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HIS UNKNOWN WIFE
BY
LOUIS TRACY
AUTHOR OF
THE WINGS OF THE MORNING, FLOWER OF THE GORSE, ETC.
NEW YORK GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS
COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY EDWARD J. CLODE
CHAPTER I
SHARP WORK
"Prisoner, attention! His excellency the President has permitted SenorSteinbaum to visit you."
The "prisoner" was lying on his back on a plank bed, with his handstucked beneath his head to obtain some measure of protection from theroll of rough fiber matting which formed a pillow. He did not pay theslightest heed to the half-caste Spanish jailer's gruff command. But thevisitor's name stirred him. He turned his head, apparently to make surethat he was not being deceived, and rose on an elbow.
"Hello, Steinbaum!" he said in English. "What's the swindle? Excuse thisterseness, but I have to die in an hour, or even less, if a sunbeamhasn't misled me."
"There's no swindle this time, Mr. Maseden," came the guttural answer."I'm sorry I cannot help you, but I want you to do a good turn for alady."
"A lady! What lady?"
"I don't know."
"If _you_ don't know the lady that is a recommendation in itself. At anyrate, what sort of good turn can a man condemned to death do for anylady?"
"She wants to marry you."
Then the man who, by his own showing, was rapidly nearing the close ofhis earthly career, sprang erect and looked so threatening that hisvisitor shrank back a pace, while the half-caste jailer's right handclutched the butt of a revolver.
"Whatever else I may have thought you, I never regarded you as afool, Steinbaum," he said sternly. "Go away, man! Have you no senseof decency? You and that skunk Enrico Suarez, have done your worstagainst me and succeeded. When I am dead the 'state' will collar myproperty--and I am well aware that in this instance the 'state' willbe represented by Senor Enrico Suarez and Mr. Fritz Steinbaum. You areabout to murder and rob me. Can't you leave me in peace during the lastfew minutes of my life? Be off, or you may find that in coming here youhave acted foolishly for once."
"_Ach, was!_" sighed Steinbaum, nevertheless retreating another steptowards the door and the watchful half-caste, who had been warned toshoot straight and quickly if the prisoner attacked the august person ofthe portly financier. "I tell you the truth, and you will not listen. Itis as I say. A lady, a stranger, arrived in Cartagena last night. Sheheard of you this morning. She asked: 'Is he married, this American?'They said, 'No.' Then she came to me and begged me to use my influencewith the President. She said: 'If this American gentleman is to be shot,I am sorry; but it cannot matter to him if he is married, and it willoblige me very much.' I told her--"
The speaker's voice grew husky and he paused to clear his throat.Maseden smiled wanly at the mad absurdity of it, but he was beginning tobelieve some part of Steinbaum's story.
"And what did you tell her?" he broke in.
"I told her that you were Quixotic in some things, and you might agree."
"But what on earth does the lady gain by it? Suarez and you will takemighty good care she doesn't get away with my ranch and money. Does shewant my name?"
"Perhaps."
Maseden took thought a moment.
"It has never been dishonored during my life," he said quietly. "I wouldneed to be assured that it will not be smirched after my death."
Steinbaum was stout. A certain anxiety to succeed in an extraordinarymission, joined to the warm, moist atmosphere of the cell, had induced acopious perspiration.
"_Ach, Gott!_" he purred despairingly. "I know nothing. She told menothing. She offered to pay me for the trouble--"
"Ah!"
"Why not? I run some risk in acting so. She is American, like yourself.She came to me--"
"American, you say! Is she young?"
"I think so. I have not seen her face. She wears a thick veil."
Romance suddenly spread its fairy wings in that squalid South Americanprison-house. Maseden's spirit was fired to perform a last act ofchivalry, of mercy, it might be, in behalf of some unhappy girl of hisown race. The sheer folly of this amazing marriage moved him to grimmirth.
"Very well," he said with a half-hearted laugh. "I'll do it! But, as_you_ are mixing the cards, Steinbaum, there must be a joker in the packsomewhere. I'm a pretty quick thinker, you know, and I shall probablysee through your proposition before I die, though I am damned if I cansize it up right off."
"Mr. Maseden, I assure you, on my--well, you and I never were friendsand never will be, but I have told you the real facts this time."
"When is the wedding to take place?"
"Now."
"Great Scott! Did the lady come with you?"
"Yes. She is here with a priest and a notary."
Maseden peered over the jailer's shoulder into the whitewashed passagebeyond the half-open door, as though he expected to find a shroudedfigure standing there. Steinbaum interpreted his glance.
"She is in the great hall," he said. "The guard is waiting at the end ofthe corridor."
"Oh, it's to be a military wedding, then?"
"Yes, in a sense."
The younger man appreciated the nice distinction Steinbaum was drawing.The waiting "guard" was the firing-party.
"What time is it?" he demanded, so sharply that the fat man started. Fora skilled intriguer Steinbaum was ridiculously nervous.
"A quarter past seven."
"Allow me to put the question as delicately as possible, but--er--isthere any extension of time beyond eight o'clock?"
"Senor Suarez would not give one minute."
"He knows about the ceremony, of course?"
"Yes."
"What a skunk the man is! How he must fear me! Such Spartaninflexibility is foreign to the Spanish nature.... By the way,Steinbaum, did you ever, in your innocent youth, hear the opera'Maritana,' or see a play called 'Don Cesar de Bazan'?"
"Why waste time, Mr. Maseden?" cried the other impatiently. He loathedthe environment of that dim cell, with its slightly foetid air,suggestive of yellow jack and dysentery. He was so obviously ill atease, so fearful lest he should fail in an extraordinary negotiation,that, given less strenuous conditions, the younger man must have readmore into the proposal than appeared on the face of it.
But the sands of life were running short for Maseden. Outwardly cool andimperturbably American, his soul was in revolt. For all that he laughedcheerfully.
"Waste time, indeed!" he cried. "I, who have less than forty-fiveminutes to live!... Now, these are my terms."
"There are no terms," broke in Steinbaum harshly. "You oblige the lady,or you don't. Please yourself."
"Ah, that's better. That sounds more like the hound that I know you are.Yet, I insist on my terms.
"I was dragged out of bed in my pajamas at four o'clock this morning,and not even permitted to dress. They hardly waited to get me a pair ofboots. I haven't a red cent in my pocket, which is a figure of speech,because I haven't a pocket. If you think you can borrow from an oldcomedy just so much of the situation as suits your purpose and disregardthe costume and appearance of the star actor, you're mistaken.
"I gather from your furious grunts that you don't understand me. Verywell. I'll come straight to the point. If I am to marry the lady of yourchoice, I demand the right to appear at the altar decently clad and withenough good money in my pocket to stand a few bottles of wine to thegallant blackguards who are about to shoot me.
"Those are my terms, Steinbaum. Take them or leave them! But don'taccuse _me_ of wasting time. It's up to
you to arrange the stagesetting. I might have insisted on a shave, but I won't.
"The lady will not expect me to kiss her, I suppose?... By gad, she mustbe a person of strange tastes. Why any young woman should want to marrya man because he's going to be shot half an hour later is one of thosemysteries which the feminine mind may comprehend, but it's beyond me.However, that's her affair, not mine.
"Now, Steinbaum, hurry up! _I'm_ talking for the mere sake of hearing myown voice, but _you're_ keeping the lady in suspense."
Maseden had indeed correctly described his own attitude. He was whollyindifferent to the personal element in the bizarre compact proposed byhis arch-enemy, on whom he had turned his back while speaking.
The sight of a bloated, angry, perplexed face of the coarsest type wasmentally disturbing. He elected rather to watch the shaft of sunlightcoming through the long, narrow slit in a four-foot wall which served asa window. He knew that his cell was on the northeast side of the prison,and the traveling sunbeam had already marked the flight of time withsufficient accuracy since he was thrust into that dismal place.
He had been sentenced to death just one hour and a half after beingarrested. The evidence, like the trial, was a travesty of justice. Hisexcellency Don Enrico Suarez, elected president of the Republic of SanJuan at midnight, and confirmed in power by the bullet which removed hispredecessor, wreaked vengeance speedily on the American intruder who hadhelped to mar his schemes twice in two years.
There would be a diplomatic squabble about the judicial murder of acitizen of the United States, of course. The American and Britishconsuls would protest, and both countries would dispatch warships toCartagena, which was at once the capital of the republic and its chiefport. But of what avail such wrangling after one was dead?
Dead, at twenty-eight, when the world was bright and fortune wasapparently smiling! Dead, because he supported dear old DomenicoValdes, the murdered president, and one of the few honest, God-fearingmen in a rotten little South American state which would have been sweptout of putrid existence long ago were it not for the policy of theMonroe Doctrine. Maseden knew that no power on earth would save him now,because Suarez and he could not exist in the same community, and Suarezwas supreme in the Republic of San Juan--supreme, that is, until someother cut-throat climbed to the presidency over a rival's corpse.Steinbaum, a crafty person who played the game of high politics withsome ability and seldom failed to advance his own and his allies'interests, had backed Suarez financially and would become his jackal forthe time.
It was rather surprising that such a master-plotter should have admitteda fore-knowledge of Maseden's fate, and this element in the situationsuddenly dawned on Maseden himself. The arrest, the trial, and thecondemnation were alike kept secret.
The American consul, a Portuguese merchant, possessed enough backbone todemand the postponement of the execution until he had communicated withWashington, and in this action he would have been supported by therepresentative of Great Britain. But he would know nothing about thejudicial crime until it was an accomplished fact.
How, then, had some enterprising young lady--
"By the way, Steinbaum, you might explain--"
Maseden swung on his heel; the matrimonial agent had vanished.
"The senor signified that he would return soon," said the jailer.
"He's gone for the clothes!" mused Maseden, his thoughts promptlyreverting to the fantastic marriage project. "The sly old fox isdevilish anxious to get me spliced before my number goes up. I wonderwhy? And where in the world will he raise a suitable rig? Hang it all, Iwish I had a little longer to live. This business becomes moreinteresting every minute!"
Though he was sure the attempt would be hopeless, Maseden resolved tomake one last effort. He looked the half-caste squarely in the face.
"Get me out of this before Senor Steinbaum comes back and I'll give youtwenty thousand dollars gold," he said quietly.
The man met his glance without flinching.
"I could not help you, senor, if you paid me a million dollars," heanswered. "It is your life or mine--those are my orders. And it isuseless to think of attacking me," he added, because for one momentblack despair scowled menacingly from Maseden's strong features. "Thereare ten men at each door of the corridor ready to shoot you at the leastsign of any attempt to escape."
"The preparations for the wedding are fairly complete, then?"
Maseden spoke Spanish fluently, and the half-caste grinned at the joke.
"It will soon be over, senor," was all he could find to say.
The condemned man knew that the fellow was not to be bribed at the costof his own life. He turned again and grew interested once more in theshaft of sunlight. How quickly it moved! He calculated that before itreached a certain crack in the masonry he would have passed into"yesterday's seven thousand years."
It was not a pleasing conceit. In self-defense, as it were, he bent hiswits on to the proposed marriage. He was half inclined to regret thechivalrous impulse which spurred him to agree to it. Yet there was aspice of humor in the fact that a man who was regarded as an inveteratewoman-hater by the dusky young ladies of San Juan should be led to thealtar literally at the eleventh hour.
What manner of woman could this unknown bride be? What motive swayedher? Perhaps it was better not to ask. But if the knot were tied by apriest, a notary and a European financier, it was evidently intended tobe a valid undertaking.
And why was Steinbaum so interested? Was the would-be Mrs. Maseden sowell endowed with this world's goods that she spared no expense inattaining her object?
The most contrary emotions surged through Maseden's conscience. He wasby turns curious, sympathetic, suspicious, absurdly eager to learn more.
In this last mood he resolved to have one straight look at the lady.Surely a man was entitled to see his bride's face! Yes, come what might,he would insist that she must raise the "thick, white veil" which hadhitherto screened her features from Steinbaum's goggle eyes--supposing,that is, the rascal had told the truth.
A hinge creaked, and the half-caste announced that the senor wasreturning. In a few seconds Steinbaum panted in. He was carrying agorgeous uniform of sky-blue cloth with facings of silver braid. As hedumped a pair of brilliant patent-leather top-boots on the stone floor aglittering helmet fell from among the clothes and rolled to Maseden'sfeet.
"See here, Steinbaum, what tomfoolery is this?" cried the Americanwrathfully.
"It is your tomfoolery, not mine," came the heated retort. "Where am Ito get a suit of clothes for you? These will fit, I think. I borrowedthem from the President's _aide-de-camp_, Captain Ferdinando Gomez."
Maseden knew Captain Gomez--a South American dandy of the first water.For the moment the ludicrous side of the business banished all otherconsiderations.
"What!" he laughed, "am I to be married in the giddy rig of the biggestass in Cartagena? Well, I give in. As I'm to be shot at eight,Ferdinando's fine feathers will be in a sad mess, because I'll not take'em off again unless I'm undressed forcibly. Good Lord! Does my unknownbride realize what sort of rare bird she's going to espouse?...
"Yes, yes, we're losing time. Chuck over those pants. Gomez is not quitemy height, but his togs may be O. K."
As a matter of fact, Philip Alexander Maseden looked a very finefigure of a man when arrayed in all the glory of the presidential_aide-de-camp_. The only trouble was that the elegant top-boots wereconfoundedly tight, being, in truth, a size too small for their vainowner; but the bridegroom-elect put up with this inconvenience.
He had not far to walk. A few steps to the right lay the "great hall"in which, according to Steinbaum, the ceremony would take place. Verylittle farther to the left was the enclosed _patio_, or courtyard, inwhich he would be shot within thirty minutes!
"I'm dashed if I feel a bit like dying," he said, as he strode bySteinbaum's side along the outer corridor. "If the time was aboutfourteen hours later I might imagine I was going to a fancy dress ball,though I wouldn't be able to danc
e much in these confounded boots."
The stout financier made no reply. He was singularly ill at ease. Anycritical onlooker, not cognizant of the facts, would take him and notMaseden to be the man condemned to death.
A heavy, iron-clamped door leading to the row of cells was wide open.Some soldiers, lined up close to it in the hall, were craning theirnecks to catch a first glimpse of the Americano who was about to marryand die in the same breath, so to speak.
Beyond, near a table in the center of the spacious chamber, stood agroup that arrested the eye--a Spanish priest, in vestments ofsemi-state; an olive-skinned man whom Maseden recognized as a legalpractitioner of fair repute in a community where chicanery flourished,and a slenderly-built woman of middle height, though taller than eitherof her companions, whose stylish coat and skirt of thin, gray cloth,and smart shoes tied with little bows of black ribbon, were strangelyincongruous with the black lace mantilla which draped her head andshoulders, and held in position a double veil tied firmly beneath herchin.
Maseden was so astonished at discovering the identity of the lawyer thathe momentarily lost interest in the mysterious woman who would soon behis wife.
"Senor Porilla!" he cried. "I am glad you are here. Do you understand--"
"It is forbidden!" hissed Steinbaum. "One more word, and back you go toyour cell!"
"Oh, is that part of the compact?" said Maseden cheerfully. "Well, well!We must not make matters unpleasant for a lady--must we, Steinbaum?...Now, madam, raise your veil, and let me at least have the honor ofknowing what sort of person the future Mrs. Philip Alexander Masedenwill be!"
The only answer was a stifled but quite audible sob, and Maseden had animpression that the lady might put a summary stop to the proceedings byfainting.
Steinbaum, however, had recovered his nerve in the stronger light of thegreat hall, especially since the soldiers had gathered around.
"The senora declines to unveil," he growled in Spanish. "Begin, _padre_!There is not a moment to spare."
The ecclesiastic opened a book and plunged forthwith into the marriageservice. Maseden was aware that the shrinking figure by his side wastrembling violently, and a wave of pity for her surged through hisheart.
"Cheer up!" he whispered. "It's only a matter of form, anyhow; and I'mglad to be able to help you. I don't care a red cent what your motiveis."
Steinbaum gurgled ominously, and the bridegroom said no more. Clearly,though he had given no bond, he was imperiling the fulfillment of thisunhappy girl's desire if he talked.
But he kept his wits alert. It was evident that the lady understoodlittle Latin and no Spanish. She was quite unable to follow the sonorousphrases. When the portly priest, who seemed to have small relish for thepart he was compelled to play in this amazing marriage, asked Maseden ifhe would have "this woman" to be his wedded wife, the bridegroomanswered "Yes," in Spanish; but a similar question addressed to thebride found her dumb.
"Say 'I will,'" murmured Maseden in her ear.
She turned slightly. At that instant their heads came close together,and the long, unfamiliar fragrance of a woman's well-tended hair reachedhim.
It had an extraordinary effect. Memories of his mother, of a simpleold-world dwelling in a Vermont village, rushed in on him with analmost overwhelming force.
His superb self-possession nearly gave way. He felt that he might breakdown under the intolerable strain.
He feared, during a few seconds of anguish, that he might reveal hisheartache to these men of inferior races.
Then the pride of a regal birthright came to his aid, and a species ofmost vivid and poignant consciousness succeeded. He heard Steinbaum'sgruff sponsorship for the bride, obeyed smilingly when told to take herright hand in his right hand, and looked with singular intentness at thelong, straight, artistic fingers which he held.
It was a beautifully modeled hand, well kept, but cold and tremulous.The queer conceit leaped up in him that though he might never look onthe face of his wedded wife he would know that hand if they met againonly at the Judgment Seat!
Then, in a dazed way which impressed the onlookers as the height ofAmerican nonchalance, he said, after the celebrant: "I, PhilipAlexander, take thee, Madeleine--"
Madeleine! So that was the Christian name of the woman whom he wastaking "till death do us part," for the Spanish liturgy provided almostan exact equivalent of the English service. Madeleine! He had nevereven known any girl of the name. Somehow, he liked it. Outwardly socalm, he was inwardly aflame with a new longing for life and all thatlife meant.
His jumbled wits were peremptorily recalled to the demands of the momentby the would-be bride's failure to repeat her share of the marriage vow,when it became her turn to take Maseden's hand.
The priest nodded, and Steinbaum, now carrying himself with a certaintruculence, essayed to lead the girl's faltering tongue through theSpanish phrases.
"The lady must understand what she is saying," broke in Maseden,dominating the gruff man by sheer force of will.
"Now," he said, and his voice grew gentle as he turned to the woman hehad just promised "to have and to hold," "to love and cherish," andthereto plighted his troth--"when the priest pauses, I will translate,and you must speak the words aloud."
He listened, in a waking trance, to the clear, well-bred accents of awoman of his own people uttering the binding pledge of matrimony. TheSpanish sentences recalled the English version, which he supplied withsingular accuracy, seeing that he had only attended two weddingspreviously, and those during his boyhood.
"Madeleine"--he would learn her surname when he signed the register--wasobviously hard pressed to retain her senses till the end. She wassobbing pitifully, and the knowledge that her distress was induced bythe fate immediately in store for the man whom she was espousing "byGod's holy ordinance" tested Maseden's steel nerve to the very limit ofendurance.
But he held on with that tenacious chivalry which is the finestcharacteristic of his class, and even smiled at Steinbaum's fumbling ina waistcoat pocket for a ring. He was putting the ring on the fourthfinger of his wife's left hand and pronouncing the last formula of theceremony, when he caught an agonized whisper:
"Please, _please_, forgive me! I cannot help myself. I am--more thansorry for you. I shall pray for you--and think of you--always!"
And it was in that instant, while breathlessly catching each syllable ofa broken plea for sympathy and gage of lasting remembrance, thatMaseden's bemused faculties saw a means of saving his life.
Though a forlorn hope, at the best, with a hundred chances of failureagainst one of success, he would seize that hundredth chance. Whatmatter if he were shot at quarter to eight instead of at eight o'clock?Steel before, he was unemotional as marble now, a man of stone with abrain of diamond clarity.
If events followed their normal and reasonable course, he would be freeof these accursed walls within a few minutes. Come what might, he wouldstrike a lusty blow for freedom. If he failed, and sank into eternalnight, one or more of the half-caste hirelings now so ready to fulfillthe murderous schemes of President Suarez and his henchman Steinbaumwould escort an American's spirit to the realm beyond the shadows.
He did not stop to think that an unknown woman's strange whim shouldhave made possible that which, without her presence in his prison-house,was absolutely impossible; still less did he trouble as to the future,immediate or remote. His mind's eye was fixed on a sunbeam creepingstealthily towards a crack in the masonry of that detestable cell.
He meant to cheat that sunbeam, one way or the other!