CHAPTER V.
ROGERO IS CHECKMATED.
In front of the hotel an excited crowd was clustered about a man who layin the dust. He was evidently badly wounded if not dead. Near by, asneer on his evil face, stood Rogero, his still smoking pistol in hishand. As Mr. Chester and the boys hurried up he turned to them andexclaimed:
“You see, Señor, that it is not safe to be a revolutionist in thesedays.”
“Why it’s poor Juan!” cried Mr. Chester as he bent over the man who hadbeen shot. “Good God, he’s dead!” he exclaimed a second later after abrief examination of the prostrate figure.
“Yes; one of your servants I believe,” remarked Rogero carelessly, “thedog was pointed out to me as being a runaway from Estrada’s army and,when I called him to me to give him a little wholesome advice, hestarted to run off so I was compelled in the interests of discipline toshoot him.”
There was no more emotion in his voice than if he had been speaking ofsome ordinary event of life.
“This is a coward’s trick!” exclaimed Mr. Chester angrily, “this man wasmy servant and any complaint you had against him you should havereferred to me.”
Rogero lightly flicked some ash off the cigarette he was smoking.
“I should be more temperate in my language, Señor, if I were you,” hesaid.
“I am an American citizen, sir,” replied Mr. Chester; “the flag of mycountry floats over that consulate.” He pointed to a neat, veranderedbuilding a few blocks away. “I shall see that you are made to answer forthis wanton crime.”
“I am afraid that you will have to defer such action for the present,”sneered Rogero, as a file of ragged Nicaraguan soldiers came runningfrom the barracks and, after saluting him respectfully, fell in behindhim with fixed bayonets.
“This city is under martial law and I should advise you to becircumspect in your behavior. A suspected insurgent sympathizer is ondangerous ground in these days.”
“By the way,” he went on viciously, “I am afraid that I shall have tointerdict the orders you have given to have that celebratedair-ship,”—there was a bitter irony in his tones that made the boysclinch their fists, “conveyed to your hacienda. I am of the opinion thatair-ships in the hands of revolutionists sympathizers come under thehead of contraband of war and I intend to have this particular onedestroyed.”
The effect on Harry and Frank of these words was magical. The elderbrother sprang angrily forward although his father and Blakely tried tohold him back.
“You mean you would dare to destroy the property of non-combatantAmerican citizens?” he demanded, his blood aboil.
“I don’t talk to boys,” was Rogero’s contemptuous reply.
“Well, you’ll have to talk to us,” angrily chimed in Harry comingforward, “if you put a finger on the _Golden Eagle_, or harm her in anyway you will find that the United States’ government resents any insultor injury to her citizens in a way that you will remember.”
So excited were the boys at the dastardly threat of Rogero, and sothunderstruck were their father and Blakely at the man’s brutalarrogance that none of them had noticed Billy Barnes who had beenstanding behind the party. Now he stepped up, with his camera, bellowspulled out and ready for action. Rogero was standing defiantly, his handon his sword-hilt. For the first time the boys saw his right hand.
There were two fingers missing!
“Just hold that pose for a second, General,” exclaimed Billy, his fingeron the button of his machine. Rogero turned with a snarl as the buttonclicked and his image was irrevocably fixed on the film.
“It will be a beautiful picture,” remarked Billy amiably. “You see thelight was very good and the lamentable fact that you are shy two fingerswill be clearly shown, I hope, in the print I intend to make at theearliest opportunity.”
“You dog of a newspaper spy,” snarled Rogero, his face a pasty yellowand fear in his eyes, “I know you. You are a sneaking reporter. We don’tlike such renegades as you in my country. We have a way of dealing withthem, however, that usually causes them to cease from troubling us.”
He raised his hand to his throat and gave an unpleasant sort of animitation of the “garrotte” which is the instrument of execution in mostLatin-American countries.
“JUST HOLD THAT POSE A SECOND, GENERAL.”]
“And we in the States have also got a way of dealing with men like you,”said Billy meaningly. “Now,” he went on in a low voice, stepping closeto Rogero, “if you harm that aeroplane in any way I’ll forward thepicture, I just took to Detective Connolly of the New York CentralOffice, and I think he can have a very interesting time with it tracingyour movements in New York _before the murder of Dr. Moneague_!”
If he had been struck full in the face the effect on Rogero could nothave been more magical. He opened his dried lips as if to speak, but nosound came. In his eyes there was a hunted look.
“I’ll have you——,” he began when he at last found his voice.
“You’ll have nothing,” replied Billy cheerfully, “because you don’tdare. Now, then; tell these boys they can have their aeroplane unharmed.Write them an order—here’s my pad and a fountain pen—don’t forget togive them back.”
Rogero snarled like a cornered tiger, but he took the pen and scrawled apassport in Spanish on Billy’s pad.
“Take your wonderful flying machine then, and I only hope you break yournecks,” he muttered. With an evil look at Billy which did not at allseem to worry that amiable young gentleman who merely winked knowinglyin reply, he turned on his heel and strode off followed by his soldiers.
“By Jove, you American pressmen have a high-handed way of doing things,I must say,” remarked Blakely. The boys, too, were much delighted andamused and congratulated Billy warmly on his successful bit of strategy.Mr. Chester, however, by no means took the matter so lightly. After hehad given orders that the body of the unfortunate Juan be properly caredfor and sent back to La Merced for burial, he turned to young Barnes.
“My boy,” he said, “we are not in America now, and in the present stateof the country Rogero can be a very dangerous man.”
“He ought to be shot,” indignantly cried Harry.
“Or hanged,” put in Frank.
“Both,” concluded Billy, with conviction.
“Perhaps,” said Mr. Chester, as he headed the little group into thehotel once more, “but in Nicaragua the law of might prevails and thatman means mischief.”
As he uttered the last words in a grave tone there came a rattle ofhoofs far down the street, and the next minute a horseman flashed by thehotel in a cloud of yellow dust. He spurred his horse desperately up tothe barracks and, as he drew rein, Mr. Chester and the boys saw Rogerocome out on the balcony and the messenger standing in his stirrups, handhim an envelope.
“News from the front,” commented Mr. Chester. Rogero disappeared for afew minutes and when he came out again he handed the messenger anotherenvelope, evidently containing a reply to the despatch he had justreceived. The man wheeled his horse almost on its haunches and spurreddown the street again.
“What is it?” shouted Mr. Chester in Spanish to him as he dashed by thehotel riding as if his life depended on speed.
“Another great victory,” he shouted reining his sweating horse in for animperceptible fragment of time.
As the clatter of his horse’s hoofs died away in the direction of themountains there was a great commotion in the barracks. Bugles soundedand men ran about with horses, arms and bundles, in the confusion thatcharacterizes improperly-disciplined troops. After about half an hour ofthis frenzied preparation the troops, some two hundred in number, withRogero and his dark-skinned staff officers at their head with the blueand white “colors”; fell awkwardly in line and to the music of a crazyband with battered, dirty instruments began their march to the front.
Their way led by the hotel where the boys stood gazing with amusementand some pity at their first sight of
a Central American army on themarch. Some of the troopers were not much bigger than the newsboys theyhad left behind in the New York that now seemed so far away. Theselittle fellows tottered along under the weight of haversacks and heavyRemington rifles, keeping step as best they could with their elders.Several of the soldiers carried gamecocks under their arms and othershad guitars and mandolins slung over their shoulders; one man evencarried a bird in a wooden cage.
Rogero’s face bore a deep scowl as he rode by surrounded by his excitedstaff officers. His eyes were downcast but he raised them as he passedthe little group in front of the Grand Central. There was a sinistergleam in them like that in the leaden orbs of a venomous serpent.
“Adios, señors,” he sneered, leaning back in his saddle, “we shall meetagain and I shall have the pleasure, I hope, of introducing some of youto our Nicaraguan prisons.”