Читать книгу The Gilded Man - Smyth Clifford - Страница 9

Table of Contents

There is in Bogota a street, the Calle de Las Montanas, that meanders down from the treeless foothills of the gray mountain ridge overlooking the city, and broadens out into a respectable thoroughfare before losing itself in the plaza upon which, facing each other diagonally, stand the venerable Catedral de Santa Fe and the National Capitol. This street, resembling the bed of a mountain stream, in the first half mile of its course runs through a huddle of lowly houses whose thatched roofs and white adobe walls seldom reach more than one story in height. The inhabitants of this district are called, in playful irony, by their more prosperous neighbors, “paisanos,” fellow-citizens; or else, scornful of compliment, “peons,” day-laborers. Here dwell the teamsters of the city, the washerwomen, the tinkers, the runners, the street-sweepers, the beggars, the proprietors of small tiendas, the bootblacks, the vendors of sweets—a mixed army of workers and idlers, who gain a livelihood, as chance favors, by their hands or their wits.

The peon of Colombia is an interesting possibility. He is more Indian than Spanish, but he has developed certain novelties of feature that belong to neither of these parent races. He has something of the savagery of the one, and the romance of the other; yet he is quite unlike Spaniard or Indian, and when these have disappeared from the mountain republic the peon will take their place. To-day he lacks the energy needed for self-assertion. There have been occasions, however, when this peasant of the Andes has taken the lead in a popular uprising and, although he has usually failed to win what he was after, his reserve of power promises well for the future of his race.

It was the politically awakened peon who was in evidence on a certain morning in Bogota, not so very long ago, at the upper end of the Calle de Las Montanas. The sign of his awakening was to be seen in an unusual commotion among the good-natured “paisanos” of the street, from which an onlooker might reach the astonishing conclusion that some sort of “demonstration” was under way. Revolutionary or otherwise, there are people, it would seem, who engage in these affairs simply through a desire for sociability. Their warlike declarations are really not unamiable. An Andean revolution, indeed, may not be more terrifying than a “fiesta,” and is never so noisy. In either case, these people make common cause of their joys or their grievances; and it was unquestionably a sudden burst of neighborliness that brought the inhabitants of the Calle de Las Montanas together on this particular morning.

An army of bootblacks was assembled in the middle of the street. Bogota, ancient seat of the Muyscas, City of the Mountains, is, for some unknown reason, rich in bootblacks. Hence, it was not surprising to find a hundred or more knights of the brush and bottle mustered here. They were of varying age and size, clad in nondescript rags, over which protectingly flapped the ruana, or poncho, a garment inherited from the Indians, and now universally worn in Spanish America. War’s ordinary weapons were lacking in this tattered regiment. Instead of sword and musket each youngster carried in front of him, hanging from his neck, a rude box containing the bottles and brushes needed in his calling. Ordinarily these weapons are harmless enough; but these volunteer soldiers felt that they were adequately armed for whatever adventure might be in the wind. Patriotism—and a ruana—can start any revolution. In expert hands, the vicious twirl of a ruana should bring terror to the most stalwart of foes—and of patriotism there was a generous supply this morning in the Calle de Las Montanas.

Pedro Cavallo, a wiry youth, taller than his fellows, gifted with shrill eloquence, acrobatic gestures, and hence acclaimed the King of the Bootblacks, was the leading spirit of the throng surrounding him.

“Viva Pedro! Por la Patria! Por la Patria! Baja los puercos!” shouted first one and then another in answer to his orders given with all the assurance of royalty.

“Compadres!” he addressed them, switching his cumbersome box of blacking to one side with oratorical cunning; “we will lead the way! We will march to the palace! We will offer ourselves to the President! We will march to the coast, and then we will sweep out the Yankees!”

“Si! Si!” they shrilled in eager response. “Por la Patria! Por la Patria! Mata los Yankees puercos!”

A quizzical spectator, a true Bogotano, robust and red-cheeked, swathed in an ample ruana, echoed the enthusiasm.

“It is an army of emboladores!” he shouted sonorously. “Let the Yankee bull beware!”

Now, “embolador,” although it is a word familiarly used in Bogota to designate a bootblack, has for its first meaning “one who puts balls on the tips of a bull’s horns,” a thing not easy to accomplish, requiring, as it does, the conquest of a traditionally warlike animal. Applied to this Falstaffian army of bootblacks, the irony of the term was broad enough to delight the bystanders, at the same time that it flattered the vanity of those for whom it was intended.

Distances meant little to the emboladores. No matter how far they had to travel, they vowed they would keep going until they met “los Yankees.” And, when they did meet them, they had no doubt of what would happen. Confident in their own ability to put the “usurpers” to flight, they had the sympathy of the peons surrounding them.

At this period, immediately following the proclamation of Panama’s independence, there was widespread indignation throughout Colombia against the United States. Americans were accused of starting the “revolution” which robbed the mother country of her richest possession, and the Colombian government was accordingly expected to avenge the national honor. The native authorities, lacking money and troops, did not respond to the popular demand, and it was left to the “patriots” to denounce the invading Yankees, and to fit out such volunteer expeditions as the one planned by the emboladores of the Calle de Las Montanas. Bogota, the largest city of the republic, the center of its official life, became the rallying place for political malcontents. A “Sociedad del Integridad Nacional”—a body of agitators at odds with the native government and bitterly opposed to the United States—had been formed here. This Sociedad had already organized two expeditions against the Yankees and the Panamanians. Both expeditions, made up of the dregs of the city, poorly armed, scantily clad, relying for their food on such contributions as they might pick up along the way, had left for the coast where they planned a guerilla warfare that would bring them, they believed, in triumph to the Isthmus. The third expedition was being engineered by the emboladores, whose enthusiasm and love of adventure made them excellent starters of an uprising. Even the elder peons, skeptical at first of what was going on, soon threw aside their reserve and fell into line with the bootblacks. Cheers greeted each addition to the little army, and it was not long before Pedro Cavallo, “Rey de los Emboladores,” headed an eager throng of followers numbering well into the thousands.

What to do with so strange a mob of volunteers might have puzzled a more experienced leader than Pedro. But nothing daunted him. The bigger and the more unruly his army, the greater seemed to be his confidence in himself as its commander. And his royal swagger won unbounded admiration. Grimy children, too young to join the ranks of the emboladores, scurried hither and thither among the bystanders, shrieking with delight at this staging of their favorite “Pedro the King.” Women, setting down their bundles under the projecting latticed windows of the houses, talked wonderingly of this sudden glory that had come to a youth whom they had thought skilled in nothing mightier than the blacking of boots. Solemn greybeards, proprietors of dingy little tiendas, stood in the doorways of their shops, secretly amazed, but still holding themselves grimly aloof from the noisy demonstrations of their neighbors.

“Yankees are pigs,” said one of these sellers of sweets, native tobacco and white rum, quoting gloomily the popular estimate of Americans.

“Yes,” replied another; “and pigs are easily beaten.”

“Truly, that is so,” quoth the first philosopher, struck by the turn of a new idea. “Yes, that is so. Even a woman can beat a pig, if the pig has eaten too much.”

“Yes, yes, Compadre! And Panama is too much for the hungriest pig.”

Then, out of the surging crowd of volunteers, came a stentorian voice:

“Donde vamos, Pedro el Rey?” (“Where shall we go, King Pedro?”)

“To the President! To the Palace San Carlos!” shouted Pedro, brandishing a stick snatched from one of the faithful.

As the volunteers had agreed to do this in the first place, the announcement was instantly approved. San Carlos, “the palace,” was not far off—a few short blocks this side the principal plaza of the city—and word was quickly passed along to march thither. Still shouting vengeance on all Yankees, the emboladores, followed by a mob of peons, moved down the street, encouraged by the primitive jests and delighted cheers of the bystanders.

Early as it was, San Carlos was ready for this unusual visit. Although it was popularly known as “the palace”—as all residences of high officials are in Colombia—this large rambling structure of stone and plaster was in no way distinguished from the buildings that elbowed it at each side. Its dilapidated walls ran sheer to the narrow sidewalk, overlooking which were several balconies of the kind commonly used in Spanish-American buildings. A large square opening, guarded by rude, heavily timbered doors, formed the entrance to this simple executive mansion which was built around a huge courtyard, or patio. From this patio two broad flights of carpeted stairs led to the living rooms and offices above. This arrangement of rooms, balconies, patio—the fountain in the middle of a bed of flowering shrubs and plants, perpetually spraying a moss-grown cupid; the brick walls; the inner corridor supported on arches of masonry and forming the boundary of the four-sided court—all this one finds, with slight variation, in the home of the average Bogotano, as well as in the official “palace.” The unique feature of San Carlos, growing out of the very heart of this ancient dwelling, is a huge walnut tree, rising some forty or fifty feet above the patio, overtopping the adjacent roofs, and marking this, better than could any national emblem, as the presidential residence.

Within the gateway of the palace and at the foot of the stone steps leading to the corridor above, there is always a guard of soldiers. On the morning of the visit of the emboladores this guard was greatly increased in numbers and was commanded by a youth whose resplendent uniform was in striking contrast with the dingy, ill-fitting apparel of his men. As the tramp of the peons echoed along the street, the soldiers marched hastily across the patio and drew up outside the entrance to the palace. Here, waiting groups of idlers shouted with delight as the bootblacks, King Pedro in the lead, rounded the corner of San Carlos.

“They will polish the Yankees,” declared one admirer.

“No, they have come for the president’s boots.”

“Emboladores! Emboladores! Beware the bull!”

“Here, King Pedro, give us a shine!”

“Don Pedro is busy; he’s lost his brush.”

“He’s keeping it for his Yankee customers.”

“He will take Panama with it.”

The unterrified Pedro, meeting this raillery with serene indifference, halted his men before the entrance to the palace and addressed the captain of the guard.

“We have come to see Don Jose.”

“But, muchacho,” replied the captain affably, “that is impossible. His Excellency is busy. Who are you?”

“Pedro, El Rey de los Emboladores!” piped up several volunteers.

“Ah!” said the captain, saluting profoundly. “And what do you want with his Excellency, Majestad?”

“To tell him we will fight the Yankees who have stolen Panama.”

“I will tell his Excellency this,” was the grave reply. “Of course, he will be pleased.”

While these two youths were talking—for after all, the magnificent toy captain was quite as young as the King of Brush and Bottle—the curtains of the large window above were drawn aside and a tall, spare figure, in a long frock coat, stepped slowly forth on the balcony. He was an old man, with a close-clipped beard and moustache, sharp, thin features, and an owlish way of peering through his large, gold-bowed spectacles that made one look involuntarily for the ferule of the schoolmaster held behind his back. This elderly personage had been, indeed, one of the notable pedagogues of Bogota in his day, a fact which, joined to his scholarly achievements in his country’s literature, seemed to his neighbors a sufficient reason for voting him in as the proprietor of San Carlos. To this decision the less powerful and more numerous citizens of the republic could make no effective protest.

On this particular morning it was the schoolmaster, wearing his most indulgent smile, who faced the bootblacks in the street below him. As soon as they caught sight of the familiar figure they gave him an enthusiastic greeting, the democratic flavor of which he seemed to relish. Popular applause had been lacking in Don Jose’s career, and since the troubles over Panama had broken in upon his quiet cultivation of the muses, it looked very much as if his countrymen’s indifference might turn to open hostility. Thus, the friendly greetings of a rabble of bootblacks and peons was not to be despised.

“Don Jose! Don Jose!” they shouted cheerfully, with that peculiar upward inflection by which the Spanish-American gives a warmth to his salutation not suggested by the words themselves. “El Presidente de Colombia! Viva Don Jose! Baja los Yankees!”

To all of which Don Jose, one long thin hand thrust stiffly between the breast buttons of his coat, listened in dignified silence, inwardly gratified by these boisterous visitors.

“Bueno, bueno,” he said in a high querulous voice; “I am very glad to see you, my friends. This is a great honor. But, what can I do for you?”

“Send us to Panama!” bawled Pedro, acting as spokesman for his men.

“Dear me!” exclaimed the old man, enjoying the situation and ignoring its political consequences. “Panama is far off—and why should I send such good citizens away from Bogota?”

“Por la Patria! Por la Patria! To fight the Yankees!”

“The Yankees? But why——”

“They have stolen Panama. They are pigs!”

“What a people!” he exclaimed, nonplussed. “I am sorry for that. Well, if I send you, what will you do?”

“Esta bueno! Don Jose will send us to kill the Yankees!” they shouted enthusiastically.

“No! No! I didn’t say that!” he expostulated; then continued, as if by rote: “The government will look after Panama. If fighting is needed to preserve the republic, the army will do its duty”—an assurance which increased the martial swagger of the gold-braided toy captain, although unappreciated by his men.

“We will fight with the army, Don Jose,” declared Pedro. “We will drive out the Yankees and save Panama.”

“Viva Colombia! Baja los Yankees!” shouted the peons. As this voiced the popular sentiment, and as Don Jose’s loyalty in the Panama affair had been questioned by some of his enemies, no sufficiently discreet reply occurred to the puzzled schoolmaster, whose intellectual gifts, moreover, were lacking in the quick give-and-take needed for street oratory. So, smiling benignly, and somewhat fatuously, upon the noisy rabble, he thrust his hand deeper into his coat, peered more owlishly through his gold-rimmed glasses and, forgetting its future possibilities, got such enjoyment as he could out of the novel situation.

The volunteers exploded with joy over the president’s apparent approval of their demand. Had Pedro cared to stop for further talk the impatience of his comrades would have prevented him. Although these peons had no definite plan, they were looking for something more exciting than an exchange of opinions with this old grey-beard of San Carlos. A march through the city, and then on to Panama, seemed as good a program as any to men who were indifferent to the dry details of geography. There were more cries of “Down with the Yankees!” and cheers for Don Jose. Then, before that bewildered statesman could take himself off, his unwashed admirers filed past his balcony, leaving the toy captain and his men to close the gates they had so courageously guarded.

Under other skies and among a more vindictive people, a roving crowd of peons, clamorous for war and threatening all who opposed them, might be regarded with some alarm. But the mildness of the Andean character, its dislike for actual bloodshed, lessened Bogota’s danger. Even the timid Don Jose was not apprehensive. But there were others who thought it wiser to keep these peons away from Americans living in Bogota. Not that anything would really happen—past experiences seemed to prove the harmlessness of this kind of patriotism. When the second expedition left for the Isthmus, for instance, an American, looking for novel impressions, had posed the volunteers before his camera and snapshotted them to his heart’s content while they were denouncing “los Yankees.” But one mob of patriots may be quite unlike another, and it so happened that when King Pedro’s army of emboladores, in its aimless wanderings after leaving the Palace of San Carlos, stumbled upon a native of the United States, the encounter became a very lively one indeed.

As a rule plenty of Americans are in Bogota. Some go there to do business for the merchant houses which they represent; some have their own local interests, others are after those tempting government “concessions” granted to the disinterested person who develops the natural resources of the country by monopolizing them. When the Panama “revolution” came, most Americans left Bogota, conscious that it was not a promising time to seek aid from the national treasury for their ventures. Those who were unable to leave, stayed within their respective hotels whenever a popular uprising seemed likely.

It was down a blank little side street, leading nowhere in particular, lined with modest one-storied houses, in a quiet district unfrequented by foreigners, that the roving peons met the one American who had failed to conceal himself on this particular morning. After leaving San Carlos, Pedro had turned his men into the Plaza de Catedral, where they had clattered along the wide concourse, pausing to make a few fiery speeches before the capitol, whose unroofed courts—the building was unfinished at that time—and majestic Doric columns seem meant for oratory. From here they had gone the zigzag length of the principal business street. Then tiring of their progress through an unresponsive city, they had started to find their way back to the Calle de Las Montanas, choosing for this purpose the obscure Calle de Las Flores.

At their approach the street was practically deserted, all the doors opening on it carefully barred and, in some instances, even the blinds of the windows drawn. Thus, it happened that a tall man, muffled in a ruana, wearing a wide sombrero, and with his back against the entrance to one of the houses, became unavoidably conspicuous as the throng of emboladores surged along the roadway abreast of him.

“Viva Colombia!” shouted Pedro, giving the usual greeting. “Baja los Yankees!”

Instead of answering in a like strain of enthusiasm, the man addressed tossed the loose end of his ruana over one shoulder, showing, as he did so, a pallid face on which played a contemptuous smile.

“Soy un Americano,” he replied composedly, glancing at Pedro and then turning his eyes, which were singularly piercing, from one to another of those crowding about him.

“Un Yankee! Un Yankee! Baja los Yankees!”

The cry was followed by a threatening movement of the emboladores toward the man whose attitude seemed to be a challenge to them.

“Halt!” yelled Pedro. “I know this senor. Give him a chance. If he cheers Colombia, we will let him go. If he refuses, he is prisoner. Now, Senor Yankee—viva Colombia!”

The emboladores gave a lusty cheer. It was met with scornful silence by the man who had declared himself a Yankee.

“Si! Si! Pedro el Rey!” they all shouted. “He is an enemy to Colombia. He is prisoner!”

The wily Pedro unwilling to risk his position by denying the demands of his followers, yet fearing to aid in an act of violence, diplomatically said nothing. The defiant American, meanwhile, regarded the peons with a disdain that enraged them, although checking, through its very audacity, their hostility.

“I am not a Colombian,” he said quietly; “I am not an enemy to Colombia. But I won’t cheer against the Yankees.”

“Un Yankee! Un Yankee!” they retorted. “A Yankee thief come for our gold!”

“There is truth in that,” he laughed sardonically. “I want gold that you are too lazy to get for yourselves—just as you were too lazy to keep Panama.”

“Un loco! He is insane!” cried Pedro in disgust. “Let us go!”

“No! No!” yelled the angry mob. And amid cries of “Loco! Demonio! Yankee! Puerco!” those in the front ranks made a lunge at the man whose exasperating coolness had kept them at bay, while a shower of missiles came from the peons who hovered in the rear.

But the attack was skilfully met. Tripping up his first two assailants and warding off the blows of a third, the Yankee, smiling derisively, stealthily passed his left hand along the ponderous door against which he was leaning. This street door, as is usual in Colombian houses, had a small “postigo,” or wicket, large enough to admit one person at a time, and opening much more readily than the unwieldy mass of timber of which it formed an insignificant part. Having found the latch of this wicket, the Yankee gave it a quick backward thrust, stepped lightly over the threshold and closed and barricaded this scarcely revealed entrance behind him.

A storm of oaths followed his escape. Then, not content with this vent to their anger, the peons, using such stones and weapons as came to hand, rushed upon the wooden barricade standing between them and their prey, at the same time calling upon the inhabitants of the house to let them in. These Colombian doors, however, are built to withstand a stout siege, and the din might have been indefinitely prolonged had it not come to an abrupt and unexpected conclusion.

Three sharp blows upon the door were given from within. Then a clear feminine voice was heard above the uproar.

“Stand back, Senores! I will open.”

There was a dead silence. This time it was the great door itself that swung slowly open. There was no sign of the escaped Yankee in the wide corridor beyond. In his stead there stood, unattended, unprotected, a woman.

She was clad in a long robe of white, her dark hair flowing unconfined down her shoulders. Her bare arms, exquisitely molded, and of a tint that vied with her dress in purity, were crossed upon her breast. There was no fear in her eyes as she faced the abashed men and boys before her.

“This is my house, Senores,” she said calmly. “What do you want?”

Involuntarily the leaders of the mob fell back, awed by the girl’s courage and dignity. There was a murmur of voices, ending in a chorus of admiration and homage.

“La Reina! La Reina!” they cried. “La Reina de los Indios!”

Then the sharp-witted Pedro, resuming command over his ragged troops, stepped forth, waving to the others to keep silence.

“It is nothing, Senora,” he said, bowing with an awkward grace that played sad pranks with the box of blacking hanging from his neck. “We are patriots of Colombia marching to Panama. We mean no harm to you.” Then, turning to the emboladores, he shouted, with his old enthusiasm:

“Por la Patria! Por la Patria! Viva la Reina! Baja los Yankees!”

The crowd took up the familiar call, and with one of those quick changes of sentiment that sometimes sweeps over such gatherings, fell into a march, cheering the motionless “Reina de los Indios” as they filed past her, and leaving the Calle de los Flores to its accustomed dreams and quiet.