in a losing concern, to make their owner rich must be converted into money of the realm and more substantial securities. To do this it was necessary to find purchasers ; and to beguile, allure and dazzle investors to transferring their gold to his pockets ; for shares in the Canal Interoceanic had been Montez' first, great and continuous effort ever since he had determined the enterprise must fall, even of its own weight. His ready tongue, unscrupulous assertion, and, if necessary, direct and brilliant lies, had gained many listeners and some believers, notably among them one Bastien Lefort. This person, curiously enough, was a noted miser, who had lived to sixty, saving his accumu- lations, adding to them franc by franc the product of not only a life of toil, but a life of absolute deprivation. Beginning as a clerk in a small booth, he had saved and pinched till he had become a shopkeeper himself. Then he had squeezed and accumulated till he was worth nigh on to a million francs, each one of which meant not so much profit, but so much stint and discomfort and pri- vation — even to lack of fire in winter and lack of food in summer. This hoarded treasure he did not dare invest in real estate — even city property sometimes depreciates. He did not dare deposit in a bank — banks fail — but kept his gold in safes of his own and the strong box of the miser. All his life Bastien Lefort had said he was looking for an investment — one that would be sure as the Bank of France 56 BARON MONTEZ. but would return large usury — such an investment he had been seeking for forty years. Within three months after Baron Montez strolled into his little inagasin de gants, on the Rue Rhwli, to buy a pair of gloves, the Panama philanthropist found it for him. Among those gathered into these Panama ventures is Francois Leroy Larchmont. From the year 1880 to 1887 Fernando has been gradually involving the wealth of the Franco-American, who has become his bosom friend ; and not content with this, has succeeded in draw- ing into the financial maelstrom that is now running over Paris, the fortune of the orphan, the little girl, that her weak guardian had in his charge, and which should have been secured in consols and collaterals undoubted. So one day, towards the close of the year 1887, Montez thinks it time to speak, for all these years the loveliness of this graceful girl — this American beauty — this fairy beau- ty, who is still in the schoolroom, but nearly a woman, has appealed more and m.ore to him. He has looked upon it, and says it shallbe his. He has whispered to himself : " These people are in the toils. I am wealthy as a New York nabob ! I will marry this beautiful creat- ure. The loveliness of the Baroness Montez shall make her a queen in the fashionable circles of this gay capital, and I shall be one of its princes— I, Fernando Gomez Montez, once mule-boy on the Cruces trail ! " Thinking this, he one day calls upon his bosom friend, Francois Leroy Larchmont, who is just admiring a newly purchased picture, for this gentleman is a dilettante in everything artificial, and dabbles in paintings, scores of unproduced operas, and manuscript verses and novels ; dealing with the prodigality of a connoisseur, and the lack of knowledge of an amateur. " I want to speak to you, Larchmont, n?i afutgo, on a particular subject." '*Yes, but first admire the beauty of this picture, Montez. The head is that of a newly discovered Madonna ! " " Ah, but not as beautiful as Mademoiselle Jessie, your ward." "Why, Montez, she is but a child ! " " Nevertheless it is time she should marry. I wish to speak to you of her \ " BARON MONTEZ. 57 Turning from his painting, in his nonchalant way, Fran9ois Leroy Larchmont hears words that give him a fearful shock. He remonstrates. Then the easy tone of the friend changes to the voice of the master ; and before the interview is over, this weak and untrustworthy creature has given such hostage to his enslaver that makes him ashamed to look his lovely charge in the face ; for he knows in his feeble heart he has done the act of the dastard and the coward. "Now while this has been going on, several times in the years between 1880 and 1887, Frangois Leroy Larch- mont has received visits from his younger brother Harry Sturgis Larchmont, who has come over from the United States when his collegiate course has been finished, and has assumed, in his off-hand, American style, the role of a relative, and the good comradeship of a friend, to his brother's pretty ward. This has been done in the easy manner of youth. Once, on his visit after his college days at Yale, he had upheld her against guardian and governess in a way that had endeared him greatly to Miss Rebel. It was one Fourth of July. Harry had come in the dusk of the day to dress for the banquet in honor of the United States at the American Minister's. He is talking to his brother in the salon which looks out upon a little courtyard made pretty by flower beds, and a graceful kiosk in which the gentlemen sometimes take their breakfasts. Harry has just remarked, *' Frank, I'm sorry you sent a regret to Mr. Washburn's invitation. It looks as if you had forgotten George Washington and fire crackers." " My dear Henri," lisps the elder brother, " I have promised to listen to a new manuscript comedy. Faran- dol, le Jeujie, its author, thinks I have influence with the management of the Palais Royal, and may get it pro- duced. As for fire-crackers and such juvenile nuisances — " Here he gives a great start, and cries, '^Mon Dieu! What is that ? Dynamite ? " For a loud explosion has just come from the garden, and Parisians, in grateful memory of the Commune, al- ways fear dynamite and Anarchists. " I rather imagine that is a little piece of the Fourth of ^S -BARON MONTEZ. July," laughs Harry, who has made Miss Severn a patri- otic present of fireworks and fire-crackers this very morning. A moment after, Jessie, with defiant face that is slightly grimed with gunpowder and burning punk, and a bunch of fire-crackers in her hand, is dragged into the room by her governess and an attendant maid. *' In spite of my protestations and commands she has exploded them in the bed of daisies, Monsieur Larch- mont," says the duenna, looking with reproving eyes upon her charge who stands pouting but unrepentant. ^'Mon Dieu! My white daisies ! " cries Mr. Frangois ; then he remarks sternly : " This is most unseemly ! Jessie, don't you know it is wrong to disobey your governess — wrong to make a noise, and disturb me with explosions?" '' Not on the Fourth of July ! " mutters the child. Then her eyes flash, and she cries, " I will fire them ! I'm American ! I ain't French, and I will fire them ! " and em- phasizes her declaration by defiant eyes and stamping feet. " Oh, this is terrible ! " murmurs Mr. Larchmont. "If you would permit me," suggests the instructress, " I think Miss Jessie should be put to bed." ''What ! for being a patriot?" cries Harry, intruding on the scene. Then the young man goes on firmly, "Jessie shall celebrate the Fourth, and I'll help her." "But, Henri," expostulates his brother, "the gens- d'armes will arrest me. It is violating a municipal ordi- nance," " Then you pay the fine, or I'll do it for you," returns the younger man. "You go off to your comedy reading, and Miss Jessie and I'll make a patriotic night of it." " Will you ? " cries the girl ; then she comes to him and puts her arms about him, after the manner of trusting childhood, and whispers, " I knew you would. You're a Yankee, so am I." " You bet ! " says Harry, giving way to slang in this moment of patriotic enthusiasm. " You and I, Jessie, are the only Americans in this house." " Well, have your will ! " repHes the older brother. " I'll go off to the reading and get away from the noise. —Jes- sie, come and kiss me good-night." " I won't," returns Miss Jessie. " You would have let BARON MONTEZ. 59 Mademoiselle put me to bed if it hadn't been for Harry — Harry's my chevalier.'' *' You won't kiss me," mutters the child's guardian. Then he astonishes his brother, for he goes to his pout- ing charge, and says : '' I beg your pardon, little one. Won't that get a kiss ? " " Yes, two ! " answers Jessie, and gives him three very sweet ones, for her guardian is very kind to her, and gen- erally lets her do her will except when it disturbs his e^^e or puts him to trouble. So Harry and Jessie go off to their fireworks, where, amid revolving pin-wheels and colored lights, the little lady in her dainty Parisian dress looks like a miniature Goddess of Liberty, though Mademoiselle, her governess, shakes her head ; and the maid, whose white apron has been soiled and her cap put awry, and her skin some- what bruised by the struggles of Miss Rebel when she had been dragged in, mutters : " If I had my way with Miss Vixen, I'd smack her good." After this Miss Jessie looks upon Harry Larchmont as her Court of Appeals from all decisions against her childish whims. And when, some time after, a pretty trinket of gold and jewels, commemorative of this event, comes to her from New York, it does not tend to make her forget her Fourth of July champion. This very year, when he is making a little tour of Eu- rope, Miss Severn has renewed her trust in him, and they have grown greater friends. The exquisite beauty and grace of the girl have appealed to him, as they would to any man, though she has seen but few, being still kept at her studies much closer than Mr. Harry Larchmont thinks is necessary. For, on leaving for his German trip he has remarked to his brother ; " Why not bring Jessie over to America, put her in society, and marry her to an American ? " " She is too young for society." " She is not too young to have a good time. Give her a chance at a beau anyway. Whether she marries or does not, just at present is of no particular moment ; but her enjoyment is ! " " I will consider your suggestion, Henri," says the brother, a wistful expression coming over his face, but his answer is cut short. 6o BARON MONTEZ. " Confound it ! Don't call me Henri, Do you sup- pose I would ever call you Fran9oi3 ? " bursts in the younger brother. Then he goes on quite dictatorially, " Frank, be an American, and a man. Leave this foreign place where you are dawdling away your existence ! " " And what are you doing in America ? " " Nothing I " •* Am I not doing the same in Paris ? " says the other, with an attempt at a laugh, which changes into a sigh as he continues, " I wish I could leave Paris ! " '* What keeps you ? " " My interests." " Pooh ! your fortune is well invested, and you can sell this pretty little villa at a profit, even now, notwith- standing Panama shares have gone down ! " answers the younger brother. So, departing upon his journey, he thinks he will have an hour in Dresden, a week in Vienna, three days in Berlin, and get home for the first Patriarchs' ball of the season in New York. Curiously enough, this young gentleman, though a man of fashion, has a good deal of action in him ; though nominally he does nothing, he is energy itself, killing time by athletics, hunting, pigeon shooting. He is very good at some of these sports, which, if they do not exactly elevate a man, at least keep his muscles in con- dition, and his mind active. He has been a great foot- ball player, and is still remembered in his college as a wonderful half back. He leads the German at Del- monico balls, with a vigor that startles the languid youths who perform in the cotillon ; and young ladies afe very happy to have his strong arm as a guide, and his potent elbow as a guard from collisions in the dance, for he has not yet forgotten an old football frick. His innocent looking elbow has many times caused young Johnnie Ballet, who dances so recklessly, and Von Duzen Van Bobbins, who prances about so carelessly, 10 v/onder why they so suddenly get extremely faint and out of breath, when they come in contact with his deft elbow. But they have not played on college cainpi^ and do not know how effective this elbow has been in put- ting many a Princeton rusher out of play, and many a Harvard slugger on the ground, in the desperate scrim- mages of the football field. BARON MONTEZ. 6l It is late in 1887 when Harry Larchmont goes away for his German tour, in the careless, easy frame of mind that he has been wont so far to run through life. Three days afterwards, at Cologne, he receives an agitated letter from Miss Jessie Severn, praying him to come to her for heaven's sake, before he leaves for America. Its end gives this easy-going young athlete a start, for it closes : " Dear good Harry, as you love the inemory of your ^t'other, don't let your brother know I wrote this. Your frightened to death Jessie." CHAPTER VII. " NO ! BY ETERNAL JUSTICE ! " The words are blotted with tears, and the whole appearance of the epistle is such as to give the young man a shock. He throws this off, however, remarking to himself," Pshaw ! she's only a child in short dresses yet ! 1 presume she must have been naughty. Even if she has been disobedient she needn't fear Frank, he is gentleness itself to her." But this evasive kind of reasoning does not suit him. After communing with himself fifteen minutes the action of the man comes into play. He was dawdling by the Rhine. He dawdles no more. And in one hour afterwards he is en route to Paris, as fast as an express train can take him. Arriving there next day, he goes over from the Gare du Nordy as fast as a fiacre can take him, to the pretty little villa on the Boulevard Malesherbes. "Ah, Monsieur Henri, you have come back from Ger- many," says the footman, opening the door, a grin of welcome upon his Briton face, for this young gentleman has endeared himself to the servitor by many fees. " Yes, you need not mention the matter to my brother, if he's at home," says Mr. Larchmont, " but 1 presume he is out ?" " I think he is at the Bourse.'' *• At the Bourse ? That is rather astonishing." *' Oh, he goes there every day, now," answers the man. 62 BARON MONTEZ. " The dickens ! " ejaculates Mr. Harry, and this infor- mation would set him wondering, did not another idea fill his mind. He says : *' Step upstairs, please, Robert, and tell Miss Jessie that I am here, and would like to see her." " Mademoiselle Jessie is at her lessons," replies the footman, " and I don't think the governess cares to have her disturbed." ** Never mind about the studies, Robert, I have only a few hours to stay in Paris. Just show me up to the school- room, and I will break in upon the lessons, and help her with them," returns Mr. Harry, and walks up to find Miss Jessie and get a surprise. As he opens the schoolroom door and looks in upon her she is prettier than ever, but not wearing out her blue eyes over books, though there is a troubled look in them. She springs up with a cry of joy, and, as he gazes at her, he notes that during his few days' absence an occult change seems to have come over the girl. Her short skirts had seemed to him her proper costume ; now as she glides toward him they appear too juvenile. She utters a warning " Sh-h-h ! " and puts a taper finger to her lips, then whispers : " My governess is in the next room. She thinks I am studying, but I was thinking — thinking ; " next gasps, " Harry ! Dear good Harry! God bless you for coming to me!" and the pathos in her manner, and look in her eye, tell him that a great trouble has come into this child's life. " I am here," he says, astonished at the girl's manner, "to do anything you wish, Jessie ; but it seems to me you should have applied to my brother, who is your guardian, before coming to me." ** It is he who makes me come to you ! " " My brother ? " " Yes I Your awful brother is using his authority as my guardian. After the horrid manner of the French, he has betrothed me." " Be — betrothed you ? " stammers the young man shortly in intense surprise. "Yes, to that odious Baron Montez ! " " What, that old stock-jobber ? He's twice your age ! You are but a child." ** I am seventeen, and, in spite of training, an American BARON MONTEZ. 65 seventeen ; and that is old enough to know that I never will marry Baron Montez ! " cries Miss Jessie, angry at the suggestion of youth, more angry at the thought of Montez. " Oh, ho, you love another ! " laughs the young man, who tries to take this matter quite easily before the ward, though great indignation has come to him against the guardian, " No, I love no one ! I hate everyone. Rather than ma¥iy Fernando Montez," falters the girl, her lips grow- ing pouting and trembling, " I'd sooner go into a convent." Whereupon the gentleman says, in offhand manner : " Pooh ! Pooh ! No convent for such a beauty as yours." " And you will save me, even though your brother uses his authority as my guardian? " " Certainly ! " says the young man. " Swear it ! " "Very well, you have my promise," returns Harry who is loath to take the affair seriously ; " but I don't think you need have troubled me. Had you spoken to my brother, he would have most assuredly not tried to coerce your inclination in such a matter." But here Jessie's words bring astonishment, disgust, and displeasure against the man he calls brother, to the gentleman facing the excited girl. She whispers: "I have told your brother ! I have told him that I loathed, I detested, I hated the man he wished me to marry ! " " And he did not listen to you ? " " No ! He said it was absurd for me to rebel against his lawful authority. That I must, and I should, do what he told me." " He did, did he ? Then hang him ! I swear you shall not ! " cries the young man, for something in Jessie's manner tells him she is speaking from her heart. "You shall only marry the man you want to ! " So he leaves the young lady reassured, and strolls over mto the Pare Al'onccau (his brother not having returned from the Bourse)^ and communes with himself in the ex- quisite little pleasure ground, looking at the beautiful ?iaumachie and rock grotto, and would reflectively toss stones into the lake, did not a gend''ari7ie restrain him. 64 BARON MONTEZ. And all the time his eyes grow more determined, and the indignation in his heart against his brother increases. Then he strolls back to the house, and Mr. Francois Larchmont being at home, walks into that gentleman's library, with a very nasty look upon his countenance. "You here.?" says Frank, starting up with unnerved face. " This is a surprise ! " *' Yes," says the other nonchalantly. " In Cologne I received a letter from Miss Severn — I suppose we must call her Miss Severn, since you consider her old enough to marry. By the by, I think you had better have her governess put her in long skirts; she's been growing lately." While he has said this, notwithstanding Harry's man- ner, Frank's face has become white. He suddenly asks : " Did that stop your journey ? " " Certainly ! An appeal from a woman would stop any man's journey. I have seen your ward. She tells me what I find it very hard to believe — that you wish to exercise your authority as her guardian, to coerce her into marrying this South-American stock-jobber, and gambler — Baron Fernando Montez. Is it true ? " *' It is," falters the other. " I wish her to marry him ! " Then he goes on suddenly, noting the look of disgust upon his brother's face, '- Don't misunderstand me, Henri, it is necessary. She has now arrived at the age when it is best for her — for any young woman — to enter the world ; and to do that in France, it is necessary for her to take a husband." ' '' But not such a husband. " " He will give her title." " Pooh ! titles are common here." " He will accept her — and this is the important part of the matter — without a dot. " *' IVithozit a dot? Why, she is worth a million dollars in her own right." " Nevertheless she will have no dot / " " What do you mean ? gasps the other. Then Frank bursts out hurriedly : " Don't look at me so. I have lost Jessie's money in speculation." " Then you must make it up out of your own fortune. You are a very rich man ! " " I was." BARON MONTEZ. 65 '' Good heavens I have you lost that also ? " " Yes, it is involved. At present I could not, if called upon, hand over Miss Severn's fortune, which was en- trusted to me by her father's will, when I gave her to her husband. In France it would be demanded at once, if any one else except Baron Montez married her." " And you have lost all this money — in what ? " *' In the shares of the Panama Canal, I think." *'ln the Panama Canal, you think V sneers Harry. Then he scoffs : '^ You — you are the only American wlio has not made money out of that giant fraud ? You are so afraid of being thought a man of business, that you have let that swindling South American make you bank- rupt ? " "1 — I do not know — my affairs are involved. I have entered into so many speculations with Baron Montez." " Ah, he has your money ! " cries the New Yorker. " He has Miss Severn's money. He has got the dot be- fore. Now he will take the bride, generous man, with- out it, but she shall not marry him ! I have sworn it!" " Great heavens ! You would ruin me ! " " I would ruin everyone to save this girl's happiness ! " " You — you love Jessie ? " gasps Frank with twitching lips. " As a brother ! That is all. But it is well enough to see she is not wronged by you ! " " You forget I am her guardian ! " " And I am her protector ! She shall not marry Baron Montez ! I'll prevent it with my fortune — with my life ! Do you suppose I will stand by and see a lovely, beauti- ful, young American girl sacrificed on the altar of your speculations ? No ! By eternal justice ! " " You will save her ? " asks Frangois Leroy Larchmont, a curious wistful look coming into his uncertain eyes. " Yes ! " " God bless you ! " cries the man, and sinks down into a chair, sobs in his voice, but no tears in his eyes. *' Why do 5^ou thank me for saving her from your friend ? " " He is not my friend ! I hate him ! I fear him ! I loathe him now, but I am in his power ! But thank God ! 66 BARON MONTEZ. Henri," and the weak man has seized his brother's hand and wrung it, and is muttering to him : *' Thank God ! you will save her — save her from marrying him — save her for me — for me — I love her ! " " Not for you ! " cries the other, breaking away from his brother's grasp, and an awful contempt coming into his soul. "You are not worthy of her. You love no one but yourself, and that not well enouj^h to fight for your own hopes, desires or loves ! When you re- nounced your country, you gave up manhood ! But 111 save her for some good American ! " With that he leaves his brother, who has sunk down, and is cowering away from Harry Larchmont's indignant eyes, and goes up to again see the lovely girl her guard- ian's weakness would have sacrificed, and tells her to be of good cheer, that he will save her. " Only one thing — procrastinate this matter," he adds. Then he queries wistfully, " Can you be woman enough to procrastinate ? Are you still a child ? " " Why not defy him ? With you by my side I'll snap my fingers in Montez' face." "That," says the young man, wincing a little, "will require a sacrifice from me." For he knows, if matters come to a climax now, to give this girl her fortune and keep his brother's name in honor before the world, will sadly cripple his means and make him comparatively poor. Looking in his face the girl says suddenly: "No, I see it is important. I am not child enough to ask too much. 1 will do as you say." " In every way ? " " In every way." " Then procrastinate. Get my brother to bring you over to New York for this winter ; put off the wedding till the spring— till the autumn. If Frank demurs, tell him you will write to me, and that will settle the affair, I think." " You — you are going away ? " falters the child, grow- ing pale at the thought of his desertion. " Yes, I am going away." " Why ? " " To save you." " How ? " 6^ " To find out more about this man, who has my brother in his power — this Baron Montez of Panama and Paris. Here he is surrounded by all the Panama clique ; there is no rent in his armor that I, an American, unaccustomed to the ways of Paris, can pierce. If he has a flaw in his cuirass, it is at the other end of the route. I am going to Panama. Please God, I'll nail him there! I leave this evening for England. Then to New York, to arrange several matters of business, for if the worst comes to the worst " " You will permit me to be sacrificed ? " *' Never I It is for that I go to New York." " But if the worst comes to the worst, you " " It is for that reason that I go to New York. Don't ask me questions. Only know that I am forever your protector. What my brother has forgotten, I will do ; his dishonor shall be effaced by me." " His dishonor ! " cries the girl. " What do you mean ? " " Nothing that I can tell you ; but good-by, Jessie. Be sure of one thing— that you need never marry Baron Montez of Panama ! " " God bless you ! " cries the girl, and gives him the first kiss she has ever given him in her life. But it is the kiss of the child, not of the woman. The kiss of grati- tude—the kiss that beauty gives to the knight that risks his life to save her from the giant Despair. Twenty-four hours after, Harry Larchmont sailed for New York on the Efruria, and a month later his brother brought his ward to America upon the Gallia; but Baron Montez said to him, " Remember, ^non ami, you must bring her back by Easter. Spring-time in France will suit Mademoiselle Jessie's beauty." Four weeks after the Larchmonts arrive in New York a letter comes to Fernando, from a co-laborer of his in the Panama scheme, one Herr Alsatius Wernig, who is in America on some joint business, and will shortly pro- ceed to the Isthmus. This epistle contains some curious news about the Larchmonts. After reading it the Baron's face grows grave for a moment, then it suddenly lights up. Montez, with a 68 BARON MONTEZ. jeering smile, exclaims : "What ? That idiot who plays football and takes the chance of being killed /.s'r fun l'' A moment later he remarks meditatively : " There is always- danger in a lunatic ! " and an hour afterwards sends a carefully prepared cablegram to Herr Alsatius Wernig in New York. BOOK III. '*"' The American Brother. CHAPTER vni. THE stenographer's DAY-DREAM. \Exiracts from the diary of Miss Louise Ripley Minturn^ n A TYPEWRITER, I believc ? " " A stenographer," I reply as sternly and indignantly as an Italian tenor accused of being in the chorus, " stefwgrapher ! " " Oh, excuse me, mademoiselle ! Certainly, a stenog- rapher — that is what we require. What salary will you ask to go to Panama, to act as stenographer? " *' To Fan-a-ma ? " There is an excited tremolo in my voice as I say the words, for the proposition is unex- pected, and the distance from New York perhaps awes me a little. " Panama, where they are constructing the great canal ? " *' Certainly, mademoiselle. It is because they are building the great canal that I ask you the question." " What will be the cost of living there ? " *' That I hardly know. It will not be small, I am cer- tain, judging by the bills of expense I have seen from there." "Very well," I reply, American business tact coming to me, " if I go, we will say thirty dollars a week, and expenses." " You are able to take stenographic dictation in Eng- lish ? " 70 BARON MONTEZ. "Certainly." " And in French ? " " Yes ; but that will be ten dollars a week more." " And in Spanish ? " " Perfectly. Ten dollars extra." " Ah," remarks the little clerk, who is half American and half French, " your charges are high ; but every one gets their own price — on the Isthmus." Prompted by this ingenuous remark, and actuated by American business greed, I ejaculate hurriedly : " I also take dictation in German, which will be another ten dollars a week." " Let me try you," says the little man ; and in six min- utes he has given me English, French, Spanish and German dictations, to my astonishment, and I have taken them down, and read them correctly, much more to his amazement. " Your work is perfectly satisfactory in every lan- guage," he replies. *' You will come on the terms you mentioned ? " " That is, sixty dollars a week, and expenses there and back," I say, " if I go." " Ah, you are not certain you would like to leave New York ? You have ties here ? " " None," I reply, a tremble getting into my voice, as I think of my loneliness, and of my mother, who passed away from me but a year before. "You would like time to consider the proposition?" suggests my interviewer. ■ Looking around upon the dingy copying establish- ment of Miss Work in Nassau Street, the girls slaving over interminable legal documents on their type-writing machines, and thinking of the drudgery that has been, and still promises to be my lot, I say desperately : " Yes, I will go ! " " Very well. Remember, you must sign a contract for a year from to-morrow. That is till the twentieth of March, 1889." " Yes." " You must be ready to start the day after to-morrow." "Certainly. Only, of course, as I said before, my contract includes a first-cabin passage to and from Panama." BARON MONTEZ. 7I " It shall be as I have promised. Call at the office of Flandreau & Co., No. 33^ South Street, to-morrow at eleven, for your instructions and contract. Good after- noon — Miss Minturn, I believe your name is?" "Yes; make out the contract for Louise Ripley Min- turn. But you have not told me the name of the person by whom I am to be employed." " Montez, Aguilla et Cie., Contractors Construction, Panama. You can ask about them at the agents of the canal, Seligman & Co., bankers, or the French Consul — are these references satisfactory ? " " Perfectly," I gasp, overcome by the solidity of their sponsors as I sink back, before my Remington, over- whelmed with what I have so hurriedly, and perhaps rashly done, as the dapper little clerk, bowing with French empressement to Miss Work, and with a wave of his hand to the other typewriting ladies, leaves the apart- ment. Montez, Aguilla et Cie. Where have I heard the name before, and Panama — the place my mother used to talk to me about when I was a child. My mother — all thought leaves me save that I have lost her forever, and tears get in my eyes. A few minutes after, time having brought me com- posure, I step over to Miss Work, a sharp Yankee busi- ness woman of about thirty-five, and tell her my story. " I supposed you would go, Louise," she says kindly, *' when 1 recommended you for the position. I am very glad that you have got a situation that will enable you to save money. There is, I understand, plenty of it on the Isthmus. I presume you are anxious to go home and make your preparations." Then she settles with me for the work I have done, at the same time telling my companions of my good fortune, which makes a buzz in the room even greater than at lunch-hour, as they come clustering about, to congratu- late, and wish me a pleasant journey and good luck, and all the kind wishes that come into the hearts of generous American girls, which even toil and drudgery cannot harden. Just as I am going, Miss Work, after kissing me good- by, remarks : " Be sure and make every inquiry about your employers, and under whose protection you are to 72 BARON MONTEZ. go out to Panama, as the journey is a long one ; though I know you are as well able to take care of yourself as any young lady who has been in my employ, and I have had some giants, both physical and intellectual." " Thank you. I'll remember what you say," I reply, and turn away. As I reach the head of the stairs, there is a patter of light feet after me, and my chum and roommate, Sally Broughton, puts her arm around my waist, and says : " I shall be at home early, too, Louise dear, to help you pack, and do anything I can for you. But," here she whispers to me rather roguishly, " what will Mr. Alfred Tompkins say to this ? " " Say ! " reply I. " What business is it of Mr. Alfred Tompkins, what Miss Louise Ripley Minturn does ? " *' Notwithstanding this, Lll bet you dare not tell him." *' Dare not tell him ? Wait until this evening, and see me," I answer firmly, as I step down the stairs on my way home to East Seventeenth Street, just off Irving Place, where Sally and I have two rooms — one a parlor and the other a bedroom, for joint use, that we call home. Notwithstanding my defiant reply, as I am being con- veyed by the Fourth Avenue cars to my destination, Sally's remark has not only set me to thinking about Mr. Tompkins, one of the floorwalkers and rising young employees of Jonold, Dunstable & Co., but also of — some one else. Mr. Tompkins' blond face fades from my imagination. His yellow hair becomes chestnut ; his English side whiskers transform themselves into a long, drooping, military mustache ; his pinkish eyes become hazel, flash- ing, and brilliant. His slightly Roman nose takes a Grecian cast. His wavering chin changes into a firm, strong, and dominating one. His five feet eight, grows into six feet in his stockings. In short, Mr. Alfred Tompkins of Jonold, Dunstable & Co.'s dry-goods estab- lishment, expands into Harry Sturgis Larchmont of the United and Kollybocker Clubs, the leader of cotillons at Newport, Lenox, and Delmonico's, the ex-lawn-tennis champion and football athlete. I go into a day-dream of stupid unreality, and call myself — idiot ! What have I, one of the female workers of this earth, to do with BARON. MONTEZ. 73 this masculine butterfly of fashion, frivohty, luxury, and athletics ? Still— I am a Minturn ! He dances with my first cousins at Patriarch balls. He takes my aunts down to dinners in Fifth Avenue resi- dences, and plays cards with my uncles at the United and Kollybocker Clubs ; a second cousin of mine is one of his chums ; though they all apparently have forgotten thay have a relative named Louise Ripley Minturn, one of Miss Work's stenographic and typewriting band at No. 135^ Nassau Street, New York, in this year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and eighty-eight. My drifting away from my fashionable relatives had been easy : the drifting was done by my father, when he married my mother. He had no money. Neither had my mother, and so they drifted. The thought of my mother brings Panama into my mind, and I give a start, for it calls back the sad tale she had told me so often, in my early girlhood, though before her death it had become even an old story to her : the statement of the unrecorded fate that befell her parents upon the Isthmus, no detail of which was known to her, she being a girl of sixteen at that time, at a school near Baltimore. Her father, George Merritt Ripley, and her mother, Alice Louise Ripley, were returning from Califor- nia. Enthusiastic letters said they came laden with the gold of the Sierras, to bring all the blessings of wealth and love to the one daughter of their heart. They had arrived in Panama in September, 1856. Since that time, no word had ever come of their own fate, or that of the treasure they brought with them. Their daughter had tried to discover — the lady princi- pal of the school at which she was, had made repeated efforts to learn of George Merritt Ripley and his wife from the American Consul and the agent of the railroad company — but could never discover anything save that my mother's parents arrived at Panama by the steamer George L. Stevens from San Francisco and then dis- appeared. The lady principal, however, was kind ; and my mother, having no near relatives who would assume the care of the orphan, had remained at her school — partly as pupil, 74 BARON MONTEZ. partly as music teacher — until Martin Minturn had met her, after he was in his middle age, and had already, during the War of the RebelHon, lost his fortune, which he had invested in Southern securities. Turning from the world, perhaps embittered by his losses, he had become one of that class least fitted to battle with its storms and currents — a scientist and phi- losopher. He was professor of chemistry in a Baltimore university, and came three times a week to lecture at the young ladies' seminary in which my mother lived a tame and passionless existence as instructor on the piano. Mutual sympathy for the misfortunes that had come upon them brought them together. They loved and married. Inspired by his love for her, my father had determined to again take up the battle with the world. He had brought his wife with him to New York, and after eight years of heart-breaking disappointment as an inventor and the maker of other men's fortunes, had died, leav- ing my mother with very little of this world's goods, and burdened by myself, a child of six. My father before his death had drifted entirely away from his rich and fashionable relatives in New York, who once or twice, in a half-hearted manner, had tried to aid him, and then had finally shut their doors against the man of ill fortune who only came to them to borrow. Too proud to ask assistance from those who had turned their backs on her husband, my mother again de- voted herself to teaching, this time in a New York school. Here she had lived out her life for me, giving me all she could obtain for me by parsimony and self-denial — a first-rate education, for which God bless her ! my dear mother, who has gone from me ! At last she died, and I, left alone in this world at eighteen, was compelled to put my talents into bread and butter. A fair musician, I was not artist enough to become celebrated. A poor music teacher is the veriest drudge upon this earth. I had studied stenography, and was an accomplished linguist. That seemed a better field. To the moment of writing this, it had been a hara one, though the previous year had been to me generally a pleasant one, and I had made a friend — not a fair- weather friend, but an all-weather friend — Sallv Brough- BARON MONTEZ. 75 ton, who sat at the next typewriter to me, at Miss Work's. Mr. Alfred Tompkins of Jonold, Dunstable's establish- ment, and Mr. Horace Jenkins of the rival dry-goods house of Pacy & Co., had also become known to me. These gentlemen are chums, though the haughty Tompkins, whose business place is on Broadway, rather looks down upon his Sixth Avenue factotum. Mr. Jenkins greatly admires Miss Sally Broughton. Mf! Alfred Tompkins — but why should I mention a matter that hardly interests me ? My life is so lonely, I must talk to some one at times — though Mr. Tom.pkins says, I am told, that I have a great and haughty coolness in my manner. I have also seen, met, and spoken to the athlete, who fills my mind, at the house of his uncle, Larchmont Dela- field, the great banker. Here the conductor of the Fourth Avenue car dis- turbs my meditations by calling out in stentorian tones : " Twenty-third Street ! " With a start, I remember Seventeenth is my destina- tion, and jump off the car, reflecting that my musings have cost me an unnecessary promenade of six Fourth Avenue blocks. While making this return trip, my mind goes wander- ing again. It seems, now that I am about to leave New York, to take me to the object that has most interested me in it — the frank hazel eyes, that have appeared to be always laughing, when I have seen them, and the grace- ful athletic figure of Harry Sturgis Larchmont. So getting to the little bedroom and parlor en suite that Miss Broughton and I call home, I take out my diary, and in its pages go back to the time I first met him. His uncle, Mr. Larchmont Delafield, had had a good deal of stenographic and typewriting work done at Miss Work's office. Mr. Delafield, being anxious to complete some very important correspondence, was confined to his house by an attack of gout. I was sent to his house on Madison Avenue, one evening, to take a dictation from him. Arriving at his mansion about half-past seven o'clock in the evening, I found evidences of an incipient dinner party. A magnificent woman and very charming girl, 76 BARON MONTEZ. both in full evening dress, preceded me up the grand staircase. The footman was about to show me after them into the ladies' reception room, when I told him my call was simply one of business with his master. A moment after, I found myself in the study of the banker, who was apparently in one of those extraordinary bad tempers, peculiar to gout. '^ Shut the door, John ! " he thunders at the domestic, *' and keep the odors of that infernal dinner out of my nostrils. I long for it, but can't have it ! " " Yes, sir," replies the footman, about to retire. " Stop ! " cries the banker. " Tell my nephew, Harry Larchmont, to come up and see me at once. Has he arrived yet ? " " Yes, sir, with Mrs. Dewitt and Miss Severn." " Of course — of course — with Miss Jessie Severn ! the girl with the plump shoulders that she shows so nicely," says the old gentleman, with a savage chuckle. '' Tell him to come up — that I want to see him instantly, though I won't keep him long." A moment after, Mr. Harry Sturgis Larchmont stalks lazily into the apartment, in faultless evening dress, decorated with a big bunch of lilies of the valley, and looking the embodiment of neat fashion. " Harry, my boy," says the banker, " I want to see you for a moment." " So I was just told. I'm awful sorry the doctors won't permit you to join us," returns the young man, giving the elder a hearty grip of the hand. " Don't speak of the dinner," mutters old Delafield. *' My mouth waters at the thought of the canvas-back ducks now. But it is of this I wish to speak to you. You must occupy my place, as host, with Mrs. Delafield. I know I can leave my reputation for hospitality in your hands." " I'll do my best, sir," replies young Larchmont. Then he gives a sudden start of horror, and ejaculates : " Great goodness ! My taking your place as host entails my taking that fat dowager, Mrs. John Robinson Norton, in to dinner." " I'm afraid it does, my poor boy," grins his uncle, " but I spoke to my wife, and pretty little Miss Jessie Severn sits on the other side of you. You have only to BARON MONTEZ. 77 turn your head to see her blue eyes and plump shoulders. She has also exquisite ankles ; you should have kept her in the short dresses she came over in from Paris a month ago. You're kind of half guardian to her, ain't you ? " runs on the old man. " It is necessary to drape a young lady's ankles to bring her out in society," returns Mr. Larchmont. " Miss Severn is now ou^. Mrs. Dewitt is chaperoning hi&r. Besides," the young man goes on, playfully, "you're too old for ankles. At your time of life the ballet!'' *' If you didn't know, Harry, that you were my favor- ite nephew, you wouldnt dare such wit," chuckles the uncle. Then he goes on : "I suppose you feel so fman- cially comfortable already, that you never think of my will ? " " Thank God, I never do, dear old uncle ! " says the young man, earnestly. " Besides, if you marry Miss Severn, she'll have a pretty plum," goes on old Delafield. At this the nephew suddenly looks serious, and I think I detect a slight sigh. Somehow or other, as I look at Harry Sturgis Larch- mont, I begin to dislike the pretty little Miss Jessie Severn. I had seen this gorgeous masculine creature, when I was sixteen and enthusiastic, at a football game, and had gloried in his triumphs on that brutal arena. Interest begets interest, and as the young gentleman turns to go, he casts inquiring gaze upon me. This is answered by his uncle, in the politeness of the old school, as he says : " Miss Minturn, let me present my nephew, Mr. Harry Larchmont." " Miss Minturn has kindly consented to act as my stenographer this evening, on some important business, that cannot be delayed ; " interjects the elder man, as the younger one bows to me, which I, anxious to maintain my dignity, return in a careless and nonchalant manner. A moment after, Mr. Larchmont has left the room. While his uncle chuckles after him sotto voce : " A fine young man ! I wish that French brother of his, Frank, the Parisian la-de-da, was more like him — more of an American ! " Then he snaps his lips together, and says : " To business ! " 78 BARON IMONTEZ. " But your dinner ! " I suggest hurriedly, for I have somehow grown to sympathize with the old gentleman's appetite. " My dinner ? My dinner consisted of oatmeal gruel, which was digested two hours ago, thank Heaven ! To business ! *' cries the old man. With this, he commences to dictate to me a number of letters on some very important and confidential transac- tions. As we go on, these letters approach a climax. I have been at work nearly two hours, when an epistle to the president of a railroad, who, he thinks, is attempt- ing some underhand game with its preferred stock- holders, makes the old gentleman intensely angry. His face gets red ; as he continues, his letter, from being that of a business man, becomes one of vindictive and bitter animosity. His asides are, I am sorry to say, strong almost to the verge of profanity. His hands tremble, his voice becomes husky, and as he closes the letter with ''Yours most respectfully," Larchmont Delafield utters a savage oath, and rising from his chair, after two or three attempts at articulation that end in gasps and gurgles, falls back into it. I am alone with a man ap- parently stricken with an attack of apoplexy, brought on by his own passions. I hastily open the door. The noise of laughter and gayety downstairs, comes to me, up the great staircase. The perfume of flowers, and the faint music of the orchestra, tell of revelry below. . I hesitate to make this scene of gayety one of con- sternation and sorrow. I hurriedly press the button of an electric bell. A moment after, a footman coming to me, I say : " Please quietly ask Mr. Harry Larchmont to come up to his uncle. Mr. Delafield wishes to see him imme- diately." "I can do that easily, now," replies the man, "The ladies are in the parlor, and the gentlemen are by them- men in the dining-room." I wait at the head of the stairs. Mr. Larchmont com- ing up, says : " My uncle wishes to see me, I believe." " No ! " I reply. " No ? — he sent for me." " He did not send for you — /did." BARON MONTEZ. 79 " You ? " The young man gazes at me in astonish- ment. " Yes ; I did not wish to disturb the gayety of the party below. Your uncle has had a seizure of some kind — a fit ! " " Thank you for your consideration," he answers, and in another second is by the side of the invalid, and I looking at him, admire him more than ever. '*This gentleman of pleasure has become a man of action. " Some cold water on his head — quick ! " he says sharply. 1 obey, and he lifts his uncle up, and proceeds to resuscitate the old gentleman by means that are known to athletes. While he is doing this, he says rapidly to me : '' Ring the bell, and give the footman the notes I will dictate to you." As I do his bidding, and sit down ; never relaxing his efforts to bring consciousness back to his uncle, the young man dictates hurriedly : "Dear Sir: Come to Mr. Larchmont Delafield's, No. 124^ Madison Avenue, at once. Pie has had an attack of epilepsy or apoplexy — I think the latter. Simply ask for Mr. Delafield. There is a dmner party below. Yours in haste, Harry Sturgis Larchmont." " Triplicate that letter," he says. '' Send one to Dr. George Howland, another to Dr. Ralph Abercrombie, and the third to Dr. Thomas Robertson ; you'll find their ad- dresses in that directory." As I finish these the footman comes in. '' Not a word of this, John," Mr. Larchmont says, " to anybody ! Take these three letters, go downstairs, and give them to three of the servants. There are half a dozen in the kitchen. Tell them they must be delivered, each of them, within ten minutes — and a five-dollar bill for you." A quarter of an hour later, the young man has partially revived his uncle. A moment after, one of the doctors summoned stands beside him, and says that the attack is not a serious one, and that the old gentleman will be all right with rest and care. "Very well," replies Mr. Harry ; '-if that is the case, I So BARON MONTEZ. will go down to the dinner party. No one has been alarmed — not even Mrs. Delafield — and all owing to the thoughtfulness of this young lady, to whom I tender my thanks." He bows to me and goes down to the festival below, while I gather up my papers and dictation book, and make my preparations for departure, A few minutes afterwards, I come down the great stair- way also, and stand putting on my cloak in the hall. As I do so, through tapestry curtains, that are partially open, I see, for the first time in my life, one of the great reception rooms of a New^ York mansion. Lighted by rare and peculiar lamps, each one of them a work of art, adorned by numerous pictures, statues, and costly bric-a- brac from the four corners of the earth ; embellished and perfumed by hothouse plants and flowers ; and made bright by lovely women in exquisite toilettes, and men in faultless evening dress, the scene is a revelation to me. But I linger only on one portion of it. In front of a large mantel-piece stands Harry Larch- mont, talking to a young lady who is a dream of fairy- like loveliness in the lace, tulle, and gauze that float about her graceful figure. She is scarcely more than a child yet, but her eyes are blue as sapphires, her chin piquant, her laugh vivacious, her smile enchanting. I am compelled to admit this, though for some occult reason I do not care to do so. For one short second I compare the face and figure in the parlor with the one I see reflected in the great hall mirror beside me. A flash of joy ! It seems to me I am as pretty as Miss Jessie Severn. Perchance, if I wore the same exquisite toilette, my lithe figure and bru- nette charms would be as lovely as her blonde graces. Perhaps even he Here fool's blushes com.e upon me. His voice sounds in my ear. It says : " I have excused myself for a moment from my guest^;, to again thank you. Miss Minturn, for your presence of mind and thoughtful action this evening. The night is stormy — you have been kept here late." Then he turns and directs the man at the door : " John, call up the carriage for Miss Minturn." He holds out a hand, which I take, as I stammer out my thanks, and looking in his eyes, I know he means BARON MONTEZ. 8l what he says. Perhaps more — for there is something in his glance that makes me, as I go out of the massive oaken doors and down the great stairs, and pass through the Httle throng of waiting footmen, and take the equi- page his care has provided for me, grow bitter, for the first time in my life, at my fate. As I ride to my modest rooms in quiet Seventeenth Street, I clinch my hands, and mutter : " Had my mother's pa/ehts not disappeared upon that Isthmus of Panama, their gold might have made me the guest, instead of the stenographer. At dinner he might have gazed upon m.y pretty shoulders — not Miss Jessie Severn's." Fool that I am, I think these things ! For I have admired this young gentleman's victories on the foot- ball field, and his presence of mind and action more this evening. " He seems to me a man who might make a woman — " But I stop myself here, and gasp : " You are crazy I Typewriter ! you are crazy ! " Reaching home, I take out my clicking Remington, and over the correspondence of Mr. Delafield the banker, Miss Minturn the stenographer tries to forget Mr. Harry Larchmont the man of fashion. CHAPTER IX. THE ANGEL OF THE BLIZZARD. Two days after, I received a brief note from Mr. Larchmont, which simply stated he v/as taking care of his uncle's minor matters of business, during that gentle- man's recovery, and enclosed to me a check for my services as stenographer, the amount of which, though liberal, was not sufficient to make me think it anything more than a simple business transaction. Then one week afterwards came the blizzard, that crushed New York with snow-flakes, that stopped the elevated railways, and blocked all transportation by Sur- face cars ; that confined people in their houses on the great thoroughfares, as completely as if they had been a hundred miles away from other habitations. That dear delightful, fearful blizzard, in which I nearly died. 6 82 - BARON MONTEZ. On Monday morning, March 12th, I am awakened by Miss Broughton, who is peeping out through the case- ments. She crys : " Louise, wake up ! This is the greatest storm I have ever seen." " Nonsense ! It's spring now," I answer sleepily. "Yes, March spring! — cold spring! Jump out of bed and see if it's a spring atmosphere," returns Sally, with a Castanet accompaniment from her white teeth. 1 obey her, and the spring atmosphere arouses me to immediate and vigorous action. In a rush I start the gas stove, and, throwing on a wrap, walk to Sally's side, and take a look at what is going on in the street. " Isn't it a storm ! " suggests Miss Broughton enthusi- astically. " A beautiful storm ! A storm that will stop work. A storm that will give me a lazy day at home ! " " You are not going down to the office } " 1 say. " Through those snow banks ? " she replies, pointing to six feet of white drift on the opposite side of the street, in which a newsboy has buried himself three times, in an unsuccessful attempt to deliver newspapers at the basement door. " Certainly," I reply. " Impossible ! " she says. " You will make a nice, lazy day of it, at home with me. We will do plain sew- ing. You shall help me make my new dress." Sally always claims me on lazy days. In my idle moments, I think I have constructed four or five costumes for her. This time I rebel. " If you are not going to work, I am ! " I say decidedly. " Through those drifts ? " " Certainly I " I reflect that I have some documents Miss Work has promised this day. They are legal ones, and admit of no postponement. " Well, you may be able to get to the office," says Sally, " if you are a Norwegian on snowshoes, or an angel on wings." This angel idea is a suggestion to me. '' The ele- vated is running ! " I answer, and point to the Third Avenue, down which a train is slowly forcing its way. The station is only a short distance from me. I will take the elevated. Surface cars may be blocked, but the elevated goes through the air. Miss Broughton does not reply to this, though I pre- BARON MONTEZ. 83 sume she has her doubts about the feasibility of my plan, for the storm is coming thicker and heavier. But breakfast over, she steps to the window, looks out, and says disappointedly : " Yes, the Third Avenue trains are still running. I presume you can go, but how about getting back again this evening? " " Pshaw ! " I reply, " it will be all finished in an hour." A few minutes afterwards, well equipped for Arctic travelling, I, with a desperate effort, get out of the door, and for a moment am blown away by the wind. I had no idea the storm was so severe. But I struggle on, and finally reach the Third Avenue station, to climb up its icy stairs and be nearly blown from them in my ascent to the platform. From this, 1 finally struggle on board a down-town train, which contains very few people. The guards have lost their usual peremptory tones. They do not cry out in their bullying manner, " All aboard ! Step on lively ! " as they are prone to do on finer days, but are trying to get warm over the steam- pipes in the car. The blizzard has even crushed them ! We roll off on our journey, amid gusts of wind that nearly blow us off the track, and flurries of snow that make it impossible to see out of the windows. In about quadruple the usual time, however, we creep alongside the City Hall station platform. It is now half-past nine. I alight, and am practically blown down the stairs, though a snowdrift at the bottom receives me, and makes my fall a soft one. Then I fight my way along Park Place and into Nassau Street. The storm seems to get stronger and fiercer, as I grow more and more feeble. Midway I would turn back, but back is now as great a distance as forward ; and one end of the journey means the comfortless railway station, where perchance no trains are leaving now. The other terminus is Miss Work's office, where there will certainly be a fire, company, and occupation. By the time I shall be ready to go home, the storm must be over. So I struggle on, and fight my way through snowdrifts, to finally arrive, in an almost exhausted condition, at 135 J Nassau Street. A long climb up the stairs, for the building is not pro- vided with an elevator, and I find myself on the top floor, 84 BARON MONTEZ. which is- occupied by Miss Work's establishment. Here, to my astonishment, the door is still locked. Having a pass key, I a moment after enter, to my consternation, an empty room, and a cold one. Miss Work, who is punc- tuality itself, is not here. I reflect, she will undoubtedly arrive in a few minutes. She must come. While thinking this, for the atmosphere does not per- mit of delay, I am hurriedly making a fire in the grate, which has not been attended to over night, the man in charge of the building apparently not having visited it this morning. Fortunately there is plenty of fuel, and I soon have a roaring fire and comfort. Then I move my typewriter where I get the full benefit of the cheery blaze, and sit down to my work. Time flies. No one comes. Having nothing to eat, I pass what should be my lunch hour over the keyboard of my Remington, thinking I will have my task finished and go home the earlier. But the papers are long ones, and being legal, require considerable care and accuracy, and as I finish the last of them I look up. It is nearly dark. My watch says it is only three o'clock, but the storm, which seems to be even heavier than in the morning, causes early gloom. I look out on the wild prospect. As well as I can determine, in the uncertain light, glancing through flurries of snow, not one person passes along sidewalks that are usually crowded with humanity. What am I to do ? I am hungry ! I am alone ! Even in this great building I am the only one, for no sound comes to me from the offices down stairs, that at this time in the day are usually filled by movement, hurry, and activity. Sally will be anxious for me. Though, did not my appetite drive me forth, I believe I should attempt to make a night of it in the great deserted building. I should probably be frightened, though I should barricade myself in. I should probably see ghosts of lawyers and legal luminaries who have long since departed, from these their old offices, to plead their own cases before the Court of Highest Appeal. But hunger ! I am more afraid of hunger than of ghosts. Besides, it is so lonely. I decide to force my path to Broadway. On that great thoroughfare there must be some one ! I lock the door, BARON MONTEZ. 85 come down the stairs, step out on the street, and give a shiver. During the day it has grown much colder, though in the warm room I had not noticed it. My first step is into an immense snowdrift. Through this I struggle, and reaching the corner of the street am literally blown off my feet, fortunately towards Broad- way. Thank Heaven ! it is a very short block, though it seems to me an eternity before I reach the thoroughfare that yesterday was the great artery of traffic in New York, but now, as I gaze up and down it, seeking some human face, seems as deserted as a Siberian steppe. The shops are all closed, even the drug stores. There are no passing vehicles, no struggling pedestrians. The traffic of the great city has been annihilated by this pro- digious storm. Telegraph wires, that last night were overhead, have many of them fallen. There is nothing for me but to struggle onward. I turn my face to the north — up town — where three miles away Sally is waiting for me, with a warm fire, and I hope a comfortable meal. Towards this 1 force my way — for a few minutes. Then I trip over a broken telegraph wire that lies in the snow. As I stagger up again, for a moment I am not certain which way I am going. Good Heavens ! if I should turn back on my tracks ? The wild snowstorm about me dazes me, confuses me, benumbs me, and makes me stupid. The strength of the wind forces me to hold my head down ; I try to see which way I have come by my tracks in the snow — but there are none ! The gusts are so violent, my footsteps have been obliterated almost as I made them. Desperate, I look around me, and see, through snow flurries, the light in the great tower of the Western Union Telegraph Building. It seems awfully far away, but gives me my direction ; and I struggle northward once more, staggering through drifts — sometimes falling into them, no voice coming to me — alone in a living city that is now dead — killed by the snow. Darkness has fallen upon the streets, and enshrouds me. Still I fight on. There are hotels farther up the street. If I could get to one — if I could get anywhere to be warm ! I have passed the Western Union Building, I think — I am not sure — my faculties are too benumbed for cer- 86 BARON MONTEZ. tainty. All I know is, that I am cold — that I am be- numbed — that I am hungry — that 1 am weak — that the snowdrifts grow larger — the snow flurries stronger — the piercing cutting wind more fierce and merciless — and, above all this, that I am unutterably sleepy. I dream even as I struggle, and then I cease to struggle, and only dream — beautiful dreams — dreams of what I long for — dreams of warmth and comfort, of bounteous meals and generous wine. And even as this last comes to me, something is poured down my throat — something that burns, but vivifies — something that brings my senses to me with sudden shock. I hear, still in a half dreamy way, a voice that seems familiar, say : "■ Pat, that is the worst whiskey I have ever tasted ; but I think it has done me good, as well as saved this young lady's life." " By me soul, it has saved mine several times to-day ! " is the answer. Then the other voice, the familiar one, goes on : " Do you think you can get us up town ? " " Faith, I've been half an hour coming from the Western Union Building. You may bless God if I make the Astor House alive." " Then somewhere, quick ! This will keep her warm." I feel the burning stuff pour down my throat once more, and give me renewed life and sentiency. Strong arms lift me into a cab, a rug is wrapped around me. I open my eyes. Beside me sits a man, to whom I falter, my teeth still chattering, "I — I was lost in the snow." Even as I say this, the familiar voice cries : " Your tones are familiar. Who are you ? " I answer : " Miss Minturn." And the voice cries : " Good heavens ! Thank God I saw you from my couptf in time ! " And I, still dazed, gasp : " It is Mr. Larchmont, is it not ? " " Yes : don't exert yourself, you are weak. In a few minutes we will have you at the Astor House, warm and comfortable. Have no fear." And somehow or other, his voice revives me more than the whiskey. I am contented— even happy. But the storm is still upon us ; and though there are BARON MONTEZ. 87 two Strong horses attached to the coupf^ fighting for their own lives through the deepening drifts, it is nearly an hour before lights flash on the sidewalk, and I am assisted into warmth and comfort and life once more, in the Astor House parlor. There 1 thaw for a few minutes, during which he sits looking at me, though I am dimly conscious he has given some orders. Having entirely regained my senses, I faster : '' I must go home ! Sally will be anxious about me ! " "Where do you live ? " he inquires shortly. '■'■ Seventeenth Street." " Then you could not live to walk home to-night, and no carriage could take you there. There is but one thing for you to do. The housekeeper will be here in a mo- ment. She will take you to a room. Go to bed, and take what I have ordered for you." <' What is that 1 " " More whiskey — but it is exactly what you want. In two hours they will have dried your clothes, and you can come down to dinner with — with me." His "with me " is rather embarrassed and diffident. I do not reply, and Mr. Larchmont almost immediately continues : " Or, if you prefer it, the dinner can be sent up to your room. " I shall feel quite lonely — it will appear ungrateful. " I will be happy to meet you in the dining-room," I answer. A moment after, everything he has arranged is done. I go with the housekeeper, a kindly woman of large build and comfortable manner, and find myself excellently taken care of. Two hours afterwards, feeling like a new being, I enter the dining-room. It is only half-past seven, and Mr. Harry Larchmont is apparently waiting for me. It is a pleasant, though, perhaps, to me, embarrassing meal. The room is crowded with people that the storm has forced to take refuge in the hotel — Brooklyn men, who cannot get across the East River ; Jersey men, who are cut off from home ; and down-town brokers, who are un- able to reach their up-town residences. The place, in contrast to the dreadful dearth of animal movement in the streets outside, is full of life, bustle, and activity. " I think I have arranged very well as regards dinner," 88 BARON MONTEZ. remarks Mr. Larchmont. "We'll have to be contented with condensed milk, but we shall have some Florida strawberries, and Bermuda potatoes and asparagus." As we sit down, he says suddenly : *' Who is Sally ? " ^' Sally ? Ah, you mean Miss Broughton ? " " Yes, the young lady you said would be anxious about you." '* Oh," I answer, " Miss Broughton is my chum ! " Then we get to chatting together, and I give him a few Sally anecdotes that make him laugh. As the meal goes on I grow more at my ease, and become confidential, and tell him a good deal of my life, my work, and my battle with the world. This seems to interest him, and once, when I am busy with my knife and fork, I catch his eyes resting upon me, and they seem to say : " So young ! " But I won't have his sympathy ; so 1 make merry over my business struggles, and tell him what a comfortable little home Sally and I have. Altogether, it is a delightful meal for me, and I am not sorry that Mr. Larchmont lingers over it. He grows slightly confidential himself, over his coffee, explaining to me that he has had some very important telegrams to receive from Paris ; that the up-town wires were all down, and he had been so anxious about his cables, that he had contrived to get as far as the main office of the Western Union Company ; that he thanks God he suc- ceeded in doing so, though no cablegrams had come to him. " Because," he concludes, looking at me, " if it had not been for the cables, you might have been still outside in the snow ! " A few minutes after, he startles me by saying, it seems to me with a little sigh, " I must be going ! " "Where — into the storm ?" I gasp, amazed, "Only as far as French's Hotel, just across in Park Place. " I know "just across in Park Place " means three long squares — an awful distance, which might kill a strong man in this driving storm. " You must not go ! " I cry. " Under the circumstances, I must," he replies, and rises, to cut short remonstrance. Then I go out with him from the dining-room into the hall, a blush on my cheeks, but a grateful look in my eyes, for I know it is to BARON MONTEZ. 89 save me any embarrassment this night that he will make his desperate journey through snowdrifts and pitiless wind. We have got to the ladies' parlor now. He turns and says earnestly, " 1 have made every arrangement for you, I think, Miss Minturn, not only for this evening, but for to-morrow, in case you should be compelled to remain here. I am more than happy, and bless God that I met you in time." And I whisper : '' You have been to me the — the angel of the blizzard ! " At which he smiles a little, and his grasp upon my hand tightens as he bids me good-night. Then he is gone into the storm. I go to my room ; a fire is burning brightly there. Sleep comes upon me, and happy dreams — dreams in which I make a fool of m)^self about " the angel of the blizzard." The next morning everything has been arranged for me. After a comfortable breakfast, I discover that the storm has ceased, but the streets of New York are still impassable. Then T get a newspaper, and learn that the indefatigable reporters have somehow got informa- tion of nearly everything. Glancing over its columns, I give a sigh of relief. In the long list of accidents, escapes, and deaths on that twelfth day of March, 1888, I note that my adventure has not been reported, though I read that French's Hotel had been so crowded that people had slept upon the billiard-tables and floors of that hostelry, and one up- town swell had been obliged to content himself with the bar-counter. I guess who the up-town swell was who did this to save me any embar- rassment or anxiety, and I bless him ! I bless him again, when, in the afternoon, I find that the streets can with difficulty be navigated, and the porter coming up, informs me that a carriage has been ordered to take me, as soon as possible, to my address in Seven- teenth Street. At home, I am welcomed by Sally, with happy but anxious eyes. She cries : " Oh, Louise ! I thought you were dead ! " " Oh, no," I reply nonchalantly, " I did a day's work." " And then ? " 9© BARON MONTEZ. '* Then I went to the Astor House." "Did you have money enough with you for that? I hear they charged ten dollars a room." " That bill is liquidated," I return in easy prevarication. *' But you had a carriage ! I noticed a carriage drive up with you. How will you ever pay the hackman ? They charge twenty-five dollars a trip." " Never mind my finances. I am home safe once more. And you ? " I answer, turning the conversation. " Oh, I nearly starved ! I would have starved entirely, had I not forced m.y way to the grocery store. 1 have been living on crackers and cheese, bologna sausage, and tea without milk." " I have been enjoying the ' fat of the land.' You had better have gone down with me, Sally. You would have had a delightful day," I continue airily to my pretty chum, who looks at me in partial unbelief. Then the next morning comes a joy — a rapture— a sur- prise ! It is a bunch of violets tied with violet ribbon, with the name of a fashionable florist emblazoned on it, and with it this card : (^^yyyA^f'?rLe^cne she showed Harry Larchmont that day upon the Colon — the one even now she is carrying in her pocketbook. 170 BARON MONTEZ. She gasps— she almost staggers ! "Why, what's the matter, dearie ?" cries Mrs. Winter- burn. " Nothing, but a great surprise ! Something that I may want," says the girl suddenly, a kind of horror corn- ing into her eyes, — " want you to bear witness to. See ! " She has opened the pocketbook. *' Compare these two — the one found in this deserted room — in the unused bureau — it is the duplicate ! It is the picture of Alice Ripley, who disappeared on the Isthmus over thirty years ago ! " And she holding them before the astonished woman's face, Mrs. Winterburn says, also growing pale : ^' Oh, goodness gracious ! They are just the same ! She was a relative of yours ? " "Yes, she was my mother's mother," whispers Louise. ** She and her husband were robbed here of a fortune which should have been mine — at all events, it disap- peared. This picture I am justified in keeping ! But say nothing of it — not even to your husband." "Why, Silas can help you in the matter ! He knows everything about the old Isthmus in those days !" gasps Mrs. Winterburn. " Until I tell you — not a word to him ! I must con- sider." The girl's hand is laid warningly upon the woman's arm, as Aguilla coming in, says : " Hurry, my dear young lady, or you will miss the boat ! " " Yes," answers Louise. " Thank you for your hospital- ity ! " and goes down the path falteringly, leaning upon Mrs. Winterburn 's arm. So falteringly that Aguilla remarks to his wife : " Is sickness coming upon that poor child so soon? See, even now she looks pale — her limbs tremble. Can the yellow fever have found even her youth and beauty ? " and sighs, turning away his face, for he has seen many a young face go down before Yellow Jack in this town of Panama. But as they approach the landing, Louise starts and gives a jeering laugh, for Mrs. Winterburn has whispered to her : " Do you think he is the murderer ? " " He ? Who ? " '* Why, Aguilla, the man in the house/' BARON MONTEZ. 171 " No ! " cries the girl. " He is as kind-hearted a Frenchman as the sun ever shone on ! He has an honest heart ! Though I think there is another who is not so scrupulous ! But for God's sake, keep silent ! My future depends upon your promise ! " "Very well ! " says the lady, *' though I'd like to have ^9ld my husband! " " I'll tell him if necessary," answers Louise. Then they board the steamer, which ploughs its way back over the blue water to Panama, making the trip in about an hour ; and all this time Miss Minturn is in a brown study, no flight of flying fish attracts her, no big shark draws her gaze — her eyes look out on the blue water but see it not. She is thinking : " He divined ! He knev/ ! I'll tell Harry Larchmont ! I'll beg his pardon ! I'll tell him what a fool I was! I'll ask his aid, and if Montez is guilty, I'll help him throw the villain down ! " Now she becomes desperately anxious to see this man she has turned her back upon. She throws away mock modesty. Excitement gives force to her character. Soon after they reach her home in Panama, Martinez says : " You are not tired ; your eyes are very bright ; your face has plenty of color, Senorita Luisa ; why not take a walk with me and my daughters, Qn the Battery ? Everybody goes there on Sunday afternoons, to hear the band play. It costs nothing." " Willingly ! " cries the girl, for sudden thought has come to her : " If everybody goes to hear the band play, Harry Larchmont will be there ! " She . can speak to him. She can apologize and ask his advice and aid. So they all stroll off to the Battery, which is but a step for them, and climbing up on the old ramparts, that have the city prison beneath them, they see the town in its glory — the white dresses of the ladies, the gay colors of the negroes, the fashions of Paris displayed in ancient setting of rare beauty ; blue water on one side, the old town on the other ; underneath, prisoners wearing out their lives in sepulchral heat ; and overhead, gay Panama. The crowd is brilliant as a butterfly and light and airy as the blowing breeze. The military band is playing, and the scene is radiant with French color and French vivac- ity, but it has tender Spanish music, for the band is South 172 BARON MONTEZ. American, and Spanish music always brings love to young girls' hearts. So there are tears in Louise's brown eyes, and she is looking anxiously for Harry Larchmont, when sud- denly there is even more than the usual French buzz about her, and she sees a beautiful woman in the latest mode of Paris, sweeping with bold eyes and flaunting step, and brazen look through the assemblage. The eyes of all are turned upon her, and she is laughing and flirting her parasol about her, and crying: ^^Bichon! Viens icl ! Bichon ! Vite ! "to 2l French poodle that has been shaved in artistic manner, and is led by a maid beside her. She is talking to a gentleman whose form the girl recognizes and Starts as she sees his face, for it is Harry Larchmont, and he has shut off all admirers from this lady's side, and is talking to her, making play with his eyes, as if he loved her. Then there is a whisper in the girl's ears. It is that of old Martinez the notary, who knows everybody and says : " Turn away your heads, girls ! It is that awful French actress — that fearful Mademoiselle Bebe de Champs Klysees, the heroine of a hundred loves, the che7'e amie of Baron Montez, the financier." But Miss Minturn does not turn away her head ! She looks straight «at the gentleman, who on seeing her is about to speak, but as her eyes gaze at him, his eyes droop, abashed, a flush of shame runs over his cheeks, that for one moment have become pale, and his lips tremble a little, though they force themselves to try to speak, as Louise Ripley Minturn, the stenographer of Seventeenth Street, New York, cuts Harry Sturgis Larchmont, of fashion and Fifth Avenue, dead — dead as the yellow fever ! CHAPTER XVn. VADALIA CARDINALIS. Then Mademoiselle de Champs felysees and Harry Larchmont pass on, the crowd gathering about them with hum and chatter and merry voices, and screening them from her view ; and the girl, who has thoroughbred BARON MONTEZ. I 73 pluck, and whose eyes have looked the gentleman very- straight in the face, suddenly feels faint, and thinks the sun has gone out of the heavens, for love, trust, and faith in humanity have gone out of her heart also. She notes, in an abstracted way, that Martinez is mak- ing some little joke upon the appearance of the French- woman : for though he has told his daughters not to look, tfie old notary's eyes have devoured the beautiful yet too highly colored picture La Champs Elysees has made. After a little the young Martinez ladies suggest going home, and Louise is very glad, and departs with them to her lodgings, carrying her head quite high and haught- ily, though she has a heart of lead and iron within her wildly panting bosom. But she has left a picture in the eyes of Harry Larch- mont that he will never forget ! That of a girl with a light straw hat, the ribbons floating in the breeze above her lovely head — a graceful figure posed like a statue of surprise, one little foot advanced from under white floating draperies, the other turned almost as if to fly. A sash of blue shining silk or satin, knotted by a grace- ful bow about a fairy waist ; above it, a bosom that pants wildly for one moment, and then seems to stop its beating, as her hand is wildly pressed upon its agony. But the face ! The noble forehead ; the true, honest, hazel eyes, which flash a shock of unutterable surprise and scorn for debased mankind, and nostrils panting but defiant; pink cheeks that grow pale even as he looks upon them ; rosy lips that become slowly pallid, the lower trembling, the upper curled in exquisite disdain ; the mouth half open, as if about to speak — then closed to him for ever ; and over all this the infinite sadness of a woman's heart for destroyed belief in what she had considered a noble manhood. And his heart stops beating, too, for even as he looks at her comes a sudden rapture, then a chill of horror — rapture, for at this moment he guesses that she loves him; horror, because he knows she will love him no more. Turning from this picture of pure womanhood, he sees beside him the woman for whom he has lost all hope of gaining what he now knows has been his hope in life. For the shock of her disdain has told him something a false pride had made him fight against believing ; that he, 174 BARON MONTEZ. Harry Larchmont of the world of fashion, loves Louise Minturn of the world of work with all his heart and all his soul. Though Bebe de Champs Elys^es utters her latest piquant drolleries imported from Paris, and tries her best to amuse and allure this handsome young American who strolls by her side, and whom she supposes rich, for he has squandered money on her, she finds him but poor company. He contrives, to reply to her, but her flaunt- ing affectations seem more meretricious to him than ever. After a little time he excuses himself to Mademoiselle Bebe, and leaves this fascinating siren surrounded by a crowd of gentlemen admirers, for her notoriety, as well as beauty, have given her quite a following of high-life worshippers in this town of Panama. As he goes away the band is playing one of the Span- ish love songs Louise had sung to him in the moonlight on the Colons deck, and he mutters to himself, crushing his hands together, " JNIy dear little sweetheart of the voyage ! Fool that I was ! I have lost her for a fan- tasy ! " Which is true, for no love of Bebe de Champs Elysees had ever entered Harry Larchmont's heart. He had gone into this affair rather recklessly, simply seeking information that he thought she could give, and for which he was willing to pay. As to its moral sense, he had given it very little consideration. It had simply occurred to him that by it he might" destroy his adversary. In New York he would doubtless have hesitated before embarking in a matter that might bring scandal upon his name ; but here, in this far-off little place, which has the vices of Paris, without even its slight restraints, he had dismissed this aspect of the affair from his mind, with the trite remark : " When you are in Rome, do as the Romans do ! " So Baron Montez not being on hand, Harry Larch- mont has obtained a passing introduction to this siren of the Boulevards upon her arrival. He has made his approaches to her quite cautiously, and with all the secrecy possible, not wishing to form part of the petite gossip of Panama. Having spent quietly considerable money and considerable time in trying to insinuate himself into her good graces, he has succeeded in gaining perhaps BARON MONTEZ. I75 more of Mademoiselle Bebe's regard than he himself would wish. Her confidences, for he has been compelled to ap- proach the matter very deftly, have been so far only con- fidences as to what kinds of jev/elry she likes most. Jn fact, a great deal of her conversation has been in regard tp the wondrous string of pearls that a merchant has brought from the Isle del Rey^ that are, as she expresses it, " dirt cheap ! " For this young lady has an eye to business, and knows that the traders of Panama have not as fine diamonds as those of Paris, yet in pearls they sometimes equal, sometimes excel them. Her promptings and petitionings have been so per- sistent, that Harry knows that the gift will probably win from her the information that he wishes, and that when the pearls of Panama adorn Mademoiselle Bebe's fair neck, she will perchance in a gush of rapture open her pretty lips, and tell him what she knows, if he pumps her deftly. So this very Sunday he has this string of pearls in his pocket, having purchased them the evening before, and was about to present them to her. But even while he is arranging a little coup de theatre that may unloose the siren's tongue, she has insisted upon his visiting the Battery in her company ; for this lady likes to make public display of her conquests, and Larchmont is a very handsome one. Some sense of shame being on him, even in this free-and-easy, out-of- the-way place, Harry has declined her invitation. But Bebe's temperament will not brook denial even in little things ; she has turned upon him and said : " Man a77ii, are you ashamed to be seen by the side of the woman to whom you express devotion ? If I thought that, my handsome Puritan, I should hate you — you have never seen Bebe's hate." Under these suggestions he has yielded, and been led very much like Bichon, her poodle, in triumph to the Battery of Panama, there to meet what fate had pre- pared for him. But now shame changes this man's ideas. He mut- ters to himself : '^ The cost is too great ! I will not win success at the degradation of my manhood ! though. Heaven help me ! I fear I have already paid the bitter price ! " 176 BARON MONTEZ. From this time on he visits Mademoiselle de Champs Elysees no more. But his desertion produces a curious complication, and brings the siren's undying hate. Among the gentlemen who pay their devotions on the Battery this afternoon to Mademoiselle de Champs Elysees, immediately after Harry's departure, is young Don Diego Alvarez, who has lingered in Panama, waiting for the steamer to carry him to Costa Rica. This fiery young cavalier still hates, with all his Spanish heart, Mr. Harry Sturgis Larchmont. His regard for him has not been increased by his apparent success with' the coming celebrity at the theatre. He has learned that Larch- mont is a clerk in the Pacific Mail, and sneers at him as such, and laughs to himself : " What will be the effect of my news on the mercenary diva ? " So he strolls up to her, and enters into conversation, remarking : " I am delighted, Mademoiselle Bebe, to see at least one woman who admires a handsome man, even if he has no of/ier attractions." " You don't mean me ? " laughs the lady in gay unbelief. " Certainly, you ! " " And who is the gentleman? Of course I've never seen him yet*' *'Why, that American, Sefior Larchmont." " Oh, Henri," says the young lady in playful, easy familiarity. *' Henri has plenty of ot/ier attractions. Besides good looks, he has money ! " " Money ? " sneers the Costa Rican. *' Yes, money ! " " But not much money." " He has enough to promise me the great string of pearls that have just come from the islands ! " " What ? This clerk in the Pacific Mail Company, at a beggarly salary, buy the great string of pearls ? " scoffs the Costa Rican. " This clerk in the Pacific Mail Steamship Company ! Whom do you mean ? " gasps the fair Bebe, growing pale. "The Seiior Harry .Larchmont." " Impossible ! " *' You can convince yourself of the truth of what I have said, easily enough to-morrow, or this evening, if you are in a hurry," laughs Don Diego. BARON MONTEZ. 1 77 * And he promised me that string of pearls, the mise- rable ! He played with my heart ! " gasps the lady, plac- ing her hand where that organ should be, but is not. "A clerk in the Pacific Mail — an accountant — a beggarly scribbler ! But I will investigate ! Woe to him if it is true ! " • Being a woman of her word, not only in affairs of the heart but in matters of business, this lady makes inquiry and finds that what she feared is true ; and would have vented her rage upon Mr. Larchmont had he appeared before her. But Harry keeping aloof, she changes her tune in reference to this gentleman, for she is an incon- stant creature, longing most for what she has not. She mutters : " The poor fellow ! I frightened him away by my extravagance. I would have forgiven his being a clerk, he is so handsome ! " But the pearls being still in her head, she thinks she would like to take a look at them ; that, perhaps, as Baron Montez is coming, he may be induced to purchase them ; and she goes to the shop of Marcus Asch the jeweller near the Cabildo, and asks for the baubles that she will gloat over and admire. But they inform her that the pearls are gone. " Gone ? Absurd ! They were here last Saturday ! " "Yes, but Senor Larchmont bought them." "J/ cussed philanthropodists.' If the book had been published last summer and Sheriff Harvey Whitehill had circulated about fifteen hundred of them through the country, he would been re-nominated and re-elected without a struggle." ''Full of incident and excitement,^^ —NEW YORK HERALD. ''The Popularity of Mr. Gunter will now he greater than ever,^^ —TACOMA GLOBE. ^' A story that will keep a man away from his meals.^^— OMAHA BEE.