*****
** r
CAPTAIN LANDON
HEADS— ARMY! TAILS, I STAY HERE ! "-Page 32.
CAPTAIN LANDON
A Story of Modern Rome
RICHARD HENRY SAVAGE,
AUTHOR OF
"My OFFICIAL WIFE," " CHECKED
THROUGH," ETC.
CHICAGO AND NEW YORK:
RAND, McNALLY & COMPANY,
PUBLISHERS.
Copyright, 1899, by Richard Henry Savage.
All rights reserved.
BOOK I
A WAITING GAME
CAPTAIN LANDON.
BOOK I.
A WAITING GAME.
CHAPTER I.
ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME.
The stuffy little Italian railway train slackened,
after skirting the Sabine and Alban mountains,
and, when it halted at the bridge over the diminu-
tive Arno, Frank Hatton wearily raised his head
as the guard, with a suggestive snap of his fingers,
cried "Ecco la !"
There, before him, to the right, the dome of St.
Peter's rose sharply cut against lean brown hill
and pale green sky. It was their world goal. And,
the realization seemed, after all, so prosaic.
"All roads lead to Rome," cheerfully mur-
mured Hatton, as he roused his tired companion.
"Boots and Saddles!" he cried, with a civilian's
vague misuse of military jargon.
8 CAPTAIN LANDON.
"If there is any other road," muttered Captain
Sidney Landon, "I will patronize it, on my next
visit!"
"So, you were not asleep?" queried Hatton.
"I have just discovered, by slipping on my
thinking cap, Frank," remarked the Captain, "that
I have only a faint idea of my official responsibili-
ties as Vice Consul General to be, of the United
States of America."
"Leave all that for the future," replied his trav-
eling companion. "I fancy that you will have
little to do but draw your salary ! In words of the
present, we have lodgings to select, — the inner
man to provide for, — and we must cogitate, for
we will be there in half an hour ! Here is a sight
for you !"
"Pshaw !" muttered the soldier. "I've seen the
Grand Canyon of the Colorado and the Yosemite.
It is a bit strange, however, that we two soldiers
of fortune should not know a single soul in a city
of three hundred thousand. And we are so fitly
prepared for the greatness about to be thrust upon
us. My West Point French and border Spanish
is but slimly reinforced here with your vast stores
of guttural German. We are outside barbarians."
ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME.
"First class passengers in a second class com-
partment," cheerily rejoined Hatton. "After all,
our 'bumblezug' from Florence is better than foot-
ing it like the old invaders. We have seen Thrasi-
mene's storied shores, frowning Orvieto, Soractes'
storied steep, and Mentana's bloody slopes with
the purple Apennines for a background. In the
old days, I would have carried a spear as a humble
soldier under Brennus, 'larding the lean earth/
while you, appropriately ranked, would have
ridden a snow white charger and gone on glitter-
ing in cuirass and golden greaves !"
"There, away you soar, in your literary balloon,
Frank," cried the Captain, gathering up his little
belongings. "My laurels were all won in a buck-
skin jacket on the hurricane deck of a wild west
broncho.
"I've seen but little of the pomp and glory of
war," he sighed — "but, — I've felt the sharp snap
of the enemy's lead, — 'to the Queen's taste !'
"Let us be prosaic ! We must make a first camp
somewhere! Besides, tho' used to tortillas and
broiled 'jerky,' — I am in a revolt against the dark
little birds, — the things that crawled, and all the
mystery of our railway cuisine!"
10 CAPTAIN LANDON.
The two young Americans descended to be
pounced upon, at once, by a horde of drivers of
"botti" and "citadine."
"This chap seems the least vociferous and un-
civil! Let's take him! This is the Holy City.
'Ogniuno per se, e Dio per tutti !' '
The soldier revolted at the touch of the scream-
ing drivers and drew back his stately head as the
coarse peasants snapped their fingers under his
nose with inviting clicks.
So, it fell out, that the gilt banded cap of the
head porter of the Hotel de Russie was doffed, a
little unwillingly, as the young pilgrims strode,
half an hour later, into the cool entrance of the
aristocratic resort.
The shades of night already invited rest, and
the white stars sparkled like diamonds over the
dusky ilex shades under the Pincian when the
friends counted up all the disjecta membra of their
luggage rescued from the Fra Diavolos of the cus-
toms and the Robert Macaires of the Universal
Brotherhood of Insolent Railway Porters.
The curious throng of English aristocrats, Rus-
sian nobles and visiting cognoscenti stared pas-
sively at the tired travelers when they were ush-
ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME. 11
ered into their cosy apartment au premier. "We
have made our debut in style, and so, we can soon
disappear in the interests of a prudent economy,
Frank," laughed Landon, as they sat down to a
raffine little supper.
It was an hour later and the cigars were lit,
when the Captain called up the programme of
action.
"Of course — there's a stroll on the Corso, be-
fore turning in, but, before us lies the morrow,
laden with the stern realities of life. I have only
my chief to interview, and to explain the leisurely
process of four months lost in arriving at my
station, via Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Eng-
land, the Low Countries, Paris, Switzerland and
Lombardy."
"You certainly have fulfilled the State Depart-
ment's kindly injunction 'not to hurry in report-
ing,' and their courteous permission 'to take the
most circuitous route/ " admiringly remarked
Hatton, gazing at the strangely moody face of
the young soldier.
"I always try to obey orders," placidly rejoined
Landon.
"And, now, I suppose that you will hurl your-
12 CAPTAIN LANDQN.
self into your new duties, with a vengeance,"
continued the journalist.
"I will let the work come to me, Frank," re-
marked Landon, strolling to the window and gaz-
ing out at the unanswering stars. "My dear old
chief, General George Thomas, told me never to
volunteer ! 'There's always work enough waiting
to be put up against you/ said the dear old 'Slow
Trot' "
The young official tossed his cigar away with a
sigh.
"If there was only some good stiff fighting now,
— over here," the soldier impatiently murmured.
"Let us go down — I have to find out where the
lordly Consolate Generale degli State Uniti di
America is housed ! Somewhere, I believe, around
the Piazzi di Spagna."
"There is where stout Caesar Borgia hewed the
head off a bull with a single blow," murmured
Hatton.
"Don't believe a word of it, any more than the
letters you will write from the Eternal City to
your somnolent Philadelphian newspaper," an-
swered Landon, with a touch of sarcasm.
"By the way, all I know is my chief's name and
ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME. 13
the rumor that he has a thoroughly charming
wife, — a subtle spirit of fire and flame. You, at
least, have a distant hold upon your unknown em-
ployer, Mr. Rawdon Clark, and I believe a far-
stretched cousinship with some artist here. Let us
go down and find these addresses out.
"A pretty Rome we will see — yours the dim re-
flections of journalistic skimming, — mine, the
'demnition grind' of an unimportant office. The
Rome of the modern newspaper — the Rome of the
brand new American Consular circle. We will see
no lances glittering on these hoary hills, no flam-
ing signs in the skies. The days of miracles are
over! Vogue la galere!"
Hatton eyed his companion curiously. "I won-
der at your lack of interest in life, Landon. A
Captain at twenty-seven, — you have already made
a distinguished record ; — the official way has been
made smooth for you by all sorts of concessions,
in fact, on the steamer, it was hinted to me that
you would soon displace your chiefs while I must
rack my brains to send two letters a week 'chron-
icling the doings of distinguished Americans' —
or, else — lose my local habitation and a name —
that of a poor foreign correspondent."
14 CAPTAIN LANDON.
Landon had halted in the doorway. "See here,
Hatton," he sharply said, "you'll do me a favor to
contradict any such nonsense. I come to bring
peace — not a sword! My army career is closed
forever, — and, — I care nothing for the officious
friends behind me who would push me on un-
fairly."
He ceased abruptly, as he noted Hatton's look
of surprise. "Tell me, rather, something of this
meteoric capitalist, Clark!"
"I will have to wait," slowly answered Hatton,
"until the Brandons can enlighten me. Robert
Brandon and I are linked by some attenuated kin-
ship, tho' I've never met him; but I'm told that
Myra Brandon has well earned her title of 'The
Encyclopedia,' by her fifteen years' residence in
Rome.
"As Brandon vibrates from his studio here to
the Schuylkill, he is au fait with all Philadelphian
gossip.
"When I left Rutgers College and entered on
the dismal drudgery of a law office, it was Edgar
Styles of the Mail who first encouraged my feeble
attempts at the belles lettres.
"He, God bless him, had already arranged for
ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME. 15
this three years' European tour of mine when
Clark bought in a controlling interest and fortu-
nately saved the venerable 'Philadelphia Mail'
from ruin.
"It was a case of outside speculative, general
bonhomie and too much enterprise, with Styles.
"All I know of Rawdon Clark is that he has ac-
cumulated a huge fortune by meteoric operations
in the far west, — that he is a man of uncontroll-
able vigor and push, and, that, boomerang like, he
is attacking our staid Philadelphian society from
the uttermost curves of a long European tour.
He is both parvenu and masterful man !"
The chance-met companions were strolling
along the narrow sidewalks of the Corso, when
Landon, with piqued curiosity, returned to the
subject of Hatton's strange employer. "Is this
Clark a self-made man, a product of the wild
west ?" he demanded.
They had tired of the mixed multitude, the
tawdry shop windows, the deafening cries of
"Ecco il Fanfulla, — ecco la Capitale," and had
sought for a quiet refuge in a wine cellar, the re-
sort of a motley crowd of students, officers and
tourists.
16 CAPTAIN LANDON.
"No one seems to know of his antecedents,"
gravely replied Hatton. "He appeared suddenly
in Philadelphia, staggering the town with the
magnitude of his many investments. It was
rumored that he intended to erect unto himself a
palace, like the fabled Kublai Khan who did 'a
stately pleasure dome decree.'
"It is further said that a preliminary club black-
balling caused him to cut over here, and to swear
that he would re-enter our home society as a vic-
tor, for the little bird whispers that the doors of
swelldom at home were closed upon him, until he
can prove title."
"We can't all be born Biddies," laughed Lan-
don.
"Well, I will soon size him up," murmured
Hatton. "I have a sheaf of letters to artists, resi-
dent Americans and our past journalistic connec-
tions. I am told that Mrs. Myra Brandon's salon
is his great coign of vantage, for he's a liberal
purchaser of Brandon's pictures."
"A sure way to reach the heart of an artist's
wife, be he ever so successful," retorted Landon.
"Moreover, he must be a sly dog," continued
Hatton, "for he is forming a collection of objets
ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME. 17
d'art and allows Madame Myra to generously se-
lect for him."
"Then he is a sure winner," smiled Landon,
"for pleasure and percentages go hand in hand,
here in Rome, I am told."
The entrance of a half dozen young fellows who
had been companions of the deck-tramping on the
Aurania a few weeks before, soon made up a
moving circle, augmented by the flower girls,
ciceroni and all the mysteriously evolved touts
who follow up the callow American abroad.
While Hatton, note book in hand, was already
busied in gleaning local items for their joint Com-
mittee of Ways and Means, — Sidney Landon,
with his head buried in his hands, listened to the
ringing notes of a body of passing student singers.
In vain did Giuletta, the veriest witch of the
flower girls, toss the red and white Roman roses
in his lap. He saw not her smiling eyes, though
he absently threw her a coin which made her mur-
mur "Ecco un cavaliere !"
The young soldier's thoughts were far away in
a stormy and a shadowed past. The long-necked
wine flasks went round all unheeded, as he ran
a
18 CAPTAIN LANDON.
down the strange life-current of the seven years
of his frontier fighting experience.
Tall and graceful, with dark earnest eyes, Sid-
ney Landon, at twenty-seven, was a proper squire
of dames. But there were deep lines of care on his
brow, showing white above the sun-burned tints
of the Apache land, and a strong curve of repres-
sion in the stern lips, under the darkly sweeping
cavalry mustache.
"Nice looking fellow, Landon," said Grimes of
the New York Herald, to Hatton, as they lingered
in a far corner, where the newcomer had dragged
his senior to gather points upon "bachelor house-
keeping" in Rome.
"Soldierly looking chap, too, — but, — there's
something gone out of his life! I wonder if he
had any trouble in the army," mused Grimes, al-
ways an agnostic by habit.
"Nonsense," retorted Hatton. "Old General
Rufus Hatcher, who came over with us, told me
that he was one of the most promising young cav-
alrymen in the army. He has been desperately
wounded and three times mentioned for conspic-
uous gallantry in action."
ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME. 19
"And, yet, there are flaws even in diamonds,"
mused Grimes.
"These West Pointers are about the last of the
sentimentalists."
"All I know is what Hatcher told me," stub-
bornly rejoined the loyal Hatton, "and, you may
be sure, when Colonel Miles Atwater of the
'Grays' made him Regimental Adjutant, after
only three years of service, — that he is a simon
pure."
"All right," good humoredly nodded Grimes,
"I'll take your friend into our coterie, at your esti-
mate."
The free lance of the Herald had already turned
forty and he had seen "a deal of life, — its varnish
and veneer, — the stucco fronts of character, flake
off and disappear."
He was the doyen of the Roman American lit-
erary cult, and, so, presided over an informal club
at a miraculously discovered old dwelling on the
Corso, happily unknown to the Philistine of the
baser sort.
It was a very haven of rest to the flower of the
transplanted American colony, and Grimes ruled it
with a rod of iron and much circumspection.
20 CAPTAIN LANDON.
The elder man nodded his assent as they moved
back to Sidney Landon's table. Grimes gazed
kindly on Frank Hatton's beaming face. There
was something inspiring in the genial face of old
Rutger's favorite son.
At thirty, Hatton's boyish faith still shone out
unbroken in his honest blue eyes.
The upright solidity of his plump, robust figure
was set off by his merry, honest face, still smooth
shaven, a deference to his jilted first love, — the
law, — and finished by the frank smile of his fresh
lips and the unruffled composure of his manly
countenance.
"Hatton is an acquisition, — one in whom there
is no guile," murmured Grimes, recalling the
Three Star introductions of the new champion of
the Philadelphia Mail — "but, if I mistake not, our
dark-eyed, handsome soldier is like the 'woman
with a past/ — he is a man with a story !"
Grimes was vaguely wondering if he would ever
find it out, when Hatton had already plunged "in
media res."
"Such a lucky chance, — Landon. To be settled
at once, and, in the heart of the best region" — en-
thusiastically ran on Hatton, "and, — there's a bit
ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME. " 21
of deserted garden, — a ruined fountain, — the dia-
mond water pouring from an old lion's head, — a
glimpse of waving olive trees, and even a patch of
visible blue sky."
When the ardent journalist had finished his
catalogue, Grimes' grave voice broke in with a
word of solemn warning :
"You are not a society man, Captain? If you
are, I should deem it my duty to — "
"I am alone in the world," rejoined Landon,
"and I have only come to Rome to get away from
that peopled loneliness called society."
"You will never be lonely again," grimly re-
plied Grimes. "We are a companionable sort, but
our fortress on the Corso is an Eveless Paradise.
You will find 'no light plume as a token.' '
"So much the better," laughed Sidney Landon
as they sat down to hear a band of Roman
students musically intone "Santa Lucia," with the
unrepressed enthusiasm of the explosive Italian
nature.
"Then, it is all arranged," joyously cried the
sanguine Hatton. "I have no doubt the wine will
hold up to the bush."
"I leave it all to you, Hatton."
22 CAPTAIN LANDON.
"Suppose that you act as Quartermaster Gen-
eral to-morrow while I go and pay 'my official re-
spects.' There is always one saving clause,"
gravely added Landon, with a serio-comic bow to
Grimes. "We can be ejected, at any time, if we
break the unwritten rules of your Eveless Para-
dise."
"I shall issue a writ of ne exeat," politely an-
swered Grimes, as they fell into an easy chat.
Before they all strolled over to take a midnight
peep at the Tiber from the Ponte San Angelo,
Grimes and Landon had traced out twenty com-
mon friendships. The newly arrived pilgrims
merrily laughed at Grimes' flashlight photographs
of their still unknown acquaintances to be.
"Ah ! Yes ! Your official chief, Landon, Arthur
Melville, has the soul of an impassioned artist in
a Puritan body ! I doff my beaver to his dainty
wife! Madame Gertrude Melville has convinced
even the difficile Italian noblesse that an Amer-
ican woman can be the 'grande dame,' even with
no heraldic quarterings.
"You'll get on famously with them both! As
you are fond of loneliness, Melville's official habits
will suit you. He has an Italian famulus there, a
ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME. 23
party with the atrocious name of Jacopo Maspero
— who seems to enjoy doing all the work !
"Melville is conspicuous by his absence, but his
home in the rambling old palace is the cradle of a
graceful hospitality.
"Maspero knows his Rome, and all the slumber-
ing vendettas of the Colonna and Orsini lurk in
his veiled eyes and are hidden in his silken voice.
"All the notables and artist guild you will meet,
soon enough, at their studios, or the American
Club.
"There are a few really nice people here — you
can soon sift out the lot at discretion. I have no
advice to give to those 'who are at Rome also.' You
will soon meet all the cads and traveling American
nuisances officially, — so, gird on your armor ! The
round of so-called society has a strange undertow
of picture and statue peddling in it."
"My respectable poverty is an ironclad de-
fense," laughed Landon.
"Then, — all I can bid you is to avoid two things
— flirtation, and the Roman fever !
"For the first, I will cure you by dragging you
away into the Abruzzi, where no petticoat flaunt-
24 CAPTAIN LANDON.
eth ; for the last, Doctor Caesar Corvini, the Lega-
tion and official physician, is a 'feste burg.'
"If you go in for riding, there's the Roman
Hunt, — with lots of nice people, and if you are
fond of athletics, 'Charley' Hollingsworth, our
Harvard ex-champion, will coach you on the
crooked Tiber, if he can drag you away, once that
you are under her batteries, from his charming
wife, Mrs. Elaine Hollingsworth, our bright par-
ticular social star."
They had reached the Place San Angelo, when
Hatton bethought him of his own future connec-
tions. Grimes laughed with an unaccustomed glee
as he sketched Robert Brandon.
"The very best fellow in Rome, — an admirable
host, — an alleged artist, — the prince of good fel-
lows, who manages — by hook or crook — to sell all
his smears, and to leave no sting behind !"
"They say," growled Grimes, lowering his
voice, "that he provides his artistic victims with
funds to leave Rome secretly, after he has done
them a la Monte Carlo. The Madame! Ay!
There's the rub! No one has ever been strong
enough to resist the many wiles of Mrs. Myra
Brandon. A modern prototype of the Admirable
ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME. 25
Crichton — from choosing a cameo to arranging a
difficult match, — from matching a Roman scarf,
to turning out a Minister Resident, from church
to fair, and back through all the Midway Plais-
ance of fashionable folly. She is the wheel horse
of the American colony.
"To you, Hatton, she will be of immense value !
Modern Rome revolves around her ample form as
a reliable human hub.
"To Captain Landon, she is the very acme of
danger and deceit. She is the match maker of our
time! If you run not upon the Scylla of one of
her baby-faced blonde protegees, you will be
wrecked upon the dark beauties of some inviting
dusky-eyed Charybdis of a brunette.
"She evolves the. most inviting girls from social
nothingness, and has actually married off a poor
American girl to a rich Roman prince — a feat
hitherto deemed impossible of achievement!"
They were looking at the stars twinkling on the
Tiber and listening to Grimes' deep voice mouth-
ing "Stop! For thy tread is on an Empire's dust !"
when Hatton, in a business-like way, called up
the name of Rawdon Clark.
26 CAPTAIN LANDON.
The declaimer dropped into an energetic stac-
cato.
"Oh! Yes! Your spick span new millionaire
employer ! Croesus Magnus ! He is a thin-lipped
human shark," mercilessly proceeded Grimes. "If
I met him in the Bad Lands I should surely jerk
out my Winchester and cover him while in sight.
"In Texas, I should endeavor, 'pro bono pub-
lico,' to get him lynched, on early acquaintance.
Otherwise, he would wind up with all the belong-
ings of the vicinity. Omnivorous, active and ener-
getic is this same Mr. Rawdon Clark, — withal a
very smooth package — and he gets around nimbly,
— even in a salon."
They were on their way homeward, bent on
passing the location of the Eveless Paradise, when
Grimes, after firing a last shot at Rawdon Clark,
in calling him a "heartless human snake," broke
out, — "You men will find life enough in old
Rome! It does not seethe around you as in the
modern Babylons, but the inundation of the Tiber,
silent and unheralded, has swept away countless
human lives. The social life of the old Mistress
of the World is vastly complex.
ON THE PINCIAN HILL. 27
"I knew all about it fifteen years ago, — now, I
confess myself a tyro.
"Old McPherson, the photographer and club
man, who has been here forty years, tells me he
has been only hidden in a groove, and so wander-
ing blindly! People go down here like in a tide
rip, without a single cry."
It was with a nod, — and a hearty "al rivedersi"
— that the newspaper cynic disappeared within the
portals of the Eveless Paradise and left the tyros
to wander back to the Hotel de Russie, watched
only by the stars and the becloaked and cocked-
hatted gens d'armes, lurking on the dark street
corners.
CHAPTER II.
ON THE PINCIAN HILL.
Though Mr. Forrest Grimes of the New York
Herald was a grim and worn cynic, still he was a
man with a strong undercurrent of human sym-
pathy. He had rightly divined that clouds hov-
ered over Sidney Landon's abruptly broken off
military life.
28 CAPTAIN LANDON.
»
After the Captain had sought his lonely room,
his pillow was haunted by changing visions of the
past. The deep-toned clang of Rome's unnum-
bered church bells only accentuated the long vigils
in which dream faces returned to torture the
wound-weakened soldier into a vain unrest.
But, the keen-eyed man of the world was in
error, when he fancied that a cloud of shame or
some sudden fall from honor had driven Landon
out of the "Grays."
Sorrow's mantle, alone, hung over the tossing
soldier as he recalled the scene, on the far away
headwaters of the Rio Grande, when a chance-
found newspaper had brought the shock of his life
to the iron-hearted young leader, hidden there un-
der the mesquit bushes with his swarthy cavalry-
men, grimly awaiting the coming of the mad Co-
manche riders. And all his beloved army life
seemed hateful to him then !
Landon vainly tried to close the doors of the
past upon these haunting visions, — the memory
mist-wreaths which hid the secret which had
astonished the whole "mess," when Sidney Lan-
don sheathed his sword and abruptly left the
ON THE PINCIAN HILL. 29
"Grays" with an insistence which smacked of
some imminent crisis not otherwise to be averted.
Resolutely pacing his room, Landon read over
his official instructions and sought for weariness
in the platitudes of that unromantic red book,
labeled "Consular Regulations," which was, as
yet, a terra incognita to him.
He gazed out of the window into the blue and
silent night, where the unfamiliar outlines of
steepled Rome now took on fantastic shapes.
"The pen may be mightier than the sword," he
sighed, "after all! There's Frank Hatton, dear
old resolute soul, deliberately plodding his way
upward in life, with not a single quickened beat of
the pulse.
"So many hours, so many note books rilled — so
many days, — so many letters dispatched ; — and, —
the beef and beer of life is thus insured, with the
unromantic modern garb which isn't half as pic-
turesque as the skin mantles of the Stone age after
all."
"Perhaps, in the society of this coterie of bright
fellows, I may find forgetfulness." So, rolling the
stone against the tomb, he ended his "night of
memories and of sighs" in following down the
30 CAPTAIN LANDON.
chance-made itinerary of his long voyage, since a
lucky introduction from a college friend as the
Aurania sailed gave him the bright-hearted Hat-
ton as a fellow traveler.
It had been pleasant enough after all, — the
chance led rambles over dewy Ireland, — the casual
wanderings by Scottish tarns, — the restful
glimpses of merrie England, the wild hurly burly
of Paris, and the gliding panorama of the castled
banks of the Rhine, where the thrifty steamer
Ober-Kellner now replaces "the peasant girls with
deep blue eyes, and hands which offer early flow-
ers."
Switzerland's Alpen-locked lakes, — the superb
defiles of the Tyrol, — and fair Lombardy's fruit-
ful plains, where earth bares her richest bosom, —
the "frozen music" of Milan's Duomo, — the
treasures of the past, in the dusky chambers by the
unfamiliar Arno, — all this varied panorama had
charmed him where "under many a yellow star,"
they "dropped into the magic land."
But one temptation, a soul-racking one, had
followed him on from Nice, when the dear old
Consul Swasey had sent him a letter by special
messenger. It was a letter from sturdy old Miles
ON THE PINCIAN HILL. 31
Atwater, the Colonel of the Grays, forwarded on
through the War and State Departments.
Sidney Landon drew the letter from his bosom
and read it once more by the flickering light of the
Hotel de Russie's two "superb" wax candles. His
heart leaped up as he read the words laden with a
tempting possibility —
"The President has promised me to reinstate
you in the Army at any time within six months if
you will only make an application. General
Hatcher will soon be at Rome and, — I have been
charged by him to talk to you. Remember, my
dear boy ! 'once a Captain, — always a Captain' —
Listen to Hatcher. Our regimental officers are all
of one mind ; you could be appointed in the Staff
and then transferred back to the old Regiment. I
may come over myself and urge this, — if I can get
leave. And, — lastly, Mrs. Atwater joins me in
begging you to reconsider your resignation. You
know that she owns you — for she nursed you
back to life — in the old days!"
"Gallant old heart!" cried Landon, as he racked
his soul in an agony of unrest ! Suddenly starting
up, he cried, "Let chance decide!"
32 CAPTAIN LANDON.
Tossing up a coin, he muttered, "Heads, —
Army! — Tails, I stay here!"
His face was pale as he picked up the two-
franc piece. "I am to be a Roman," he mur-
mured, with a sigh, as an old verse returned to
haunt him now.
It was a soldier song of the days of the civil
war,
"Never again on the shoulder, to wear our knightly bars, —
Never again on the shoulder, to bear our lordly leaves, —
Never again to dream the dream
Which martial music weaves."
And, tired out at last, his cares fell away from
him then, as the needles are shaken from the gusty
pines, — and the soldier who had faced the Apache
rifles a hundred times slept until the bugles of a
passing Bersaglieri corps woke him from dreams
of the old life, — the beloved Regiment, — and the
far horizoned western plains where every man
guards his life with his own hapd !
"Do I look decorously professional, Old Reli-
able?" cheerfully queried Landon as he sallied
forth at ten a. m., having achieved as non-military
a toilet as the habit of eleven long years would
permit.
ON THE PINCIAN HILL. 33
The friends had breakfasted merrily and al-
ready Hatton was delivering over their effects to
Battisto, the factotum of the Eveless Paradise.
"All but the red book, — that smacks too much
of Baedeker, and that enforced martyrdom, — a
ten days' rush through Rome, 'personally con-
ducted by Thomas Cook and Son.' '
"J'y suis, — j'y reste," gaily cried Landon.
"That, sir, is the code I am to live up to, now, —
my signal book for battle with the unterrified
American tourist. I am off."
"You are to come to the Consulate General,
after you have hunted up the Brandons, and duly
made your social report!"
"I will begin my 'arduous labors' by asking for
a day off — to arrange my urgent private affairs.
It might be well to inspect the cuisine of the Eve-
less Paradise, and see that we are fed not upon
tomtits and those wretched yellow snails!"
Hatton merrily rejoined, "Grimes awaits us at
two for a house-warming breakfast, and will guide
us to the Pincian in due form, and will show us all
Rome that is knowable. So away with you ! Make
your first plunge !"
As Frank Hatton watched Landon stride away,
3
34 ON THE PINCIAN HILL.
with his springy, soldierly step, he never imagined
that the crisis of a life had been passed, and that
the innocent looking letter just dropped in the box
bore homewards Landon's firm refusal of the
President's kindly offer to take up again the old
free wild life of the plains, under the fluttering
silken guidons of the Grays.
Many an approving eye followed the young
American as he strode down the Via Babuino, a
notable contrast to the faineants dawdling along
the Corso.
"Photography has ruined travel now," mused
Landon, as at every turn familiar objects met his
eye. "The freshness of first sensation is gone, —
for, in all this, I only see the blurred recollections
of the Voyage autour de ma Chambre. Every-
thing turns up with the instant suggestion, 'I have
seen all this before — but, where?' '
Resting to gaze at the motley throng in the
Piazzi di Spagna, — Landon culled one thought
from his morning glimpses of the Corso and the
Via Babuino.
He finished his cigar as he idly scanned the
grouped models, after he had escaped the onrush
ON THE PINCIAN HILL. 35
of the cab drivers, and the clattering attacks of the
mutilated beggars.
"Nothing seems to have survived of the olden
beauty of the women," he mused. "All the gar-
nered loveliness of Italian womanhood in the gal-
leries has vanished forever. Perhaps womanly
beauty is only transmitted in splendid aristocracies
or floats -down the dead golden tide of our modern
money luxury. Here, — only a few officers seem
to have preserved the stately old Italian beauty of
feature! These heroes of the boudoir and the
higher priesthood seem to be the only classes who
can now cultivate 'la hermosura' in a fitting idle-
ness ! And — on woman here — lies the heavy bur-
den of unending drudgery! The glories of the
Decameron have flitted forever." Landon was
ignorant of the fact that the whole Continent of
Europe is paved with the bones of the woman
drudge.
The man who had breasted the cliffs of the
Lava Beds laughed at the hundred and twenty-
five steps of the Scala de Spagna, and, then, his
face grew sober as he turned southeastwardly and
halted at the open archway of a dingy old palace.
"Sufficiently threadbare and uninviting," he
36 CAPTAIN LANDON.
murmured as he gazed at the faded glories of the
hideous oval tin consular shield, whereon the
eagle of our country ramped in ghastly grays,
blues and yellows.
With the composure of Daniel in the lions' den,
Captain Sidney Landon ascended two sufficiently
inconvenient stairs and strode into the main room
of the Consulate General of the United States of
America.
Nothing relieved the utterly repellant interior,
but a glimpse of blue sky at the open windows, —
the gurgle of a hidden fountain below in the gar-
dens where waving tree tops brushed the windows
of the old overhung palace, now, in its decadence,
given over to a pretentious public, economically
aristocratic.
Landon had already sought out a dozen Amer-
ican Consulates in their skilfully chosen hiding
places. This was the same repellant interior.
Raw red tiled floor, — wheezy looking tables, —
fly-spotted "affiches," and, a thin array of chairs.
A few sparsely filled book shelves carried the
sporadic "archives," and, at the door, a dejected
Italian youth, the possessor of a mongrel English,
lay on watch in wait for the bold intruder.
ON THE PINCIAN HILL. 37
By a lonely window — a pale-faced American
clerk was toiling over huge blue sheets of the
sacred despatch paper — while, at the end of the
room, well fortified behind two long tables, littered
with bundles of paper,— Signore Jacopo Maspero
was systematically defending himself against a
motley crowd of Americans of all ages, sexes and
"previous conditions" of personal experience.
With an amused smile, Landon finally fought
his way to the front and presented his card.
With an obsequious leap, Signore Maspero rose
and led the Vice Consul General within his fortifi-
cation of Dictionaries and Patent Office Reports.
Tall, dusky, with eyes of glowing intensity,
Signore Maspero furtively warded off the impa-
tient crowd, while he suavely stated that he would
announce the new official to his Chief.
Landon laughed inwardly while waiting for the
return of the detached messenger, and idly
scanned his own pile of accumulated letters, as he
picked up from Maspero's rapid despatch of busi-
ness the secret of official duty.
Every one seemed to ask for impossibilities.
They had come on the wrong day or were else
doomed to hear the word "Impossible" uttered in
38 CAPTAIN LANDON.
tones of silky decision. An official machine grind-
ing out gruff negations.
Conscious that the factotum was slyly regard-
ing him, the Captain simply bowed formally,
thrust his letters in his pockets, and followed the
returned messenger, gracefully escaping the out-
stretched hands of several fellow citizens bent
upon plucking some official consolation from his
coat sleeves.
It was only the prospect of the castled Tiber,
gleaming golden in the bright October sunshine
far below, which stifled a sudden pang of regret
for the hasty dispatch of the letter of the morn-
ing.
"I may live if I keep out of this den," he mur-
mured as he walked down a grand old gallery to
another wing of the palazzo. "It is about as ro-
mantic as a fourth-class corner grocery in its
environment." The title of Vice Consul General
seemed to have a cheaper ring in its announce-
ment, after gazing upon his theatre of action.
A tap from an old carven knocker recalled Lan-
don, as he entered an octagonal room, from whose
windows the rarest vistas of Rome were visible.
There was an easel in a fair light, and a slight,
ON THE PINCIAN HILL. 39
delicate man courteously advanced to meet his
visitor.
In a moment, Arthur Melville had made his fel-
low official cordially welcome.
Landon surveyed, in wonder, the superb tapes-
tries of the walls, the glowing Persian rugs upon
the floor.
Besides a huge divan, with a splendid outspread
tiger skin before its inviting bulk, the only piece of
furniture in the room was a rare cabinet of antique
ebony and ivory.
Upon this stood a vase of matchless old Vene-
tian and a Cellini silver misericorde dagger lay by
its side.
But one picture hung upon the walls — that of a
thrill ingly beautiful woman, with one rounded
arm displayed as she drew back a broidered cur-
tain, and, — a rosy ringer pressed upon her smiling
lip!
It needed not the word "Invitation," graven
upon the frame, to translate the witchery of the
canvas.
Sidney Landon leaned back and laughed softly
in the anti-climax of the surroundings of the mo-
ment.
40 CAPTAIN LANDON.
Melville clapped his hands and in a moment old
Joconda, wrinkled like the Fates, had served
coffee and cigarettes.
The young Captain recognized the artist in his
Chief's delicate features, — his blue-veined trans-
parent hands, — the slight yet graceful mould of
form and the waving silken hair.
Clear brown eyes, with the glassy sheen of the
idealist, — a soft, restrained voice and a manner of
modulated courtesy, proved that Arthur Melville
was not of this workaday world.
"I fear, Captain," he gently said, "that you
found the Consulate rather uninviting." Landon
bowed in a polite deprecation.
His host, however, was not deceived.
"I see but little of it. You will find Deputy
Vice Consul General Maspero, — very capable, —
and an admirable cicerone, by the way. Young
Mr. Morgan is untiring, and, — I believe that he is
intelligent. He is an official Consular clerk ! The
other people will give you no trouble. In fact,
Maspero attends to all. I am there very seldom
myself!"
"I am quite ready to enter at once upon my
ON THE PINCIAN HILL. 41
duties," resolutely remarked Landon, "after a day
or so to settle myself."
The quick-witted Captain could see that there
was a good painting light. Melville's tell-tale eyes
strayed toward the beloved canvas.
"Then, I have but one command to lay upon
you — Mrs. Melville will be happy to receive you,
at dinner, en petite comite, to-night at eight! I
shall leave you free hand as to the office.
"I have received many kindly letters regarding
you, and we will surely find we have hosts of
friends in common. We shall try to make Rome
pleasant for you."
In answer to the artist official's query as to his
address, Landon was charmed to hear his host
say, "Grimes is a man of the rarest social talents !
You cannot go wrong in Rome under his guid-
ance!
"He is the head of 'Young Rome,' and, withal,
a man of the rarest gifts !"
Landon was startled at the sounding echo of his
own footsteps as he walked away through the
lonely hall.
"There is happiness" — he mused — "a man who
builds his own dream castles and — lives in them.
42 CAPTAIN LANDON.
If this aesthetic Puritan has found his fitting mate
in Mrs. Gertrude Melville, then — the thorns are
few in his rosy pillow."
Melville's fortune, breeding and powerful polit-
ical influence had kept the gentle sinecure many
years in Rome, most judiciously shielded by his
office absences from daily carking cares and offi-
cial fret.
There was an unwonted activity in the Consul-
ate General as Landon entered. A desk and fit-
tings had been skirmished for, and before the rosy
Hatton arrived to drag him away, the Captain be-
gan to admire the tireless energy and easy inso-
lence of the indefatigable Maspero. — He was re-
lieved when Hatton pounced down upon him.
"Well?" anxiously demanded Hatton, as the
two young men left, after a few pleasant words
with the pale faced Morgan, a consumptive and
intelligent young student in search of health, who
had drifted into the bare subsistence of a Con-
sular clerkship as a defense against the wolf.
Landon laughed gaily. "It's all right! Sig-
nore Jacopo Maspero seems to be the autocrat of
the institution, with an ostrich-like capacity for
official toil which I shall not disturb. He seems to
ON THE PINCIAN HILL. 43
digest everything. Morgan is a decent little chap
enough. My chief is a delightful dreamer, a
thoroughbred, and — I am to meet 'la dame
blanche/ his household queen, to-night at dinner.
I left my duty cards. To-morrow, I shall make all
my consular calls en grande tenue.
"Ca ira. I have changed my mind. I shall lock
up the red book and allow Maspero to gradually
instruct me! I expect to become wise by induc-
tion ! And you ? What is your harvest ? Noth-
ing but leaves ?"
They had safely steered across the Piazza de
Spagna, and were navigating up the Corso, with
its "trattorias," — its show windows gleaming
with cheap gewgaws and false antiques, — its
squalor and splendor, — its tide of unexpectedly fa-
miliar tourists, — its priests, soldiers, beggars and
loiterers, before Hatton could sketch the details of
his visit to that Promised Land — Robert Bran-
don's studio.
"It looks all right enough!" rather doubtfully
concluded Hatton, loth to sit in harsh judgment.
"Of course, they are very kind and all that."
"Brandon is coming over to meet us at Grimes'
initial breakfast. By the way, he says that the
44 CAPTAIN LANDON.
Eveless Paradise is a veritable haven for us, as
Grimes is a Defender of the Faithful.
"Just the man to post you, and to launch me,
journalistically. Brandon says that I can pick all
my weekly letters by feeding on these fellows'
freshness.
"As for Brandon's studio, it seems to be only an
artistic 'bucket-shop/ — of course — there's a union
of the practical and the ideal ! He has his living to
make.
"I'm not so sure about his pictures! I caught
sight of two or three young Italians working up
backgrounds and legs and arms."
Landon's laugh made the melancholy passers-by
start.
"Like the American sculptors with a squad of
twenty Italian stone masons hammering out mas-
terpieces !"
"Just so," dryly resumed the journalist.
"But the overpowering thing is Myra Brandon.
She has definitely traced out our relationship,
moved it up a couple of degrees and several gen-
erations nearer! She is a human battleship, — a
multum in parvo! She has simply swooped down
ON THE PINCIAN HILL. 45
upon me ! She has promptly undertaken to make
a man of me !"
Hatton stopped and mopped his honest brow.
"And, — Rawdon Clark?" slowly said Landon,
as he saw Hatton's brow darken.
"I met him, there, poking over Brandon's pic-
tures and engaging Mrs. B to matronize a
grand dinner which he is to give at the Hotel Cos-
tanzi. It appears he has some lovely American
girl here in his eye — 'with ulterior views,' of mak-
ing her Mrs. Croesus Clark."
"What sort is he?" anxiously demanded the
Captain. "I think that he is a thorough-paced
cad," very decidedly replied the writer, as they
saw Grimes waiting, a la porte du Paradis, to
pounce upon them — "but, I'll know more after to-
morrow night.
"I have to dine there to meet him, and others.
I wish he were out of my way — but, — I hear that
he's a fixture here as long as Naera of the golden
hair lingers."
With gleeful rapacity, Grimes bore down upon
his two neophytes and then led them into the gen-
eral assembly room of the Eveless Paradise.
There was a hearty welcome awaiting the pil-
grims at the table where two draped American
46 CAPTAIN LANDON.
flags reminded the score of assembled good fel-
lows of the land for whose integrity a half million
brave men had died under the consecrated folds.
A dozen universities, as many different callings,
and a baker's dozen of different states, were repre-
sented in the bright-hearted circle of gay fellows
under thirty.
Landon had been led away to see his two
quaintly romantic chambers where, already, Bap-
tiste had laid out his things, when the merry
breakfast room was invaded by Mr. Robert Bran-
don.
The soldier vainly tried to resist the infection
of the artist's all-round manner.
Portly of frame, ruddy of hue, cheery and in-
sistent, with a dome-like rounded head and
banker-like side whiskers, — the mercantile artist
deftly oiled the hinges of every unopened human
door around him.
It was only when the two hours' banquet was
waning to its close that Landon found time to
whisper to Hatton : "If his wife is a fit running
mate, I can easily see why the bucket-shop studio
is a go!"
Whereat Hatton only feebly smiled, for he was
ON THE PINCIAN HILL. 47
now firmly entangled in the meshes of the Bran-
don net, and doomed to fight under their colors
in Rome — and, in his heart of hearts, he felt fated
to be a tout for the social pushing off of those
remarkable canvases wherever Brandon only con-
descended to add ears, eyes, hands and noses, the
tails of horses, pretty woman under the tree, and
"such small deer," to the efforts of his artistic job
workmen.
Sidney Landon, too, was also in the toils, he
had fallen a victim to Brandon's perfunctory hos-
pitality for the dinner of the morrow. No friendly
spirit whispered to him Mrs. Myra Brandon's
parting injunction to her spouse on this fateful
morning, "Remember, Robert, he can be very
useful to us in the Consulate ! We must cultivate
him !"
Yet, it was a red-letter day when the last
chorus had ceased, the nervous Italian countess
upstairs had resumed her afternoon nap, and
Grimes escaped with his prizes in a charmingly
appointed carriage for a long drive in the gardens
of the Villa Borghese.
The quickening warmth of these new fellow-
ships lightened Sidney Landon's heart, as he
48 CAPTAIN LANDON.
watched Frank Hatton delightedly drinking in the
veteran Roman's keenly critical babble, while they
slowly threaded the charming groves where count-
less hearts have beat in rapture or mutely broken
in the fierce old days when Roman passion seethed
around the splendid Papal throne.
"I have kept the best for the last," sagely ob-
served Forrest Grimes as the sun declined to its
glorious setting.
They were enraptured as they slowly crowned
the beautiful Pincio, where Nature smiles still in
her unfading beauty.
Landon sat as in a day dream, enjoying the
superb view from the terrace, while Grimes, with
deft touches, brought up the old days when
Lucullus reigned, the supreme arbiter of the social
world, — over the gardens where the mad Messa-
lina later lit the torches of Venus in men's throb-
bing hearts.
The green-bowered Villa Medici, with its gray
turrets, lay there under Hadrian's obelisk, and,
far away, — the huge dome of St. Peter's hung
like an eternal benediction over the Queen City of
all Time!
Landon listened to the wind-borne laughter of
ON THE PINCIAN HILL. 49
the women far below in the charming Passeggiata,
while the wooing music of the band set every pulse
beating and every arched-stepped foot tapping
with Strauss' dreamy waltzes!
There were double lines of stately carriages,
now slowly moving on, while groups of ardent
cavaliers leaned over the low sides, murmuring
loving words into the shell-like ears shaded by
the protecting fans.
Sidney Landon forgot to listen to the disser-
tations upon the Castella San Angelo, — the eter-
nal Pantheon, — the glories of the Querinal, and
the romance-haunted banks of the Tiber.
"All the Roman world and his sister are here,"
merrily said Grimes, in a change of key.
"For sheer consolidated love-making, this is
the garden spot of God's footstool, and, now and
then, you will see an Italian woman who is not
half bad looking, " he stopped abruptly, as
Landon, with a convulsive gesture, grasped his
arm, — "Do you know who that is?" the Captain
quickly said, while his voice took an unwonted
softness.
"That's Clark, — Rawdon Clark, — the American
Croesus," briskly replied Grimes.
50 CAPTAIN LANDON.
But, while Frank Hatton craned his neck to
glance at his new master once more, Captain
Landon made no sign. His eyes were very
dreamy, and he was gazing distraitly at a re-
ceding carriage.
There was the gleam of golden hair, — the
graceful curve of a neck with the sweep of the
Venus of Milo, — and, a sigh from Landon, as a
high break with a party of Italian military dandies
blocked the road from view. He was strangely
and moodily silent for the rest of the outing.
They drove silently back in the sunset's dying
splendors, but all Grimes' diamond wit failed to
awaken Landon's flagging interest.
He was still lingering under the spell of eyes
which had met his own in one of those flashlight
glances thrown across life's darkened seas which
shine out unforgotten through all the lingering
years.
The soldier was murmuring those words of
Buchanan Read, when the carriage drew up with
a crash at the narrow gateway of the Eveless
Paradise, —
"She came as comes the summer wind, —
A gust of beauty to my heart."
ON THE PINCIAN HILL. 51
But his lively companions were now deep in a
plot to thrust Hatton into the "foremost and focal
fire" of Rome's intellectual circles, and, hence,
they did not see that something more than the
glow of the setting sun had stolen into the lonely
soldier's heart.
It was under the soft starlight that Sidney
Landon wandered down alone to the Piazza
Spagna, after leisurely making his dinner toilet.
His thoughts were not at his own command, for
as he crested the Scala de Spagna, his mind was
far away on the Pincian Hill, — lingering still in
contemplation of that lovely, womanly apparition
which had flashed by him as the sunset in its glow-
ing blood-red embers.
"If there is any such woman in the world as
she seems to be," he mused, "then, — beauty has
not fled from Egeria's bower. And — she did not
seem to be an Italian."
He was still in a dream as he threaded the long
hall in the now deserted palazzo on the hill.
The young soldier hardly lifted his eyes as the
butler ushered him into Mrs. Gertrude Melville's
drawing room. There was that softened light
which ladies love in the splendid apartment,
52 CAPTAIN LANDON.
though silvery gleams lit up the dining hall be-
yond ! He bowed low over Mrs. Melville's hand
as that incomparably charming lady welcomed
him to the Eternal City.
And then all the blood rushed to his cheeks
as his hostess said, "We shall be a little party of
four! Miss Hawthorn, Captain Landon."
There was a tingle in every bounding pulse as
the young man woke from his day dream with a
start !
"I think we met to-day " Miss Agnes softly
said, her eyes dropping before that unconsciously
ardent glance.
"On the Pincian," murmured Landon, as he
offered the goddess his arm.
CHAPTER III.
AT THE TOMB OF CECILIA METELLA.
There was no social ice to break in the little
dinner party, for sundry little radial lines of sym-
pathy had already been traced out long before
the matchless Luigi and his perfectly trained as-
AT THE TOMB OF CECILIA METELLA. 53
si slants had reached the service of the unapproach-
able Italian ices and confetti.
Arthur Melville descended from the cloudland
of art long enough to remind Sidney Landon that
General Rufus Hatcher was a cherished "ami de
maison."
"My poor brother Will was killed on his staff
at Spottsylvania," sighed the dilettante, "and, the
General has written, congratulating me on your
coming as my confrere here!"
"The fact is, Captain," said Melville, "when I
accepted this post, it was quasi diplomatic ! The
Vatican Legation had been abolished, and our
Italian Minister Resident was then located at
Florence.
"We have grown into Rome ; our little girl was
born here, — and, in the past, the holding of this
sinecure post opened all the art treasures, even
those of the reserved chambers of the Vatican, to
me!
"Now that we are knitted by friendships to the
shy, proud Italian noblesse, thanks to Gertrude,
I am ready to yield up the position.
"The pressure of tourist and business relatives
becomes heavier daily, — the monetary responsi-
54 CAPTAIN LANDON.
bilities are large, — and General Hatcher writes
me wonders as to your executive ability. I would
feel much safer to see the office under your con-
trol.
"I sometimes doubt Maspero. He is just a little
too smooth! But, Hatcher declares that he will
have you back in the army."
Landon's eyes strayed around the superb apart-
ment. It was easy to divine that the gentle-
hearted artist only lived in the realms of form
and color, while the social sway of the family, the
executive reins of their daily life, and all sublu-
nary matters were guided by the firm little hands
of the uncrowned American queen who had
blessed Melville's life.
Madame Gertrude's slight, girlish form, — her
small, well-poised head, — her steadfast, brown
eyes shining out under an unruffled brow, proved
the woman "nobly planned."
At thirty-five and twenty-seven — the pair were
still notable lovers, and Landon easily divined the
power behind the throne in learning that Madame
Gertrude was the favorite niece of one of Ameri-
ca's colossal money magnates, — a man whose
thunderbolts easily shook financial thrones.
AT THE TOMB OF CECILIA METELLA. 55
It was only when Melville had lured Miss Haw-
thorn away to his studio for a short art colloquy
that Sidney Landon felt relieved of the imperial
presence of the young goddess of the Pincian.
Little Elsie Melville, a lovely sprite of five,
flitted before the visitor a new charm to the man
who was beginning already to doubt the eternal
fitness of an Eveless Paradise.
"I must make friends with you, Captain Lan-
don," said the hostess, "for I am anxious to see
Arthur shielded and aided by some one of reso-
lution and courage!
"The frank, bustling American does not easily
penetrate all the deep subtlety of the Italian
character.
"Of all countries in Europe, we assimilate here
the least ! I believe in putting none but Ameri-
cans on guard."
She pointed smilingly to the two silken Ameri-
can banners glorifying the dusky richness of the
«
stately dining room.
"You will have a career yet in diplomacy,
though. I know that the army is loth to lose
you. / know all!" she smilingly said.
"Colonel Atwater married my mother's beloved
56 CAPTAIN LANDON.
schoolmate, and Mary Atwater has been already
singing your praises. I shall try to make Rome
so pleasant that you will not wish to leave us!"
Mrs. Melville saw the shade of grave concern
which darkened Landon's face, as he bent over
the lovely child, his hand straying through the
silken wreath framing the sweet face.
"Certainly, you will be at my disposal as
escort," lightly resumed Mrs. Melville. "Arthur
is wedded to his art. Time is fleeting, and I am
charged with unfolding the glories of Rome to
Agnes Hawthorn. We shall claim a share of
your leisure, and I hope that you will begin slowly
in the official remodeling of the office.
"Frankly, Signore Maspero looks upon you as
the one who will take away the reins of his power !
His position has been both enviable and lucrative
— for an Italian. But, he needs a curb!"
Captain Landon murmured an acquiescence,
but turned his head away to conceal a deepened
color.
"Tell me of Miss Hawthorn," he said, with
affected carelessness.
"You see her, as she is," fondly said Gertrude
Melville.
OX THIS PIXCIAN" * * * AS HE OFFERED THE GODDESS
HIS AK-U.-Pag-e 52.
AT THE TOMB OF CECILIA METELLA. 57
"Our families have been linked by the closest
friendship of a generation.
"When Agnes was left an orphan by the death
of both her parents in a fearful Atlantic ship-
wreck, my dear mother took the child to her
heart. With all her enormous fortune, her life has
been lonely enough.
"Lawyers, guardians and Philadelphia Trust
Companies are cheerless surroundings for a
woman in the flower of her beauty.
"It seems sad," sighed the lady, "that such
wealth should bring down the jackal tribe of for-
tune hunters upon Agnes, but it has!
"Last year was her first season. Released from
the gentle tyranny of Bryn Mawr, Agnes has fled
over here for an indefinite stay. Here we can, in
a measure, shield her for a time ! She is the sister
of my heart.
"But, alas, her splendid, stately, daily life at the
palatial Hotel Costanzi, — her complete establish-
ment,— the deference of bankers and shopkeepers
draws down the swarm of mournful-eyed Italian
Princes, and all the hungry visiting noblesse flut-
tering around the salons of the best circles
here."
58 CAPTAIN LANDON.
Landon gloomily said, "It seems that women
must be either hunted down for the beauty of
their skins, or else trapped for the gold so needful
to the heiress hunter."
"It is too bad," murmured Mrs. Melville.
"Agnes is a gifted, bright-hearted and sincere
woman. She should not meet her fate under false
lights ! She is only happy and at home with us,
in our little circle.
"The Brandons are distant, very distant con-
nections. There is some Kentucky cousinship,
very remote, with Robert Brandon. You will
dine there to-morrow night, you tell me! You
will see a strange social menagerie," Gertrude
Melville laughed merrily.
"Robert Brandon is a bustling, fatuous soul, —
profoundly happy in a colossal vanity, — and his
art rooms are carried on 'for revenue only.' He
is harmless enough in his own bourgeois way !
"His wife," said Gertrude, with a determined
flash of her eyes, "is a distinct social meddler, —
an intrigante, — a busybody, — and determined to
force the attentions of this nouvean riche man-
eater Rawdon Clark upon my lovely friend.
"And so," she decisively said, "Agnes is forced
AT THE TOMB OF CECILIA METELLA". 59
to take refuge in visits to me, which baffle the
'Encyclopedia.'
"Arthur always wages a determined war upon
Brandon's alleged art, and so our home is 'terra
incognito' to that faction."
It was easy to see the chevaux de frise fencing
out the Brandons.
When Elsie Melville had been duly kissed and
sent to the Land of Nod, Landon rapidly seized
upon the pith of his hostess' remarks, while the
return of his host and Miss Hawthorn gave him
a breathing spell, while the fair visitor and the
enthusiast fought over again their battle as to
respective art values of the Venus of the Capitol
and the Florentine marvel.
The chatter of Grimes returned to enlighten
him, — Hutton's remarks as to Clark's career, —
the presence of the capitalist dogging Miss Haw-
thorn's carriage in the Pincian, and the pro-
jected diner de societe, — all these were pregnant
with social meaning.
"The campaign is already laid out," mused the
soldier, "Mr. Rawdon Clark probably knows of
this solid Philadelphia fortune, — of the pyramidal
social position of the Hawthorns.
60 CAPTAIN LANDON.
"The closed doors of mansions and clubs would
soon open to Agnes Hawthorn's husband, — and
the financial magnates would unbend to the pow-
erful stranger once anchored down locally ! For,
people buy everything now, — seats in the Senate,
— the dignity of Governor, and, even all the trap-
pings of the First Citizen."
The soldier's eye rested gravely upon that
ardently enthusiastic, woman face, flower-like, in
its beauty.
Nineteen golden years were reflected in the
maiden's sunny hair, the violets of all the happy
springs in those deep-lashed, splendid eyes. The
splendor of youth modeled the superb lines of her
figure.
Landon's memory recalled Eugenie de Montijo
in that vernal loveliness which swept the cold-
hearted Bonaparte off his feet and changed the
destiny of France.
The flute-like voice had lulled him until he
woke with a start as Miss Hawthorn directly ad-
dressed him.
"If I mistake not, — Captain Landon, — I owe
your gallant regiment an unpaid debt of sorrow-
ing gratitude. You knew my cousin Willy Grear,
AT THE TOMB OF CECILIA METELLA. 61
who died at the hands of those frightful Utes?"
"He was my beloved classmate, Miss Haw-
thorn," gravely answered the soldier.
"Then," cried Agnes Hawthorn, clasping her
jeweled hands in a sudden emotion. "You can
tell me the name of the young Cavalry officer
who, with three men, repelled the murderers and
saved him from the last horrible mutilation of
Indian warfare!"
"I have heard of the occurrence, "answered Lan-
don, rising suddenly. "I think it was in 1878,
but I do not now remember the officer's name."
"He was of your own regiment, the Grays,"
the heiress persisted, "and, — in my girlish school-
days, I vowed to find out the man who, — alone, —
exposed himself to the red men's fire, while his
little party, from a safe ambush, turned back the
murderous brutes with their rifles! For such a
man, — I could go around the world, — only to
tell him," she said with sparkling eyes, "what an
American woman thinks of a brave man !"
Mrs. Melville started at the sudden pallor of
Landon's face.
"Excuse me," he said. "The hour is already
late, and — " he said lightly, "I must go into
62 CAPTAIN LANDON.
official harness in the morning. I shall have the
honor of meeting you, I believe, at dinner to-
morrow evening at the Brandons."
When the young soldier had made his graceful
adieux, the two women gazed blankly at each
other.
"There must have been something very pain-
ful," murmured Agnes, "in these old recollections.
I am told that classmates become deeply attached
to each other at West Point!"
Gertrude Melville was still lost in astonishment
at Landon's abrupt departure, when her husband
returned from escorting his guest to the cavernous
stairway of "il grande palazzo vecchio."
In one hand he held his office keys, — in the
other, a gray pasteboard-bound Army Register.
Arthur Melville smiled knowingly as he said,
"Ladies! I will read to you from the Medal of
Honor record of 1878:
"First Lieutenant Sfdney Lafidon, th U.
S. Cavalry, medal of honor for heroic gallantry
in personally exposing himself to the fire of a
hostile band of Utes to draw their fire, while his
detachment, from safe position, inflicted the
heaviest loss upon the enemy, thus rescuing, un-
AT THE TOMB OF CECILIA METELLA. 63
mutilated, the body of Captain William Grear,
U. S. Ordnance, who had been treacherously
slain."
Agnes Hawthorn sprang up, standing there,
— beautiful, thrilling, living statue, with her hands
crossed upon her bosom, as Melville quietly closed
the book.
"When you next meet him, Agnes," he simply
said, "you can say, 'Thou art the man!' '
There were diamond tears fringing the beau-
tiful lashes as the young goddess silently clasped
Gertrude Melville's hands!
"God bless him," murmured the young mother,
as she led her speechless guest away to the hap-
piest of slumbers.
Far below them, Sidney Landon was stalking
through the shadowed Piazza de Spagna.
"They must never know !" he muttered, as the
mist of years rolled away and he saw once more
the gray hills of Utah, — and the crack of rifles,
long silent, came back to memory. "It was not
much, after all, — any good man would have done
the same."
Landon was strangely silent in the bright Val-
halla of the Eveless Paradise, where Frank Hat-
64 CAPTAIN LANDON.
ton was the center of a lively bevy of the foreign
literate of the Eternal City.
The son of old Rutgers had already projected
"works'' of great magnitude under the inspiration
of the scenes storied in his youthful classic dig-
ging-
Hatton marveled when they reached their
apartment at Landon's brief comment upon the
Melville establishment over the last evening pipe.
"Nice enough people," remarked the soldier,
with a crafty guile newly born.
"They all seem to be very fond of Grimes.
Melville tells me that he holds the highest possible
social position compatible with, "
"Working for a living, you mean! Out with
it!" good-naturedly said Hatton. "But they tell
me, all here, that Melville's home is a fairy palace,
— marble halls and all that ! They are gilt-edged
swells, rich as cream and can buy out a lot of the
Colonnas and Orsinis."
"They are all well enough," wearily said Lan-
don. "I am only an incident of their lives ! The
lady is a witching fairy, sweet and earnest, and
is a niece of the great Ogden Mowbray !"
AT THE TOMB OF CECILIA METELLA. 65
Hatton's whistle of astonishment gave way
to a last query. "Anybody else there?"
"Nobody to speak of!" remarked the Captain,
as he knocked out his pipe. "From what I hear
we will have a song and dance entertainment at
the Brandons!"
"Yes!" gloomily answered Hatton, "and that
despotic cad, Rawdon Clark, has sent me a letter
to call on him at the American Club to-morrow7
at eleven, 'to learn his wishes governing my letters
from Europe !' '
Sidney Landon was glad to escape into his own
apartment, where he sat for an hour gazing out
into the night.
The face of "nobody to speak of" returned to
haunt him, and he saw her again, with that
sweetly impassioned face!
"I would go through the whole Ute tribe for
such a woman," mused the lonely man, as he laid
his head upon his pillow. "Strange that we should
both be alone in the world! That fellow Clark
must be a nice specimen of 'true American man-
hood !' "
There was one supremely happy man in Rome
upon the morrow of this initial entree of Captain
66 CAPTAIN LANDON.
Sidney Landon into Roman life. That man was
the pale-faced Consular Clerk Edwin Morgan,
who, open-eyed in wonder, heard the Consul Gen-
eral inform Signore Jacopo Maspero that hence-
forth Vice Consul General Landon would assume
the entire active management of the office.
"Captain Landon will receive all your reports
and use my name without question," suavely said
the happy artist, as he fled away to save three
hours of splendid painting light. It was a consular
upheaval !
There was a suppressed scowl on Maspero's
face as Landon took his seat, with a quiet dignity,
at the official opening hour. "I shall now turn all
over to you, Signore Capitano?" sulkily said the
Italian.
"By no means, remarked Landon, with a
searching glance of his steady eyes. "I shall pro-
ceed to make a thorough examination of the whole
office accounts for the past ten years.
"As Mr. Morgan is a perfect Italian scholar,
he will hereafter conduct all business jointly with
you, and he will represent me! I have a State
Department order to engage another copyist, and
he will relieve Mr. Morgan. I desire no business
AT THE TOMB OF CECILIA METELLA. 67
of importance to be transacted which I do not
personally supervise. But you can get orders from
Mr. Morgan in all things without waiting for
me."
The Italian bowed in silence.
The wandering American public, gathering in
at the hour of ten, found a singular courtesy in
Signore Maspero's new manner, and the crafty
Italian smothered an oath when he observed his
new Chief and the young student depart for
luncheon together.
"This will be our general rule, Signore," re-
marked the Vice Consul General.
And thus the reign of King Stork in that Con-
sulate General came to an end, giving way to one
soon destined to revolutionize the methods which
had dealt out humble pie in large quantities to the
distracted tourist.
Captain Sidney Landon was in a fairly cheerful
mood when the loyal Hatton, with much flourish,
presented him to the hostess of the evening at
Mrs. Myra Brandon's resplendent establishment
on the Via Babuino.
An imposing woman of an impressive middle
68 CAPTAIN LANDON.
age was Madame Myra, firmly insistent in voice
and manner.
Fortified in network of chain and bangle, — with
suspiciously raven hair, and piercing, round un-
smiling black eyes, the wave of her fan or the
side glance of her watchful orbs brought the bus-
tling Brandon to her side at once.
"I can only make my peace by buying a pic-
ture," mused Landon. "I wonder if there are any
very small ones!"
But the walls were only resplendent with the
hugest spoils of Brandon & Co.'s artistic bows
and spears, — regular wall coverers.
Landon was awaiting the awful moment of
dinner assignment when Mr. Brandon descended
upon him.
"Captain, allow me," the host exclaimed, as he
dragged the young official into a corner and pre-
sented him to Mr. Rawdon Clark.
The eyes of the two men met in that quiet, in-
stantaneous assumption of hostility with which
nature has endowed certain antagonistic souls.
As Landon escaped, he could not but hear the
loudly whispered aside of the man of money :
AT THE TOMB OF CECILIA METELLA. 69
"Army fellow — isn't he? I hear he has some
place in the Consulate."
But Landon forgot to contemplate the outer
man of Croesus as Mrs. Brandon flusteringly fell
upon Miss Agnes Hawthorn, the latest arrival.
"Now, our golden circle is complete!" gushed
the hostess. "Mr. Clark, you will take in Miss
Hawthorn ?"
"Pardon me one moment," coldly remarked
Miss Hawthorn, as Captain Landon bent over her
hand.
"Mrs. Montgomery, let me present Captain Lan-
don," she said as the soldier was made acquainted
with the sweet-faced widowed woman' who was
the Grand Inside Guard of the heiress' daily life.
Miss Agnes was a dream of beauty in her cling-
ing robes of white with a corsage knot of Parma
violets. She found time to whisper to the cavalry-
man, "You are strangely forgetful of names, sir!
I have learned how you won your medal of
honor!"
Before Landon had raised his eyes, he was
whisked away by the voluble hostess.
"As our ranking United States officer, you
have the place of honor, at my side, sir."
70 CAPTAIN LANDON.
In all the clatter of the polyglot circle, Landon
did not forget the keen, vulpine craft of the
woman who had nailed Agnes Hawthorn to the
pillory of public attention as Rawdon Clark's pos-
sible matrimonial prey.
The Austrians, Russians, French and Italians
chattered around that noisy board, devouring the
gathered American beauties with their eyes, while
Landon strove to shut his ears to Brandon's boast-
ful announcement of the purchase of his two great
historical pictures by "my friend, Mr. Clark."
"Such a fascinating man, — a wonderful man,
Captain," raved on the hostess.
"He has ordered his architect to build a gallery
in his new house especially for the 'Boadicea
Beaten with Rods,' and The Death of Alaric!'
Oh ! if only more Americans were like him !"
The soldier quietly "sized up" the hard-featured
capitalist at Agnes Hawthorn's side.
Rawdon Clark's outer man was perfectly en
regie — "Has a good valet," murmured the Cap-
tain.
The man himself, on the sunny side of forty,
sturdily built, with a strongly cast face, carried in
AT THE TOMB OF CECILIA METELLA. 71
his cool, gray eyes and heavy jaw the ear-marks
of personal power.
Closely waving wiry dark hair, — a slightly
frosted mustache, — firmly set, pitiless lips, and
a heavily cleft chin, with the sternly carven facial
lines of the financial operator, the whole ensemble
denoted the "Silver King" type, — the man who
had arrived, through desperate struggle and soul-
eating persistence.
"Not a fellow to tackle lightly," thought the
soldier, "and, a man who will have a good deal
of his own way."
There was one memory of the Brandon dinner
which never faded from Landon's mind. It was
the furtive inventorial glance with which Clark
surveyed the proud young beauty at his side.
Miss Hawthorn seemed to have developed a
slightly glacial manner, when the long drawn out
feast ended !
And, she seemed to have reserved her smiles
largely for the courtly old Count Esterholz, the
Austrian minister, seated at her other side, for the
old bon vivant was the soul of courtesy, de la
vieille roche.
But once during the dinner did Landon catch a
72 CAPTAIN LANDON.
fleeting glance from the lovely eyes which had
spoken so eloquently to him at their meeting.
And their friendly gleams seemed to say, "Wait !
Wait!"
With a quiet decision, Sidney Landon ignored
Brandon's officious cordiality when the ladies re-
tired. "I do not take wine," he decisively re-
marked, as he rose to follow the ladies.
"You are a poor army man, then !" sharply in-
terjected Rawdon Clark, who had just made an
autocratic sign to Hatton. "Did you address
me?" sternly demanded the soldier.
And, strangely enough, the millionaire was
silent as Landon passed out into the drawing
room. "He dropped his eye, at any rate," mused
Landon, as he sought the side of Mrs. Montgom-
ery.
The little artifice succeeded, for in a few mo-
ments Miss Hawthorn joined her chaperone.
In the dining room, Clark had found a tardy
consolation in remarking, "Brandon, your friend
is pretty sharp set for a broken down army officer !
Cut him out of my dinner list !"
There was a gloomy silence between the two
AT THE TOMB OF CECILIA METELLA. 73
friends as Hatton and Landon walked home
through the deserted Via Babuino.
At last the journalist broke into angry speech.
"Do you know that cur Clark has actually ordered
me to attend his swell dinner for Miss Hawthorn
at the Hotel Costanzi and to 'feature it' for the
journal ! I think that I will resign !"
"Nonsense, my boy," coolly answered the Cap-
tain. "Don't fall out at the first skirmish !"
"He is a brute and a tyrant," indignantly cried
Hatton, now thoroughly out of temper. "He is
giving me a lot of slush about his art treasures and
his new home — and — he darkly intimates that this
pretty Miss Hawthorn is to be its future mis-
tress !"
"Oh! He does — does he? Well! Damn his
impertinence!" cried Landon as they regained
their abode.
That night a new feeling of cold isolation in the
world possessed the lonely soldier. "It's the old
Juggernaut business," he growled. "I suppose, as
usual, money will have its way."
A month later, the glories of Mr. Rawdon
Clark's superb feast were forgotten save by the
distant readers of Hatton's unwilling tribute.
74 CAPTAIN LANDON.
The Roman season was briskly coming on, and
the American colony had set up an idol in the
shape of the dignified and effective Vice Consul
General.
It was true that the gossips wondered to see the
handsome young soldier choose Arthur Melville's
fairy child Elsie as his companion.
The Quirinal Gardens, the Borghese, and the
Pincian knew the strangely assorted pair. All
Rome soon knew of the little coterie at Melville's
home which now embraced the honest-hearted
Hatton, — that accomplished scribe, Forrest
Grimes, — and the energetic Vice Consul.
The absence of the whole American official
circle from Mr. Rawdon Clark's superb feast at
the Hotel Costanzi had convulsed the three dis-
tinct circles of American Roman society, the man-
sion and villa people, — the students and pension
boarders — and the feverish tourist guests of the
Hotels.
And, yet, in the artistic circles, the shining face
of Mrs. Myra Brandon was in evidence. The
loudly heralded purchase of Mr. Rawdon Clark's
third acquisition, "Regulus Before the Roman
Senate," had been duly advertised in the "Phila-
AT THE TOMB OF CECILIA METELLA. 75
delphia Mail,", which estimable journal also ex-
ploited the preliminary plans of the Honorable
Rawdon Clark's marble palace, "soon to rise upon
the banks of the Schuylkill."
There was a quiet content in the Eveless Para-
dise on the Corso, where Frank Hatton "snatched
a fearful joy" in digging away at his forthcoming
book, "Modern Relics of Ancient Rome."
The honest-hearted fellow marveled greatly at
the changed manner of Captain Sidney Landon.
This young official had suddenly developed a
strange taste for the red Consular Book and toiled,
late and early, in the Consulate General, working
till the wee sma' hours upon his comprehensive re-
view of the accounts and archives.
A dull smouldering anger burned in Signore
Jacopo Maspero's bosom since he had delivered
the keys of the safe and office over to Consular
Clerk Morgan, now revitalized by the kindness
of the young Chief.
While it was true that Captain Landon had left
a card on all the American residents who boasted
Lares and Penates, — still the society circles saw
little of his handsome face.
It was true that he acted gravely as Vestryman
76 CAPTAIN LANDON.
at the one Episcopal Church and that he had re-
vived his boating with Charley Hollingsworth.
There were some whispered colloquies between
dashing Elaine Hollingsworth, the cautious Ger-
trude Melville and the enraptured Consul General,
now left free to soar in the artistic Empyrean.
"He's a famous fellow is Landon," remarked
Arthur Melville, "and, — I hoped he would take
kindly to Agnes Hawthorn.
"But," the good man sighed, "beyond our Elsie,
and your two roguish cherubs, Hollingsworth —
the man seems devoid of all social sympathy!
Have you noticed that he only comes here when
our little coterie, 'The Five Spot,' meets? He
has taken to roaming alone from Ostea to Tivoli,
from Palestrina to Frascati."
"Has he no Egeria — this all too romantic
young Numa Pompilius?" demanded Charley
Hollingsworth, who was the leading spirit in the
Flirting Club known as "the Devil's own."
"Don't be%a goose, Charley," imperiously cried
his wife. "There's Agnes Hawthorn, the hand-
somest woman in Europe to-day, — why he has
only left a formal duty card upon her at the Cos-
tanzi !"
AT THE TOMB OF CECILIA METELLA. 77
"By the way," murmured the silenced Rollings-
worth, pulling his long yellow mustache nerv-
ously, "the American Club fellows are betting two
to one on this cold-hearted fellow Clark marrying
your peerless Agnes! He's an insufferable cad
and so already assumes open airs of proprietor-
ship."
Gertrude Melville's pretty lips curled in an un-
disguised sneer. "That oaf — that promoted fore-
man,— marry Agnes — never ! Agnes in her own
quiet way is as proud and distant as Landon — ,"
the little queen checked herself with a resolute
prediction.
"She never will enter Rawdon Clark's marble
palace ! The whole siege is kept up by those stuffy
Brandons. I think," slowly said the dainty Ger-
trude, "that Captain Landon is only fighting with
his stubborn pride about going back into the army !
"Next month, General Hatcher will be here,
and — perhaps the Atwaters ! They will draw him
out!"
"You may be right!" mused Arthur Melville,
"but he has developed a strange frenzy for work
and a misanthropy unsuited to his years.
"To all that, he's the finest fellow, by all odds,
78 CAPTAIN LANDON.
who ever entered the Consular service. I'd resign
in his favor, in a moment, if his pride were not a
barrier."
Gertrude Melville's beautiful brown eyes were
very dreamy. She reflected that Sidney Landon's
pride did not prevent him from hearing the light
fall of Agnes Hawthorn's pretty feet every time
that particular young goddess illumined the dark
gallery of the Palazzo Vecchio.
A smile softened the curves of her rosy lips.
"Wait and hope!" she murmured. With a quick
womanly divination she had guessed the secret of
the revolt of Landon's soul against the glittering
barrier of wealth which fenced in the blue-eyed
goddess !
And, that night, Gertrude Melville prayed "Oh !
Jupiter aid us !" before her pet statue of the God-
dess Fortune, and breathed a prayer that the scales
would fall from two pairs of impassioned eyes.
"There is a sort of fern seed glamour in this
thing," the pretty matron pouted. "They seem to
be invisible to each other !"
That very night, Rawdon Clark, Esq., in a con-
fidential talk with his visiting manager, Barker
Bolton of Denver, confided to his returning busi-
AT THE TOMB OF CECILIA METELLA. 79
ness agent his high scorn of the ex-Captain, Sid-
ney Landon.
'That fellow has surely some hidden shady
spots in his career. I know he was kicked out of
the army in some way ! Now, he's making trouble
for friends of mine here !
"All I know is that he left the army suddenly !
Spend all the money that you want to, and get me
a report over here, at once. I want to down him.
There's old 'Black Bill' Prindle, the Lieutenant
Colonel of the Grays.
"He is in command while old man Atwater is on
leave. I'll send you a letter to Mrs. Dora Prindle.
She is the secret boss of the Regiment, and, — mind
you, — nose the whole thing out ! You can make
Mrs. Prindle a handsome present in my name.
They are at Fort Stanton now !"
All unconscious of the gossip provoked by his
reticent avoidance of rosebud society, Sidney Lan-
don went along unruffled on his lonely way.
In his own mind, he had resolutely thrust out
the image of the lovely woman who stood so far
above him on the heights of Fortune.
And yet, her softly shining eyes pursued Him,
as he wandered out, a week later, to think calmly
80 CAPTAIN LANDON.
over the accumulating proofs of Signore Jacopo
Maspero's hidden official delinquencies. "It will
take Morgan months to trace all out," he mused,
"and the Cavaliere shall have a square deal."
Landon had wandered out of the Porta San Se-
bastiano, leaving his carriage to await his return.
The cool November air braced his spirits as he
sped along the old Appian way, with that swing-
ing stride which he had learned on the boundless
prairie seas of the west.
His heart and mind were full of but one beloved
theme as he paused at the little church of "Quo
Vadis." "Who knows where fate, not faith, — will
lead me !" he murmured, as he passed the Jewish
catacombs, the Circus of Maxentius, and, then —
resolutely trudged along to where the "stern
round tower of other days" told of the sorrow of
Crassus for Metellus' beloved daughter !
Throwing himself down in the shade he mur-
mured, "Let my heart entomb her as a memory !
Death is not the only barrier ! The battlements of
wealth, to-day, are stronger fences than these
crumbling crenellated walls."
A slow mental torture now goaded him on in
his daily life.
THE FOREMOST SCOUNDREL PITCHED OVER HEADLONG
ON HIS FACE.-/>afeS2.
AT THE TOMB OF CECILIA METELLA. 81
"I'll wait" he mused, after a half hour's intro-
spection, "until I see dear old Miles Atwater — and
Hatcher — then, — when I have set Signore Jacopo
Maspero to rights, I will — ask for a change of offi-
cial station, — anywhere, — anywhere !"
Around him dreamed the lonely wastes of the
Campagna! There was nothing living in sight
save a wretched stray buffalo ! The ruined arches
of the old aqueducts glared out on the lonely
plain, — the silence-haunted tombs of old Romans
glowed in the stark sunlight !
Suddenly the piercing scream of a woman's
voice was borne down on the breeze.
The soldier sprang up, alert and ready as when
the crawling scout had laid a hand on his mouth
while he whispered, " Vienen los Apaches !"
"It's over there, in the hollow," he mechan-
ically muttered, as he took a smart double time to
the brow of a little hill a hundred yards away.
And, then, the fighting blood within him boiled,
for, sixty yards below, a group of raffish looking
fellows were pulling two helpless women out of a
Victoria.
On the road beyond, the fleeing coward driver
was speeding away, yelling with Italian fervor.
e
82 CAPTAIN LANDON.
"I'm in luck!" thought Landon — as he drew his
army revolvers, which, by chance, he had brought
out to fire away the useless charges in some se-
cluded place, where five hundred francs fine would
not follow such a daring indiscretion.
"I must get nearer to make sure," he muttered,
as he gazed at the group of robbers. "Some poor
English tourist women, of course."
At thirty yards, he raised the heavy weapon and
fired point blank at a clump of three of the brutes
who had darted toward him, brandishing heavy
clubs.
The foremost scoundrel pitched over headlong
on his face, and then, — with a chorus of screams,
the other ruffians fled, diving into the deep radial
gulleys leading down toward the catacombs.
Landon never stopped to gaze at the villain
lying there before him, weltering in his blood, but
he dashed up to the helpless woman who had been
dragged from the carriage.
The revolver dropped from his hand as he fell
on his knees by the side of the senseless victim of
the daring raid !
His manhood almost forsook him as he mur-
AT THE TOMB OF CECILIA METELLA." 83
mured fondly — " Agnes! Dead! My God! Look
up! Speak to me!"
For, pillowed on his breast lay the fair head of
the goddess of the Pincian, as he roused Mrs.
Montgomery with vigorous appeals for help !
Five minutes later, the coachman, returning
with a rescue party of sheep herders, met the car-
riage slowly proceeding homeward, driven by the
chance rescuer.
At a slow walk, the vehicle regained the Porta
San Sebastiani.
"Here is my own carriage," whispered Landon
to the pale-faced goddess. " You are now safe ! I
will follow in yours ! Say nothing of this ! I will
report to the authorities. It must not be noised
abroad. Mrs. Montgomery is now herself again."
"How can I repay you ?" faltered Agnes.
"By never leaving Rome without due escort and
in a suitable party," answered Landon.
"Besides, I am paid already! Your head has
rested once upon my breast !"
And — they parted in silence — while all the way
homeward the young heiress fondly looked at her
limp and helpless hands ! She felt his passionate
kisses tingling there yet !
84 CAPTAIN LANDON.
CHAPTER IV.
IN THE COLOSSEUM.
With the quick decision of a soldier, Landon
had already framed his plan to stifle any needless
gossip as to the morning's adventure long before
his carriage reached the American Consulate Gen-
eral.
He was delighted at the womanly prudence
which led Agnes Hawthorn to refuge herself with
Gertrude Melville, that sagacious and undaunted
matron.
As he supported the trembling beauty in scaling
the two giant staircases of the old palace, the
young man whispered, "Leave all to me, and, —
say nothing. Confide only in Mrs. Melville.
"I will have my coachman artfully detain
yours, until Melville can take your cowardly
driver and go directly to the Minister of Police.
"There, this fellow can be detained as a witness
against the wounded brigand.
"I advise you to spend the whole afternoon here
IN- THE COLOSSEUM. 85
and dine later with the Consul General! In the
evening, we will all escort you back to the Hotel
Costanzi, and, — remember, above all — Mrs.
Montgomery must be silenced."
Five minutes later the two American officials
were on their way together to the Ministry of Jus-
tice. Landon had dismissed his own driver, a re-
liable fellow provided by Forrest Grimes.
The soldier was astonished at Arthur Melville's
sudden energy and decision.
"We have only the journals, the clubs and the
society gossip to fear, my dear Landon," remarked
the Artist. "Gertrude will send out and bring
down the Hollingsworths, and we will have a
musical evening. You can bring up Grimes and
Hatton on my informal bidding!
"I only fear one thing, — have the two coach-
men been chattering with each other?"
"Certainly not," coolly answered Landon. "Re-
member! I had left my man behind at the San
Sebastian gate, and, when the shooting occurred,
— the cowardly wretch who drove the ladies was
out of sight ! The two men have not had a chance
to exchange a single word !"
"Good !" mused the Consul General. "Then I
86 CAPTAIN LANDON.
will have this driver fellow detained as a witness
against the wounded thug.
"In this way we can control the tongue of local
gossip.
"It must be done!" gravely continued Melville,
"for the watchful geese whose squawking saved
ancient Rome are marvels of silence compared to
the glib-tongued slanderers of the modern burg.
To have your name bandied with Agnes' in this,
would be her social ruin. We must stifle the whole
thing!"
Captain Landon bowed his head in a silent as-
sent. Melville marveled at the look of sadness
which mantled the young soldier's features.
When they drew up before the Ministry of Jus-
tice, Landon woke from a reverie and seized both
his companion's hands convulsively. "You must
do all you can, Melville, to hide this occurrence."
"You are right! No woman can be protected
against the fangs of her merciless sisterhood ! I
could tell you of one whose heart broke under the
lash of unmerited scorn — " and then Landon sud-
denly checked himself, noting Melville's surprised
glances.
Fortunately, the carriage halted, and the obse-
IN THE COLOSSEUM. 87
quious sentinels presented arms as the American
officials were received by the orderly officer.
The Consul General whispered a few words to
the young Lieutenant on guard, who then cour-
teously led the way into the Minister's reception
room.
In five minutes the grave Minister was pos-
sessed of the main facts of the case and an officer
followed by an orderly was clattering away to the
Porta San Sebastiano for an official report.
Landon admired Melville's aplomb as the Min-
ister, after exhausting the Consul General's brief
relation, turned to himself with detailed question-
ing.
Abandoning the graceful Italian in which he
was a Tuscan adept, Melville interjected a few
French words of expostulation.
"My Dear Signer Crispiani," he began. "You
must speak French to my friend, Captain Landon.
"Now, as he has not understood our colloquy, I
will tell him that you desire the names of the two
imperiled ladies, and, if possible, a description."
With a furtive wink to Landon, Melville slyly
continued : "Of course, — busied as I was at the
Consulate — I paid no attention to the two ladies,
88 CAPTAIN LANDON.
who took a passing carriage and drove hastily
away."
The astute Italian's glittering dark eyes rested
inquiringly upon Landon's handsome face.
Ringing for coffee and cigarettes, the Minister
proceeded to jot down a few queries.
In his own mind, he was really studying the
handsome soldier's demeanor.
"If he were one of our Roman cavaliers," mused
Crispiani, "it were easy to unravel the intrigue. A
hot-hearted beauty, — a complacent duenna, — a
little meeting outside the walls, — a jealous rival's
rage.
"Bah! These English and Americans only
have ice water in their veins after all !"
In his silkiest tones, Crispiani began : "Signior
Landono, you, alone, can aid me. I have already
ordered the driver to be kept apart from all other
prisoners, in close detention, as an honorable wit-
ness for the state.
"But you know not the subtlety of our Italian
peasants. I presume if these ladies picked up a
'voiture d'occasion,' this fellow may be one of
those loafers who drive people out of the city, and,
by a passing sign or a messenger sent on ahead,
IN THE COLOSSEUM. 89
assemble a few ruffians who pillage unprotected
tourists.
''Your imprudent English and American ladies
are traveling treasuries! Corpo de Bacco! Dia-
monds,— money, — jewels, — all these riches adorn
them, even by day ! We Italians are very poor, —
and hence" — he sighed, "very prudent."
Sidney Landon had caught the drift of his offi-
cial friend's warning, and he tarried long over his
coffee and cigarette, before he answered. "Mon-
sieur le Ministre will observe," he calmly began,
"that I am a recent arrival, — not a man of society
—and, as a soldier of the far west, — unacquainted
with even the faces of the leading American resi-
dents.
"I paid no special attention to the ladies. There
was no one in sight when the attack occurred, save
the cowardly coachman, who had cleared the knoll
before I fired at the brutes.
"I only waited an instant at the San Sebastian
gate, to put the ladies into my carriage, and, — fol-
lowing, in the other, at a safe distance, I was only
busied with detaining this fellow, whom I thought
would be needed as a witness.
"The two ladies were both too badly frightened
90 CAPTAIN LANDON.
to talk, and, — they gave me no names. I drove the
deserted carriage myself rapidly on till we met the
gend'armes and villagers going back with the
strange driver.
"The ladies looked to me to be English tourists
of the middle classes.
"You may hear of this later through the En-
glish Embassy. The English always make a great
racket if their travelers are interfered .with."
Arthur Melville sank back with a sigh of relief
as he noted the effect of Landon's judicious and
gentlemanly lying.
"Two to one on Landon," he mused, as he gazed
on the soldier's impassive face.
Signior Crispiani touched a bell and whispered
a few words to an aid, who vanished like a jack in
the box.
"Of course," suavely said the Minister, "the
Consul General's official guarantee of your rank
and station makes your evidence all that is neces-
sary.
"I will wait and hear what this fellow has to say
— his first tissue of lies, and then merely ask you to
dictate a brief statement to my secretary. You
will be troubled no farther than to identify the fel-
IN THE COLOSSEUM. 91
low whom you wounded, and to swear that the
shooting was done in self defense."
Landon bowed politely and studied the pictures
of the royal family until Signior Crispiani's aid
returned.
There was much exchange of the Italian dialect
carried on by both hands and all the ringers, with
added manipulations of the eyes, until, finally, the
aid vanished.
Signior Crispiani resumed his fluent French,
with an air of profound wisdom. "We have the
fellow's name, description, cab number and so
forth — one of the average handy rascals of the
town. He, of course, howls 'non capisco.'
"His story is that the ladies hired him near the
Teatro Apollo for a drive. Trying to make a
good fare, — he took them out to the nearest of our
outside 'lions,' seeking only a round twenty lire for
his half day's work.
"All he will say is that one was oldj — the other
not so old! He classes them as 'Inglesi.'
"Of course, he stoutly denies all complicity in
the attack, — and, — also, declares that he did not
see the shooting ! He only jumped off his box and
92 CAPTAIN LANDON.
cleared out when the band of loafers swarmed out
of the bushes."
"What will you do with him?" carelessly de-
manded Melville.
"He will be kept and well treated until the other
fellow dies or is tried," answered Crispiani.
"I believe him innocent. I think he tells the
truth," said Landon. "Allow me," — he remarked
as he handed the Minister a fifty-lire note. "Let
the poor devil have this for tobacco money ! After
all, he brought aid back as soon as he could."
"You are very generous, Capitano," bowed the
Minister.
"Ah ! Here is our report from the Captain of
Gendarmerie at the station near San Sebastiano."
. The crafty Italian ran his eye over the precis
handed to him. Dismissing the aid with a nod,
Crispiani read with a professional triumph :
"Prisoner badly wounded in shoulder, — now in
prison hospital. Recognized as Giuseppe Corti, —
a professional criminal wanted on other charges.
Three of his party, lazzaroni, also in custody."
"Good," concluded the Minister. "Corti will
get five years in the government sulphur mines, —
the others for — say three years, and, on the whole
IN THE COLOSSEUM. 93
report, — we shall simply charge them with an at-
tack as common footpads upon you. So we need
not look further for the vanished ladies, although,
their evidence would, of course, be valuable."
For half an hour the scratching of the Secre-
tary's pen was the only sound which punctuated
the Minister's questions and the carefully guarded
general replies of the cautious Captain.
Finally, Crispiani presented the transcript to
Captain Landon for his signature.
"You will observe, Your Excellency, that I can
not, especially after a few days, identify any of
the wounded man's companions," gravely said the
young American.
"All easy enough, my dear friend," smilingly
said the functionary. "I shall send you home in
my carriage. If you would honor me now with
your signature you can avoid all future appearance
in court, by permitting me to send my carriage and
a staff officer to the Consulate General to-morrow
at such hour as you choose.
"If you will be good enough to drive down to
the Hospital and identify the wounded man, then
your Consulate General seal on this paper will
serve as final evidence.
94 CAPTAIN LANDON.
"I shall send for the driver, who will be de-
tained here, later in the day, and he, for mere
policy, will swear to the identity of the whole
gang."
An hour later, the friends had regained the fam-
ily home in the Palazzo Vecchio. It was a royal
progress in the official carriage of the Minister
with its liveried outriders.
Melville and Landon, closeted in the studio, dis-
cussed a bottle of Lachrymse Christi, — while they
concerted plans for the evening.
Melville's face was grave as he returned from a
brief colloquy with his energetic wife. "All looks
well, Landon," he cheerfully said. "Do you now
go and make sure of Grimes and Hatton for the
evening.
"I find that Mrs. Melville has sent Mrs. Mont-
gomery home in our carriage and I think there can
be no gossiping."
For all that, when the Captain had departed,
Melville called his wife aside.
"Be careful, Gertrude," he affectionately sug-
gested. "You know what Italian maids are. Do
not let our women overhear you talking with
Agnes over this romantic episode. All these Ital-
IN THE COLOSSEUM. 95
ian girls have lovers, — and the lover is the keeper
of the heart secrets of the inamorata."
The Consul General fled away to his brush and
a peculiarly adaptable painting light, leaving
Madame Gertrude in silent blushes, for, alas, — the
two snapping black-eyed maids were already mag-
nifying in their simple hearts the artless disclos-
ures of the hostess and her beautiful guest. The
warning came too late !
There was a peculiarly joyful dinner in the Mel-
ville household on this eventful evening.
With bashful maiden wit, Miss Agnes Haw-
thorn had contrived to be taken in by the genial
Frank Hatton, and the two Philadelphians gaily
chatted of the sleepy metropolis by the beloved
Schuylkill.
This gentle artifice in no wise deceived that ex-
perienced matron, Gertrude Melville, for, the pale
beauty's eye would wander, in spite of her affected
coldness, to rest, with a cerulean flash, upon Lan-
don, happily sheltered under Mrs. Elaine Hol-
lingsworth's friendly wing.
But "it was merry in hall" as Melville grace-
fully wrangled about art with Forrest Grimes, —
96 CAPTAIN LANDON.
finding, to his secret glee, so many points of con-
venient difference.
"The very charm of Art lies in its unvarying
vagueness," was the crowning dictum of the
saturnine Grimes.
And Charley Hollingsworth, outrageously flirt-
ing with his hostess, was only able to escape when
the ladies left the gentlemen to their wine.
Drawing Landon into a corner, he then handed
the Captain an evening journal.
There, in all the exuberant romance of the
"lingua Toscana," was a floridly fabulous account
of the desperate battle waged with robbers on the
Via Appia by the gallant Capitano Landon of the
Consulate General degli Stati Uniti.
"You are famous forever, now, my boy," gaily
cried the volatile Fred. But Landon, with a grave
face, drew Melville aside, and the two men at once
began to build additional battlements around the
truth.
Hastily excusing himself, Melville sought his
wife's boudoir and, after a few hasty words of
conference, they decided to escape further social
complication by sporting the oak.
It was with an affected gaiety that the hostess
IN THE COLOSSEUM. 97
summoned her guests to a moonlight excursion to
the weirdly haunted interior of the Flavian Am-
phitheatre. "We will have our music later when
we come home for supper," cried the dainty social
tyrant.
And so the whole party sallied forth, under the
experienced guidance of that Admirable Crichton,
Grimes, after the men had agnostically listened to
Landon's disclaimer of any heroism.
''The whole thing is a sheer exaggeration,"
calmly answered the Captain, as his eyes met Mel-
ville's in a renewed pledge of secrecy.
"But we demand to know who was the lady of
incomparable loveliness for whom you fought?"
cried Fred Hollingsworth, and then, the jester
marveled to see the ashen whiteness of Agnes
Hawthorn's face.
"Let us talk of something else than battle and
murder," she cried, as she seized upon Hollings-
worth for her cicerone of the evening. "You, sir
— an old Roman, — must now personally present
me to 'the glory that was Rome !' '
The deep-toned bells were beating midnight as
the merry party in little duets wandered through
98 CAPTAIN LANDON.
the vast moonlit depths of Earth's greatest human-
made crater.
It had been by a prudent coup de main of Ger-
trude Melville that Agnes Hawthorn laid her
trembling hand at last on Sidney Landon's arm.
The vast walFs overhung the young couple as, with
a gentle craft, the grateful girl drew Landon away
from the happy roysterers.
There were scores of parties dispersed around
the interior, in moonlight and in shade, and the
guttural German, the nasal Yankee intonation,
mingled with the nervous snap of the Frenchman
and the honeyed babble of the Italian.
The brooding silence had wrapped them, at last,
as they threaded a gallery once devoted to passive
martyrs and infuriated beasts, to buckler clashing
gladiators or the merciless Roman soldiery.
"I wish you to believe in my gratitude, Cap-
tain," began the sweet-faced goddess, now melting
at heart. "I do not know why you seem to have
avoided us, but — "
"I tell you he will marry the girl," rang out a
harsh voice near them, — and, then — a rougher one
answered, with a doubtful snort:
"Why so?"
IN THE COLOSSEUM. 99
"Because Rawdon Clark owns the millions of
the Elkhorn Mine!"
"Why, this Hawthorn girl is rich as a Jew !"
Landon felt the arm leaning upon his own
tighten sharply as the merciless voices of the night
proceeded.
"Rawdon Clark never missed a trick in his life.
"There is Philadelphia society, — and, — the
Senate to conquer. With this girl's family con-
nection, he can do both!" — but Sidney Landon
only heard the agonized whisper, "Take me back
to them — anywhere, — out of here!"
It was in silence that Landon drew the cloak
closer around the girl's shivering form and hur-
ried her away to where Mrs. Melville was now
mustering the party for a return.
A chill icier than the breath of the night wind
froze the young man's heart as he bowed, and
sought a refuge in the second carriage.
He could only see the fair graceful head resting
upon Mrs. Melville's shoulder as the first carriage
moved away.
"It's a brutal outrage," the proud young soldier
mused in the bitterness of his heart. "The doom
of the heiress! To be hunted down by callous-
100 CAPTAIN LANDON.
handed millionaires or to be the sport of the ad-
venturer."
"My God, Landon," cried Forrest Grimes, at
his side, "you have not come out clad only in a
dress suit ? Where's your cloak ? This night air
is deadly to strangers! Here! I'm an older
Roman than you !"
But the bronzed Captain resolutely declined the
offer, as he pitilessly exclaimed, "Never mind me,
old boy! There is no one left to mourn for
Logan!"
And, yet — a half hour later, — when the car-
riages drew up before the Palazzo Vecchio, Cap-
tain Landon — soldierly attentive — was the first
to aid Miss Agnes Hawthorn from the carriage.
The detachment of Americans halted, in aston-
ishment, in the arched entrance of the old mansion,
where Landon, in a muffled voice, — made his
adieux.
Melville turned in astonishment. "By no
means! You are to sup with us, and, — we will
have the Star Spangled Banner and all that ! You
have not heard Miss Hawthorn sing !"
Standing with reluctant feet on the gleaming
marble stairway, the heiress turned slowly, as
IN THE COLOSSEUM. 101
Landon reiterated his apologies! The golden-
haired young goddess appreciated the delicacy
which would shield her from his knowledge of the
brutal meshes of the fowler's nets.
She stood there, with one graceful arm ex-
tended, in a gesture half a command, half a sup-
plication.
Suddenly there was a shriek from Gertrude
Melville as Agnes Hawthorn fell heavily upon the
slippery marble!
By the glimmering light of the crescent, Landon
stooped and, with the skill of a trained athlete,
raised the prostrate form !
Up the stairway he strode, never halting, as
Melville dashed on ahead, until, passing through
the frightened domestics, he had placed the moan-
ing sufferer upon the bed in Gertrude Melville's
chamber.
"Doctor Corvini!" cried Melville as he gave
place to his wife, followed by the artist's wife.
"Fred is away, in the carriage, on the gallop to
bring him," said Elaine Hollingsworth, as she
knelt, white-faced, by the sufferer.
In the drawing room the men lingered in ex-
102 CAPTAIN LANDON.
pectant sadness, awaiting the arrival of the great
surgeon, Doctor Cesare Corvini.
It was Landon's presence, of mind that brought
the nearest practitioner in spectacles and dressing
gown, from the other side of the square.
Arthur Melville returned from the improvised
sick room to announce the "first aid" efforts of the
minor practitioner and the probable gravity of the
case.
"Broken, I fear," the Consul General murmured
in answer to the mute inquiries of the haggard
eyes fixed upon his anxious face. "She has been
given an opiate !"
Two hours later the coterie separated, after
knowing Doctor Corvini's work done.
"A bad compound fracture of the right ankle,
gentlemen," said the old Professor, as he dis-
missed the visitors.
"Miss Hawthorn will see little of our Roman
season, until carnival time. As for moving her, —
it is simply impossible. Thank Heaven, she is in a
household offering every facility. The ankle will
go into a plaster cast to-morrow morning."
Sadly enough, Grimes, Hatton and the dejected
IN THE COLOSSEUM. 103
Landon betook themselves through the gloomy
streets to the Eveless Paradise.
There, even at three o'clock, the reception room
blazed with light. All the members of the in-
formal club were awaiting the return of the hero
of the journalistic sensation of the evening.
"You are the most talked-of man in Rome to-
night, Landon," gaily cried Wilson Waddingham,
the jolly English attache. "The great thing is,
—'dove la Donna?'"
But, sadly enough, the three friends repulsed
all the questioners, wearily hearing that the clubs
and salons were ringing with the wildest rumors.
"Damn the Italian newspapers!" growled Cap-
tain Landon, as he stalked away shivering to his
fireless room.
"I want you fellows all to understand that my
lips are silent on the whole occurrence !"
"You had better keep out of the salons and
clubs, then," kindly answered the Briton, "for, —
Robert Brandon and the all-compelling Mrs. Myra
have already taken the affair in tow. It's the
sensation of the hour!"
The three friends had already agreed to a strict
104 CAPTAIN LANDON.
silence upon the embarrassing accident of the
beautiful heiress.
"Clouds everywhere," murmured Landon.
"My life lies darkly before me," he sighed, as he
threw himself half dressed upon his bed, and fell
asleep, with unaccustomed rigors of crawling
chills racking his frame.
Down below on the "causerie," Forrest Grimes
was grumbling over a hot grog at Landon's reck-
less exposure of his health. "You fellows know
what it is for a man to linger a couple of hours in
that old death trap, — the Colosseum, — a man only
clad in a light dress suit.
"I fear Landon may hear from our insidious
enemy — the dismal Roman fever. I pray to God
not— but I fear it !"
Up in the Palazzo Vecchio two devoted women
watched over the moaning sufferer, while their
husbands gloomily exchanged a good-night.
Charley Hollingsworth charged himself with an
early morning visit to Mrs. Montgomery, and
agreed to convey Miss Hawthorn's companion
down for general instructions.
"I'll have Elaine watch over the dear old lady
at the Hotel Costanzi," cheerily cried the good fel-
RAWDON CLARK TAKES A HAND. 105
low, "and see that the simple old soul is neither
robbed nor carried off by some scandal monger."
It was a gloomy ending of the day which had
promised so fairly to the bright-hearted American
coterie.
CHAPTER V.
MR. RAWDON CLARK TAXES A HAND IN THE GAME
OF HEARTS.
Vice Consul General Landon awoke to a day of
unusual responsibilities with an aching head, and
strange languorous shivers creeping over his still
tired-out body.
When he joined the jolly coterie in the breakfast
room it was already ten o'clock and yet the mem-
bers of the informal club were lingering over the
newspapers.
With a resolute denial, the soldier waved away
the sheaf of papers presented to him.
He silently drank his morning coffee, and then
drew Forrest Grimes and Frank Hatton out of the
quizzing circle.
"I shall go up to the Consulate," he said to his
106 CAPTAIN LANDON.
friends as they took their constitutional down the
Corso. "I will try and relieve Melville as much
as I can. This affair of last night will upset his
household for some time.
"Favor me with quieting all this row about the
bandit episode and all that. I must seal my lips,
and you know I hate notoriety of all kinds."
"Landon, my dear boy," affectionately said the
veteran Grimes. "I wish you to go and see Doctor
Corvini. See him to-day! Have him tone you
up a little.
"For, never again must you tempt life and death
as you did last evening in braving the poisonous
night air of 'Rome.' "
"All right," wearily answered the Captain, as
he hastened away abruptly, for Mr. Robert Bran-
don, bustling and officious, was booming down
upon them, evidently gossip mad.
The offices of the Consul General were filled
with an augmented crowd as Landon entered, find-
ing the young secretary, Morgan, the center of a
knot of eager questioners.
Gravely replying to Signore Maspero's over-
done bow of official obsequiousness, Landon si-
lently addressed himself to his letters.
RAWDON CLARK TAKES A HAND. 107
He tossed them in his desk after a hasty glance.
"So dear old Rufus Hatcher will be here in three
days," he mused as he sought the private apart-
ments of the Consul General.
"I wish I could escape the dear old General,"
uneasily ruminated Landon. "For he will put the
Army matter at me roughly, in his kind old
stormy way !"
The brutal comments of the unknown babblers
in the Colosseum recalled Rawdon Clark's per-
sistent chase of the fair young orphan.
"I will face Hatcher — and, — then, — get out of
here," grimly decided the young man. "I can not
bear to see the end of this cold-hearted marking
clown of that sweet orphaned girl."
Captain Landon's utmost courtesy was soon
tested in resisting the flustering queries of Mrs.
Myra Brandon, bustling down the long corridor
and coming into the Consular office in a towering
rage.
"Perhaps you can tell me, Captain Landon, why
I am denied access to my young relative, Miss
Hawthorn. I hear rumors of a frightful accident
to her. I have just returned from the Costanzi.
108 CAPTAIN LANDON.
Agnes' apartments are closed. I am denied a
meeting with her."
With grave politeness, Captain Landon re-
minded the social magnifico that he was a mere
stranger to the Consul General's household.
"I am merely an official, Madame, — a casual
visitor to Rome. I shall probably depart soon, and
my acquaintance with the Melville household is
that of a mere recent hospitality.
"Surely Consul General and Mrs. Melville are
the leaders of our colony, and any one is safe in
their hands ! Pray, excuse me. I have my official
reports to make !"
With a deep bow, he passed on into the studio
to receive Melville's morning report of the suf-
ferer's condition and to concert means for wrap-
ping the whole occurrences in a graver reticence.
"It will be weeks, my dear Landon," sighed
Melville, "before dear Agnes can leave us. And,
so, I depend in all things upon you.
"I shall station two servants here to keep away
the noisy jackdaws.
"By the way, you are looking wretchedly. I
shall send Corvini in to see you."
With the knowledge that the sufferer was in the
RAWDON CLARK TAKES A HAND. 109
torturing agonies of the plaster cast operation,
Landon sought the nearest florists and sent a
basket of the beautiful Roman blossoms to bear his
mute greetings.
And then the young man returned to his duties
at the crowded reception room of the Consulate
General.
The bells were clanging for noon when, from
his open window, Landon saw Rawdon Clark's
splendid equipage dashing up. The burly Bran-
don was seated in the Victoria with the hard-fea-
tured millionaire.
A premonition of trouble flashed over Landon's
mind as, with a face darkened by a quiet rage,
Clark strode into the room.
"I demand to see Consul General Melville," he
curtly said, without even removing his hat.
Captain Landon calmly replied, "I have sole
charge of all official matters, sir."
"I wish to send my card in to his personal resi-
dence," hotly followed up the visitor.
'T understand that there is illness in the fam-
ily," remarked Landon, "and the servants have or-
ders to receive all cards and to beg that Mr. Mel-
ville be excused."
110 CAPTAIN LANDON.
"I demand to know why the flowers I sent to
Miss Hawthorn have been returned," broke out
Clark.
"And I wish to know why my wife was refused
access to her relative," pompously threatened
Brandon.
"Gentlemen," said Captain Landon, "you must
seek such answers from Doctor Corvini, or ad-
dress a note to Mr. Melville. I am in no way con-
cerned with the social affairs of Mr. Melville or his
guest."
"I insist," thundered Clark.
"Then, sir," said Landon, with dignity, "I can
only say, in the absence of my superior, that your
conduct is unwarranted, and that, as his official
representative, I shall not discuss these matters.
You will find that he will resent this intrusion ; if
he does not, then, / will!"
Cowed and snarling — the two men dashed out
of the door, with added fuel to the flames of their
ire.
It was three o'clock when Landon's strange
weariness forced him to turn the office over to Mr.
Morgan. "If I were not proof against small and
RAWDON CLARK TAKES A HAND. Ill
large ailments," he muttered, "I should fear that
Grimes' prophecy was a correct one."
He reached the Eveless Paradise only to find
Frank Hatton awaiting him there, with the light
of battle in his eyes.
"I have just left the American Club, Sidney,"
began the honest scribe, "and the whole crowd of
dawdlers are simply gone mad over the affair at
the Cecilia Metella tomb, and this mysterious acci-
dent to Miss Hawthorn.
"Grimes sharply called two or three of them
down. I'm sorry to say that they are coupling
your name very freely with Miss Hawthorn's."
Captain Landon clenched his shapely fist.
"Cowards!" he muttered. "It's that cackling
pair, the Brandons."
"Worse than that!" gravely answered Hatton.
"That cold-hearted brute, Clark, has been driving
all over town from the Hotel Costanzi — to club
and hotel, swearing that he will get at the bottom
of the affair. I see trouble ahead for both of us !"
"Why for you?" said Landon, now pale with
anger.
"Because the scoundrel took me into the card
room and demanded that I go out to the Porta San
112 CAPTAIN LANDON.
Sebastiano, and, on carte blanche orders, write up
the whole affair of the banditti, in detail.
"He has ordered me to find out the two ladies,
and to interview them, as well as to feature the
whole affair for the 'Mail.'
"Further, and the crowning infamy of all, he in-
sists upon a two-column article upon the distress-
ing accident to Miss Hawthorn — "
"And, you said ?" — broke out Landon, his eyes
blazing with a suddenly kindled wrath.
"I flatly refused," blurted out the manly young
son of Rutgers, "when he threatened me with an
instant discharge.
"I braved him with my contract, which holds
the journal for a year, and then he stormed away,
swearing he would have it done by others. I can
not prevent the insertion of this stuff !"
"/ can, — and, so help me God, / will!" cried
Landon, as he gratefully grasped the brave young
fellow's hand.
"I'll see Melville, my boy ! He is rich and pow-
erful ! You shall be protected."
Sick at heart, Captain Landon sought his room
and lay down in a deep exhaustion.
That night, while the fever crept through the
RAWDON CLARK TAKES A HAND. 113
young soldier's weakened frame, in a private room
at the Hotel Quirinale, Rawdon Clark plied Sig-
nore Jacopo Maspero with the choicest wines.
"Find out the whole mystery for me," the mil-
lionaire whispered. "I'll give you a year's salary
if you let me know what goes on in that sick room
daily. A few hundred lire notes will make the
servants in the Melville household your slaves for
life."
As Clark drove home after binding his infa-
mous bargain, he chuckled over his own acuteness.
"This Italian fellow hates Landon, who lords it
over him, and he will be glad for his revenge!
I will have the whole circle under my secret search-
lights soon!
"And now for the great stroke! Old General
Hatcher comes soon. He is brave and frank, and
yet as vain as an old turkey cock! I'll just give
him a bang-up dinner and make that fool Hatton
write it up, — in style ! A few bottles of wine will
worm out the story of how this fellow Landon
left the army, — how and why!
"Then, by Heaven, I'll use the paper against
him ! I'll ventilate the whole story and chase him
out of the Consular service.
8
114 CAPTAIN LANDON.
"When he is out of the way, the Brandons must
get hold of Agnes Hawthorn.
"After that, the running will be easy ! Yes ! I
will take a hand in this little game of 'Hearts,' —
a winning one!"
Signore Maspero, waiting gloatingly for the
dawn, recalled how skillfully he had planted the
seeds of jealousy in the ardent bosoms of Emilia
and Lucia, the deft Italian maids of the Melville
household.
"Ah! Bella ragazza," mused the thrifty spy,
"a half of each hundred lire note shall go in my
own pocket ! I will play these pretty women devils
off against each other.
"And, II Signore Clark shall pay heavily for
what Emilia has already told me of the sly meet-
ing at the Cecilia Metella ! I shall pay off a score
to this young upstart Captain !" He strode home,
humming "Piano, piano, — por mi Vendetta!"
Rawdon Clark bounded from his chair in de-
light the next day, when Maspero sent him a fur-
tive message :
"The young Vice Consul General lies in a rav-
ing delirium at his rooms on the Corso. The
Roman fever has him in its deadly grip. I will
RAWDON CLARK TAKES A HAND. 115
have a full report of the Hawthorn bellissima for
you when we meet to-night."
"Here's luck!" shouted Clark, in joy. "The
fellow is weakened with his wounds! He will
either die or else be laid out for three months —
and I will surely have Miss Icicle melted down
into Mrs. Clark long before then! Hurrah for
the fever!"
A wave of redoubled gossip swept over the
American colony, and the journals feel on with
alacrity into the garbled stories which, in spite of
Melville's calm denials, entangled the names of
the graceful heiress and the young Captain, by
whose tossing bed of pain the grave-eyed Doctor
Corvini muttered, "Two to one on death ! Only
a miracle can save him !
"Alone, — so young, — a stranger in a far land
— to die like a dog in the flower of his youth, it
is hard !"
And yet, around Landon's sick bed rallied all
the genuine friends of the Eveless Paradise, and
the Hollingsworths and Melvilles only waited his
return of reason to hale him away into their min-
istering hands.
Pale-faced and patient, Agnes Hawthorn, silent
116 CAPTAIN LANDON.
in her maidenly pride, ignorant of Landon's ill-
ness, turned her face to the wall and murmured,
"He does not even send a flower ! Ah ! that hor-
rible jargon of the men in the Colosseum! His
pride is greater than his love, or he would give
me a chance to thank him for my life."
For the Doctor had bidden them all not to ex-
cite the sufferer with the news of Landon's
seizure. "It might bring a fever on her! They
were exposed together to the night air."
Mr. Rawdon Clark, delightedly conferring wit'h
Maspero, was in the seventh heaven of joy when
General Rufus Hatcher arrived, falling headlong
into the trap of the "testimonial dinner."
"What he cannot tell me, Bolton will," gleefully
exclaimed Clark, as he reread a cablegram from
his agent, now in America:
"Mailed letter with full particulars. Perfect
success. Send you his whole story. He was
forced shamefully out of the army."
The fortnight which followed the receipt of this
telegram was the very busiest one of Rawdon
Clark's active life.
There was a vicious sparkle in the eyes of the
owner of the Elkhorn mine of Leadville.
RAWDON CLARK TAKES A HAND. 117
His step was springy and his smile joyous, for
the tide was bearing him bravely on.
And yet he tossed uneasily upon his pillow at
night, murmuring, "I must have all the facts,
then, as this army fellow is making a strong fight
against death. I must find a way to chase him
out of here."
He burned with impatience for the arrival of
Barker Bolton's letter.
Every evening he was closeted at the Hotel
Quirinale with the adroit Maspero, whose lean
pockets were now beginning to be well lined.
In spite of a considerable use of backsheesh, the
Italian had as yet gained no substantial victory
over the crafty housemaids.
"Go ahead, use patience and plenty of money,
Maspero," urged Clark. "The women must be
made to talk !"
"Ah ! Signore," sighed Maspero. "These Mel-
villes are rich ; the women have good places ! And
they fear to lose them !"
Clark bounded to his feet in a sudden rage.
"Find out their price ! They say every woman
has her price! If you can unlock this mystery,
118 CAPTAIN LANDON.
I will not spare my cash — and I will protect them
— and you!
"Remember, Sidney Landon is your enemy. If
he ever recovers and is made Consul General, —
out you go! You know that he hates you!"
"Yes ; and you shall know all ! 7 will have my
revenge ! Wait but another week !"
Fortune had singularly favored Rawdon Clark's
sinister designs. For, Mrs. Myra Brandon's emo-
tional letters praying "for access to her darling"
supplemented Miss Hawthorn's very natural de-
sire to return to the Hotel Costanzi.
And these letters of Clark's loquacious ally had
made plain to her the fact of Landon's serious
illness.
With womanly directness, Agnes Hawthorn
secretly questioned Doctor Cesare Corvini, who
sighed as he replied, "It is but too true! Captain
Landon must be removed soon from his damp
rooms on the Corso, either to the hill here, or else
to a Hospital. He is too weak to be moved away
to the Riviera ! His mind is still wandering, and
he seems friendless and alone."
That very evening, a council of war between
Mrs. Melville, Mrs. Hollingsworth and the heiress
RAWDON CLARK TAKES A HAND. 119
led to the instant translation of Miss Agnes to the
Costanzi, at which palatial oasis Mrs. Myra Bran-
don, with outspread arms, swooped down upon the
helpless girl.
As the days ran on, the burly frame of Robert
Brandon haunted the Costanzi.
Mr. Rawdon Clark's floral offerings and daily
carte de visite, with Mrs. Myra's artful ap-
proaches paved the way for the later wooing which
was now the millionaire's only object in life.
"She will open every door for me at home," he
chuckled, while honest Frank Hatton's blood
boiled to read the syndicated social "relations"
artfully padded out, and published, broadcast, in
America, hinting with all too transparent vague-
ness at the "approaching nuptials" of the western
Crcesus with the "famed American beauty."
"Thank God, poor Landon can not read this
slush," muttered Hatton, who now divided the
post of honor at Landon's bedside, with all his
loyal comrades of the Eveless Paradise.
Knowing Arthur Melville's thoroughbred na-
ture,— Hatton was not astonished when Doctor
Cesare Corvini, with the Consul General and a
watchful staff, cautiously removed the fever-
120 CAPTAIN LANDON.
stricken man to the special apartments in the
Palazzo Vecchio, where the Melvilles and Hol-
lingsworths — a brave Samaritan quartette — took
charge of Landon's fight for life.
Little Rose in Bloom, Miss Elsie, had been duly
sent away to Tivoli, and in the long December
days, — Gertrude Melville and Elaine Rollings-
worth watched the sick man by whose bedside a
sweet-faced Sister of Charity sat, ever a guardian
angel.
Down at the Eveless Paradise, Forrest Grimes
and Frank Hatton gloomily conferred in impa-
tient indignation.
For persistent rumors, derogatory and disgrace-
ful to Landon, were now floating through club
and salon, and agitating the American colony.
"If I could only trace these things directly to
Clark, I would go and cowhide him," growled
Grimes, "but, by Heavens, we must wait and bide
our time!"
Hatton gloomily shook his head. There were
flying stories of Landon's impending removal,and
hints that the shooting on the Via Appia amount-
ed to a cruel intended murder.
The Roman authorities had artfully hushed up
RAWDON CLARK TAKES A HAND. 121
all press comment, and slanderous tongues began
to connect the affair with some disgraceful social
intrigue.
"Now, Grimes," said Hatton, "it would be just
like this fellow Maspero to try and blacken Lan-
don's name ! We must wait for clearer skies and
happier days! For God's sake, hold your hand
off Clark as yet!"
Mr. Rawdon Clark's brilliant social welcome of
the game old fire-eater, General Rufus Hatcher,
had been delayed by the bold warrior falling into
the hospitable clutches of Consul Swasey at Nice.
But, the astute Clark had rallied the whole Bran-
don-led faction of Rome. The banquet-day was
arranged, with a reception and soiree dansante.
Upon the Committee of Arrangements the
princely host had judiciously omitted the names
of the Minister Resident and the Consul General.
"Tit for tat," growled Clark. "I will even up
matters with these local tin gods."
He was all dressed ready to take the train and
run up to Florence when Jacopo Maspero, with
well affected excitement, hurriedly sought him
out.
"Excellenza," whispered the sly Italian. "I
122 CAPTAIN LANDON.
have at last brought the women to the talking
point. They know the whole affair — but, it is a
matter of ten thousand lire"
"Come to the bank with me," joyfully cried
Clark. "There is no time to lose. I hear this
fellow is beginning to convalesce, and I don't
want General Hatcher to meet him until I have
got the whole story of his leaving the army out
of the old soldier."
In half an hour, Maspero stole away with ten
one-thousand lire notes in his pocket, leaving
Clark, open-eyed in wonder, over a letter found
waiting at the bank, with Mr. Barker Bolton's
secret report.
"You shall know all on your return," cried
Maspero. "I stake my life upon ft."
All that afternoon, while Rawdon Clark lay
back in his luxurious first-class compartment, he
mused over the disclosures of Bolton's letter. He
had read it over and over again, with a sense of
delicious power.
"So, the gallant Captain left the army for the
army's good! He is a sly one! When I get to
Florence, I must cable to Bolton."
"Trust to a woman's desire for vengeance!"
RAWDON CLARK TAKES A HAND. 123
Clark laughed, with a triumphant delight as he
thought of how Mrs. Dora Prindle, in far-off
Colorado, had fallen into Bolton's artfully set
trap.
"I suppose that this young Landon was the
regimental lady killer?" mused the millionaire,
"and yet, bitterly neglected old 'Black Bill' Prin-
dle's wife.
"Wrong policy! Wrong policy for an army
Lothario ! Captains should be duly devoted to the
wives of field officers, lest these same experienced
dames may turn again and rend them !"
But, with a cold, world-worn prudence, — the
crafty wooer decided that the contents of the let-
ter must only be used later, and through a
woman's hand, as a stab in the dark !
He laughed gaily, "Myra Brandon is the party
to handle this bomb. It must not be hurled by
my hand."
But he carefully extracted a series of names,
dates and facts from the letter, copying them in
his private betting book. He complacently lit a
cigar, as he murmured:
"Bolton certainly got it up in good form — Dora
Prindle's letter, with our names judiciously elim-
124 CAPTAIN LANDON.
inated. It can be very neatly used in its present
form."
After Rawdon Clark had telegraphed to his
agent, from Florence, he gave himself up to the
enthusiasm of the moment.
For, he triumphantly captured the social lion
of the hour.
General Rufus Hatcher had been of real service
to the great mine owners of Colorado in the past.
Indian foray, miners' strikes, popular tumults
had all been met by the brave old General with
unerring sagacity and bravery.
It was after a sumptuous dinner that Clark and
his guest, lighting their Perfectos, dropped into
a cosy chat.
Hatcher was visibly flattered at the social prep-
arations in his honor.
With an affected carelessness, Clark brought up
the various leaders of the Roman colony. He
winced a bit when the old retired Cavalry General
gave vent to his enthusiasm for the Melvilles.
"I can't tell you much about our officials, Gen-
eral," reflectively said Clark. "I keep away from
them all, on principle, but I believe that they have
RAWDON CLARK TAKES A HAND. 125
a young army fellow now at the Consulate Gen-
eral, a Captain Sidney Landon."
The old warrior brightened visibly. "One of
the finest fellows I ever met, — in fact, I came
here largely to see him, as well as to do Italy ! I
want him to take back his old rank in the army.
Miles Atwater, his Colonel, has made me promise
to use my influence! He was one of the very
best young officers in the army !"
"I thought he was still on the active list," art-
fully interjected Clark, skillfully filling the Gen-
eral's glass.
The old soldier mournfully shook his old gray
head.
"There is a mystery in Landon's leaving the
service that I must try and fathom. He made a
splendid reputation in our ten years' Indian wars
with the Sioux and Cheyennes. I tried to get him
on my staff when I commanded the Department.
He would stick with his regiment.
"On the very eve of his promotion to a Ma-
jority, he suddenly jumps the Regiment, gets
transferred to another Cavalry corps, then, with-
out a word, in a few months pops in his resigna-
tion and leaves the service.
126 CAPTAIN LANDON.
"It's ruin for such a man to quit his profes-
sion. Now, Atwater has prevailed on the Presi-
dent to appoint him on the staff, so as to get him
back in the army, and then assign him to his old
command! So far, he has stubbornly refused."
"Anything wrong with his record ; any hidden
disgrace?" questioned Clark.
"You don't know the man ! He is the very soul
of honor. It's a mystery. Even Atwater knows
nothing!" cried Hatcher, with an ominous flash
of his eyes.
"I am sorry for the young man," artfully in-
terjected Clark. "He is lying very low with
Roman fever at the Melvilles, now! No one is
allowed to see him !"
"My God ! I can't get to Rome too soon !" ex-
claimed the old General. "Tell me all you know
of it?"
And so, they talked on, long into the night.
BOOK II
ADVERSE GALES
BOOK II.
ADVERSE GALES.
CHAPTER VI.
AT THE AMERICAN CLUB — "l WILL HAVE RE-
VENGE!"
Rawdon Clark, with judicious tact, left the
moody old General to his anxieties the next morn-
ing, for the anxious warrior had decided to push
on at once to Rome, abandoning the first glimpses
of Florence.
The capitalist did not fail to note that General
Hatcher had telegraphed to Melville for an imme-
diate report on Landon's condition, with orders
to reply to Orvieto.
Before they reached the Eternal City, Hatcher
confided his growing anxieties to his obsequious
host.
"I am terribly cut up about Landon," he broke
out. "You see, when a man suddenly jumps his
regiment and then leaves the service, with no
9 129
130 CAPTAIN LANDON.
apparent reason, it sets people's tongues all wag-
ging at once. I hold that a man's duty to his
command is to leave it with no cloud of mystery.
"I know that the Atwaters are coming over
soon, and if Landon will not re-enter his old
corps, he, at least, should thoroughly post men
like Atwater and myself, his old friends, so we
will be able to meet the mystery mongers. Now,
if he should die, — the explanation would be lost
to us all !"
"Then there has been unfavorable talk, Gen-
eral?" quietly replied the alert Clark.
"Precisely!" grumbled the old veteran; "just
in proportion as we army people know each other's
lives intimately, — so much more does the right
exist to know all useful and proper facts of each
other's lives. It's 'all for one, and one for all' in
a regiment of proper tone."
"From what you say, he needs no vindication !"
calmly answered Clark.
"Certainly not!" roared the old man, "but his
friends are anxious to stay the tide of this damag-
ing gossip."
It was with an adroit self effacement that Raw-
don Clark turned his distinguished guest over to
AT THE AMERICAN CLUB. 131
the Reception Committee on their arrival at
Rome.
But, Clark was inwardly disturbed when Arthur
Melville, with the First Secretary of the Legation,
drew the General aside for a few moments.
The guest of honor was visibly moved, as he
beckoned Clark apart.
"My dear old friend," he hastily said. "You
must put off the serenade and your formal wel-
come for a day or so! I am going down to see
Landon.
"Melville tells me that he is raving with an
unexpected return of the fever. When I have
satisfied myself that nothing more can be done
with him, I am at your service.
"As for the public dinner, that can go on as you
have planned, in three days, unless Captain Lan-
don should die, in which case you must postpone
it indefinitely."
With a cold bow to the two officials, Clark com-
municated with his colleagues, and then the impa-
tient soldier was driven rapidly away in the Lega-
tion carriage.
The Committee of Reception nervelessly dis-
persed in a general dissatisfaction.
132 CAPTAIN LANDON.
With muttered curses, Rawdon Clark drove
rapidly down the hill to his rooms, and sent a
trusty messenger to summon Maspero to the
Quirinal. There was no uncertain ring in the
rich man's voice as he demanded a full report of
the agent's dirty work.
"I think that I can satisfy you now, Eccelenza,"
grinned Maspero, lighting his "Cavour," with a
gleam of satisfaction. "I have drawn out the
whole story of the adventure on the Appian road.
"It was the bellissima, Mees' Agnes Hawthorn,
who was the companion of that morning excur-
sion.
"Of course, the old dame de compagnie,
Madame Montgomery, was taken along as a sheep
dog."
The veins stood out on Clark's throbbing tem-
ples as the crafty scoundrel related the vile story
built up by the two maids from the overheard
confidences of Gertrude Melville and the fright-
ened girl.
The tale was the result of mean servile sur-
mises.
"Of course, the poor devil of a peasant surprised
this sly couple in their illicit lovemaking, and
AT THE AMERICAN CLUB. 133
then — the unlucky contadini was shot to prevent
his babbling! It is only a game to win the enor-
mous wealth of this orphan girl for these crafty
Melvilles and this handsome adventurer.
"Melville, himself, went to Signior Crespiani
and had the whole affair hushed up. You observe
that the Roman journals suddenly dropped the
whole subject. Now, I happen to be your good
fairy in this.
"One of my college chums is Crespiani's pri-
vate secretary. I have visited him, and I learn that
financial oil has been deftly poured upon the
troubled waters. The wounded man has been
released, after a secret police examination, and
sent off to some village in the Abruzzi to recu-
perate.
"The three poor vagabonds who were found
near the spot by the frightened coachman have
scuttled away out of Rome with a few francs I"
"Damnation !" cried Clark, starting up. "And
so, then, all proof is lost ! It was worth anything
to me to fasten the truth upon these people."
"Not so," smoothly rejoined Maspero. "You
do not know the Italian subtlety," he proudly
cried. "I traced out through my friend the poor
134 CAPTAIN LANDON.
coachman who was held as a witness. He was
released with a beggarly fifty lire for his silence.
"Of course, he fears the American Minister and
the all-powerful Consul General. But he has his
own ideas !
"He has looked diligently around Rome and
found the fellow who drove the two ladies out
on the memorable day ! It was slyly done ! The
Capitano is a skillful Don Juan ! He left his own
carriage behind at the Porta San Sebastiano."
Maspero paused and poured out a glass of wine
with a delightful sense of enjoyment. His enemy
was under his foot at last !
The swindling official had learned from the
Italian office boys of Landon and Morgan's
nightly delving into the suspicious accounts.
"Diavolo!" he mused. "This man is as rich
as Prince Torlonia. He will drive the Captain
out of Rome for the love of this bella ragazza,
and then, my place is safe! I might even burn up
all the accounts — as if by accident."
"Maspero!" harshly cried Rawdon Clark. "I
must see both these men. I must know the whole
story !"
"Softly," smilingly answered Jacopo Maspero.
AT THE AMERICAN CLUB. 135
"Remember that we are all three Italians! You
can not even talk to these men. You know not
the language. They only trust me, for I have
friends in the Italian courts, — wheels within
wheels. I have my own revenge to work upon
this military busybody!
"As for your affair, — you only want the girl!
It is as you see, Signior," — he paused impres-
sively,— "only a question of money!"
"How much ?" doggedly demanded Clark, glar-
ing at the spy, now his master.
"We have not as yet fixed our price," sullenly
answered Maspero, "but you will be our first cus-
tomer! You see, there is the lady herself, — this
young heiress !
"If this Capitano should die, she will be a good
customer for me. If he lives, perhaps then she
will be a better one!
"And — you must outbid them all! The two
women and the coachmen are in my hands! If
you interfere, then every mouth will be shut for-
ever !
"You must be the best paymaster of all!
"Now," continued Maspero, "I will throw in
something gratis.
136 CAPTAIN LANDON.
"It was to cover up the possible discovery that
Signora Melville (who has all this girl's secrets)
arranged the dinner and the night visit to the
Coliseo.
"LandonandMees' Hawthorn wandered off to-
gether to arrange their stories, and there she fell
and broke her ankle. She was brought home at
midnight.
"But it is Melville who has smoothed the whole
thing over with Crespiani ! This cruel American
should go to prison for shooting that poor man !
Melville and his wife are greedy, and want to
divide the girl's money with this starving Cap-
tain!"
"Nonsense !" cried Clark. "They are well off !"
"Bah ! No one has ^enough money," snarled
Maspero. "If he was so rich, why would he paint,
— paint, — paint ? And they live expensively. Why
does he hold the consular place, with its small
salary ? For need of money !"
"You may be right, Maspero," sharply cried
Clark. "Meanwhile keep all these people in line !
I will think it all over! As you say, it makes
some difference if this fellow is alive or dead ! If
he dies, you and I are well rid of him !"
AT THE AMERICAN CLUB. 137
"I think that he will," significantly said the
spy. "I know our good old Roman fever! It
burns and burns!"
"Look here," answered Clark. "Take this
thousand lire and give the coachman a few hun-
dreds ! You and I will talk later !"
"So, my fair dove; my fond dove," mused
Clark, as he drove away through the cool Decem-
ber night. "You are now in my power! By
Heavens! You shall be my wife, and then I'll
train you, see if I don't! I must gain the whole
story of this fellow's shameful past, and chase
him away from here!
"Once he is ousted, Myra Brandon shall open
Agnes Hawthorn's eyes."
While he was revolving a new telegram to his
agent, Barker Bolton, he felt a coldness at heart,
which even his rich furred coat could not avert.
"Damn these romantic women! To run after
a penniless shoulder-strapped dandy! She may
not be so easy to handle after all. He has touched
her fancy ! I must crush him ! There is no half
way now! And Signior Maspero, — he's a beau-
tiful blackmailer ! I will not need him long ! I'll
138 CAPTAIN LANDON.
make a short campaign of it. Sharp and de-
cisive!"
While Mr. Rawdon Clark was busied at the
telegraph office in weaving his web around the
victim-to-be, General Hatcher and Arthur Mel-
ville silently watched Sidney Landon, uneasily
tossing upon his bed of pain. The hollow-eyed
sufferer was now living in a dead past ! His fever-
ish lips moved incessantly, and Melville shook his
head gravely.
"Do you know anything of his family!" sadly
said the Consul General. "I have sealed up all
his effects, jointly with Hatton. I do not even
know whom to communicate with if he should
die."
"I believe that he is alone in the world, poor
fellow," answered the old soldier. "He is always
talking of Ethel, — calling for Ethel," said Mel-
ville; "perhaps she is a sister."
The loyal old soldier started as if he had been
shot.
"There is no such person," he huskily said, "as
far as I know!" And then, they left the young
man to fight out his battle under the saddened
eyes of the watching nun.
AT THE AMERICAN CLUB. 139
Hatcher and Melville parted in uneasy forebod-
ings.
"See here," broke out the veteran. "I've got
this reception and dinner, and all that humbug on
hand. I suppose I will have to go through with
it!
"Clark is very kind and forward. When it's
all over, I'll come back to you. If there's any un-
favorable turn, send to me instantly and I'll break
everything off! What does Corvini say?"
"An even chance, with Death holding a shade
the stronger cards !" mournfully replied Melville.
"Poor Ethel! whoever she may be!"
General Rufus Hatcher was glad to escape
from the house of sickness. He dared not ques-
tion himself as he was driven up to the Costanzi.
"If the Atwaters were only here, I could talk
plainly to Mary! Ethel! Ethel! Can there be
anything in this?"
For a vague suspicion had, at last, entered the
old man's mind — the echo of a half-forgotten
story. He roused himself as he reached his
hotel, where a crowd of journalists were ready
to fall upon him, notebook in hand!
140 CAPTAIN LANDON.
"I'll not believe it," he growled. "If it was
anyone but old Dora Prindle, that regimental
ghoul, I might believe;" and yet, long after he
was released from the interviewers, the clinging
suspicions took unwelcome shapes.
"// it was that," he growled, "I don't wonder
that he left the army ! My God ! It can not be !
I must find out that it was impossible!"
The Hotel Costanzi soon blazed with the
splendors of General Hatcher's serenade, levee,
and the gatherings of loyal Americans.
The beaming face of Mr. Rawdon Clark
smiled out over the glories of that ostentatious
banquet which astonished all Rome a few days
later. There was but one shade upon the social
triumph of the millionaire.
It was the unwelcome telegram which was
handed to him while presiding over the feast,
and listening to General Hatcher's naive and sol-
dierly speech of the evening.
Clark gritted his teeth as he read that cable-
gram from far over the rolling green Atlantic.
The words were pregnant with a bitter disap-
pointment. They read:
AT THE AMERICAN CLUB. 141
"Impossible. Major Murray Raynor was
killed last week in General Wilton's fight with
the Nez Perce Indians. Wait your orders."
"The Devil himself fights against me," mur-
mured Clark; and yet, after a couple of glasses
of champagne, he recovered his usual calm.
"It may be just as well," mused the schemer,
"for, if his guilt can not be absolutely proven from
Dora Prindle's letter, his innocence never can be!
But now I will have to buy in Maspero and work
him for all he is worth."
As a curious experiment, before the merry
guests separated, Clark carelessly approached
General Hatcher.
"I see they are fighting again, out in Mon-
tana," the miner remarked. "General Wilton has
had a stiff fight with the Nez Perces, and Major
Murray Raynor was killed."
Hatcher started back, crying, "How do you
know this? Did you know Raynor?"
"Not personally," calmly answered Clark. "I
was looking for the control of a Montana copper
mine, and had authorized my agent to buy out
an interest of this man, and I have a cable to-
142 CAPTAIN LANDON.
night from my man out there that he was killed
a week ago ! News is just in."
Rufus Hatcher dropped into a chair. "Poor
Murray," he slowly said. "He was a fine soldier,
as Captain in the Grays, he was Landon's com-
manding officer. It's a great loss to the service."
Under the Roman stars that night, Rufus
Hatcher walked the gardens of the Costanzi.
"Ethel ! Ethel !" he groaned. "There is now
no way of finding out the truth ! I dare not speak
to Landon, — and even the Atwaters can not roll
away the stone from the tomb. There is no one
left to tell the whole truth!"
There was a ripple of sympathy in the Ameri-
can colony a week later, when Doctor Corvini
announced the turn of the tide in the protracted
illness of Captain Sidney Landon.
"Weak, but rational now; a fortnight more
— with absolute seclusion, and no undue excite-
ment, will put him far along toward the line of
safety."
And so, General Hatcher, borne along in
triumph by the exuberant Brandons, a led lion
in the hands of the watchful Clark, was hurried
on from gallery to Vatican, — from feast to revel^
AT THE AMERICAN CLUB. 143
— from the Catacombs to the Villa Borghese, —
and only stole away for a quiet hour to the
Palazzo Vecchio, where the watch over Sidney
Landon was not a moment relaxed.
"Next week, next week, my good sir," pleaded
the suave Corvini to the impatient veteran.
There was a grand celebration at the Eveless
Paradise upon the announcement of Landon's
probable recovery, Forrest Grimes skillfully elim-
inating Clark and Brandon, presided over the
banner-draped feast, whereat General Hatcher
was forced to fight his battles over again, under
hospitable volleys of champagne.
In all these days, the watchful capitalist had
crept nearer and nearer to the avowed social in-
timacy of Miss Agnes Hawthorn, the veiled god-
dess of beauty, still chained to the chaise tongue.
Rawdon Clark well knew the effect of quiet
persistence, and with a skillful propitiation of
Mrs. Montgomery and the assiduous secret work
of Mrs. Myra Brandon, he was at last launched
as the recognized "ami de maison."
The tacit avoidance of the Brandon clique by
Madame Gertrude Melville enabled Miss Haw-
144 CAPTAIN LANDON.
thorn to treat with the two rival camps of Roman
society.
But her soul's confidence was given alone to
the bright-hearted Consular lady. The helpless
heiress could not but see the drift of her most
assiduous advisers.
Rawdon Clark's social headquarters were now
the Brandon household, where the recurrent hos-
pitalities spoke strongly of an assisting financial
element.
"Panem et circenses" draws the crowd, and
even General Rufus Hatcher was not proof
against the seductions of the ambitious Myra.
She it was who gathered from villa and hotel
— from the recurrent tourists and passing nota-
bilities— the crowd who enjoyed the splendid
feasts and receptions supported secretly by Raw-
don Clark's ever open purse. The poor old sol-
dier, harmlessly vain, accepted all this homage.
The baffled General waited wearily for Doctor
Corvini to open the doors of Landon's sick room,
but the gentle professional tyrant simply laid his
finger on his lip, smilingly saying "Aspetto !"
Arthur Melville had relapsed again into his
painting mood, now the danger was over, and he
AT THE AMERICAN CLUB. 145
was either buried in his studio, or else away in
the hills at Tivoli with his still banished Rose in
Bloom.
No one in Rome but Gertrude Melville knew of
the longing solicitude with which Agnes Haw-
thorn waited for the end of Landon's long
struggle against death.
Some mysterious feeling kept her from sharing
her heart with Mrs. Montgomery, who, — simple
soul — had yielded, blindfolded, to the continued
seduction of Clark's flatteries, his unvarying
"kindness" and the discreetly offered presents
heaped upon her by that princess of picture brok-
ers, Myra Brandon.
It was Clark's purse which was the hidden
magnet drawing the simple old widow over into
the camp of circumvallation which the determined
Clark was fast closing around his intended bride.
Miss Hawthorn now only awaited the coming
of the early spring to seek softer skies than win-
try Rome, and an uneasy feeling crept into her
heart ; for, she could not deceive herself as to the
purport of Rawdon Clark's unflagging wooing.
And yet, still chained within her winter apart-
ment, now made into a temporary tropical bower,
10
146 CAPTAIN LANDON.
she waited, heart hungry, to meet Sidney Landon
and listen to the still unasked question.
Gertrude Melville was the faithful keeper of a
note, written as the final successor of twenty de-
stroyed ones, in which she conveyed to Landon
her burning solicitude for his fate. "Let it be the
first thing he listens to, darling, if God gives him
back his reason," she said with fleeting blushes.
Fate ordained that when Sidney Landon opened
his eyes to a restored mental life the delicate and
lovely face of Gertrude Melville was the first one
to meet his eye.
The window was open, for a fugitive day of
ethereal softness was brooding upon the Eternal
City, — the ilex tops were waving against the blue
sky, and the gurgle of the ruined fountain below
alone broke the dreamy silence.
Suddenly, from far below, was wafted up the
thrilling notes of a proud military march, as the
Bersaglieri Brigade swept out for a practice tour.
The soldierly instinct recalled Landon's wan-
dering mind, he strove to raise his head, passed
one thin and wasted hand over the unaccustomed
beard, and then his head fell back in weakness.
AT THE AMERICAN CLUB. 147
It was half an hour before his feeble whisper
reached Gertrude Melville's ear.
"How did I come here ; what is the matt erf"
The haggard eyes feasted long upon her beau-
tiful face, for it seemed to him that he was in
some earthly heaven, some fabled sublunary
Paradise.
Then the silent nun arose from the bedside
and, falling upon her knees before a little prie
Dieu, thanked God for a life restored.
The week after Landon's mental reawakening
showed the rapid upward sweep of Life's curve,
and Gertrude Melville had penned a few words
in answer to the shy, proud epistle of the anxious
heiress.
"Say that I must thank her myself, for words
fail me ! I shall make my pilgrimage to see her."
General Rufus Hatcher, away on his flying trip
to Sicily, was duly telegraphed for, — and be-
stirred himself to a return to Rome.
There was but one shadow upon Landon's re-
covery. It was at the end of the second week of
convalescence, when Doctor Corvini cheerfully
clapped his hands in joy.
"Victoria," he cried. "In another week you
148 CAPTAIN LANDON.
may drive out and begin to take the air under
careful attendance. Miss Hawthorn, too, will re-
duce my list of patients, for, with the safeguard
of crutches, she can soon leave her palace prison
at the Costanzi."
Arthur Melville, jealously guarding Landon's
private letters, was acting as a volunteer amanu-
ensis, when he suddenly bethought him of Lan-
don's fever ravings.
"These look to be only official letters," he said.
"Can I perhaps write or cable to any of your fam-
ily. You were in your fever always speaking of
Ethel — " and then, the gentle-hearted artist
started as a spasm of pain passed over Landon's
pale face.
"Drop that name for God's sake, Melville," he
groaned. "I have no family — no ties — there is
no Ethel of my blood in this world !"
Melville stole away and left the soldier to battle
with dark thoughts which seemed to encompass
him. And a fever spasm seized the unrestful
patient once more.
"Certainly, no sister" — mused Melville as he
betook himself to his brushes. The only gleam of
brightness in Landon's life after a few days'
AT THE AMERICAN CLUB. 149
mending was the cautious advent of Forrest
Grimes and Frank Hatton as the advance guard
of the Club of the Eveless Paradise.
They had claimed from the overjoyed Doctor
Corvini the right to be the first to convey the con-
valescent out into the mellow sunlight. And to
this, Captain Sidney Landon gladly assented.
He recognized the generous self devotion with
which the Melvilles had turned their house into a
fever hospital for six weeks.
There, too, was little Elsie, "Rose in Bloom,"
pining at Tivoli for the home quarantine to be
lifted.
Doctor Corvini was proud of snatching the
soldier back from the jaws of death, and so, four
days later, he awaited the advent of the two jour-
nalistic friends.
The first excursion was to be a brief drive in
the gardens of the Villa Borghese, with a halt at
the American Club, where the gathered friends of
the soldier could all shake his hand.
After the arrival on the morrow of General
Rufus Hatcher, the question of removing Landon
for a radical change of air was to be decided in a
general council.
150 CAPTAIN LANDON.
And afl went merry as a marriage bell. Lan-
don, upborne by the strong arms of his friends,
reached the carriage in safety. For two hours
he drank in the strong fresh air of the woods, and
there was a flush on his cheek as the carriage
stopped before the American Gub.
Then, while Frank Hatton betook himself to
notify the waiting friends at the Eveless Para-
dise, Forrest Grimes watched over Landon,
seated in a little refreshment room, slowly sip-
ping a priceless flask of Johannisberger.
Suddenly Grimes sprang up, as Sidney Lan-
don, pale as marble, strode to the door, carelessly
left ajar, of the next private guest room.
The clear pitiless tones of Rawdon Clark's
voice were unmistakable.
"Yes! Poor devil! Murray Raynor died
broken-hearted. He never held his head up after
a brother officer first stole his wife's heart, and
then, robbed him of his honor ! So he threw his
Kfe away under the Nez Perce rifles !"
Grimes held his breath, in horror at the agony
on Landon's face, — when a rough voice care-
lessly queried, "And, what became of the
AT THE AMERICAN CLUB. Ill
"Oh, the young brute cast her off to die dis-
graced and broken-hearted, while he sneaked out
into another regiment, and then quickly resigned
to escape Raynor's pistol! I'm told he's here in
Rome now!"
There was the crash of overturned chairs as
Sidney Landon dashed into the room!
Throwing his wine, glass and all, into the face
of the millionaire, he cried — "Dirty, lying
hound!"
Forrest Grimes sprang between the; two men
as Rawdon Clark yelled, "I will have his heart's
biood for this !"
The veteran journalist's face was sternly set
as he smote Clark's cheek with his open palm.
"Take that, you slanderer! My friend is a sick
man. But, I happen to be a dead shot, and very
much at your service."
Tossing his card on the table, Grimes dragged
Landon from the room. With a sign to Frank
Hatton, Grimes, calling the dub servants, bore
the now reeling Landon to his carriage.
"Take him to my rooms, Frank !" he cried. "He
must not go back to Melvilles. Here, Danvers,"
he entreated of a friend, "go for Doctor Corvini
152 CAPTAIN LANDON.
and bring him to my apartment! Tell him that
Landon has had another relapse." For the sick
man was now wildly raving.
"What's the matter here?" sternly demanded
Royston, the pet of the Eveless Paradise, as Raw-
don Clark and his companion strode out of their
room. "Only a sick man's petulant quarrel!"
gruffly said the stranger, as he dragged the furi-
ous Clark away.
But the owner of the Elkhorn was now a lion
raging in his loosened wrath. "I'll have my re-
venge!" he yelled.
"You know how to get it," sternly said Forrest
Grimes. "If you want it now, — just step around
to the shooting gallery with me!"
When the resolute stranger had hauled Clark
away, Forrest Grimes drew his startled friends
aside. "Not a word of this, — upon your lives ! It
might ruin helpless ones here ! I will look out for
Mr. Rawdon Clark. He shall not be balked of a
fight! Just say that I had a chance row with
Clark,— that's all!"
Late that evening, Doctor Corvini returned to
the Palazzo Vecchio, where he held a council of
war with General Hatcher and the Melvilles.
DIRTY, LYING HOUND ! " — Page 150.
AT THE AMERICAN CLUB. 153
The tongue of wild rumor had been busy and
even Agnes Hawthorn at the Costanzi knew of
the desperate fracas between Grimes and Clark
over an American society beauty. And all could
easily guess the hidden name. The whole colony
was agog!
But General Hatcher only shook his head in
hopeless sorrow when Corvini demanded of him
the history of Ethel, the unknown.
"In his whole illness he has only raved of this
Ethel, and — if the shadows of the past are not
lifted — this poor man may only come out of this
relapse into the death in life of insanity.
"I shall put only professional attendants over
him now, and then, when he can bear it, send him
away as soon as possible. He can not be moved
again."
Old General Hatcher's eyes were dim as he
said to Melville, "I shall not leave Rome till this
poor boy's fate is decided! What a sudden re-
turn of delirium! I will take up my quarters
with Grimes to be near him !"
But the husband and wife, not altogether de-
ceived by the old General's repeated denials, only
gazed into each other's eyes when alone, saying,
154 CAPTAIN LANDON.
"Who is this Ethel who has wrecked his life? Is
the burden of the story one of sin or shame — this
recurrent history of the past ?"
CHAPTER VII.
THE INTELLIGENCE BUREAU AT WORK.
General Rufus Hatcher, taking a vigorous
command of the situation at the Eveless Paradise,
at once established his personal headquarters in a
suite of rooms next to the indefatigable Forrest
Grimes. He was in entire ignorance of the fracas
which had led to the relapse of the man now most
talked about in Rome.
While the startled Arthur Melville dropped his
artistic life and spasmodically took up the reins
of his office at a hint from Morgan, the evenings
at the Palazzo Vecchio were often enlivened by
Hatton and Grimes' visits.
There was a look of grim determination on
Grimes' face, which showed a settled purpose.
Beautiful Gertrude Melville's eyes blazed with
indignation as Grimes recounted to her his most
THE BUREAU AT WORK. 155
recent social discoveries. For the two were
sworn secret allies in Sidney Landon's behalf.
"There is a persistent flooding of Rome going
on, with a tide of foul stories to the discredit of
this poor young soldier," said the journalist. "I
hear them everywhere.
"The foreign circles here are agitated over
stories that Landon's banditti experience was a
myth — that he wantonly shot the unaimed peas-
ant to cover up an ugly intrigue, and that he was
disgracefully forced to resign from the United
States Army."
"Are any names coupled with his?" said Mrs.
Melville — her cheek paling as she bent over her
embroidery.
"Not that I know of," wrathfully exclaimed
the writer, "but, neither Hatton nor I can get at
the whole stories. They will not talk before us.
Of course, Hatton is handicapped with his imper-
fect Italian, but I have dropped in on several
coteries where the running story seemed suddenly
cut off by my appearance.
"I dare not confer with General Hatcher upon
these matters, for I do not wish the rash old vet-
156 CAPTAIN LANDON.
eran to babble to Sidney Landon, as he surely
would.
"Doctor Corvini says that our friend must be
spared all excitement."
"Whom do you suspect of spreading these
rumors?" asked the troubled Melville.
"I know of no one with whom Captain Landon
has had a quarrel. Perhaps they are circulated
by the friends of some aspirant for his place."
He smiled faintly as he said, "Many ambitious
American residents at once begin to intrigue for
diplomatic or consular rank here as soon as they
strike social roots into this fertile ground.
"Every mail carries away to America some
furtive and scandalous complaint of the Legation
or Consulate General Officers. I only answer
the Department of State that my resignation
awaits the slightest intimation of the President's
wish for my retirement !"
"That's the safest official life insurance,"
laughed Hatton. "I did at first suspect Robert
Brandon, for I think that he feels that your family
holds aloof from his picture jobbing salons, but
even the closest watch has not caught him nap-
ping as yet.
THE BUREAU AT WORK. 157
"And, then, there's this flamboyant mining mil-
lionaire, Rawdon Clark! I wonder if the two
men ever met out west ; but Clark is far too pru-
dent to betray himself !"
Mrs. Melville dropped her eyes and walked
away to hide conscious blushes.
Her own womanly intuitions told her of the
veiled antipathy of the Crcesus. She alone knew
of the daily creeping nigher of Clark's proprie-
tary lines about the orphaned heiress.
"It must be some mysterious hostile influence,"
she said. "Charley Hollingsworth has been liv-
ing here nearly twenty years. His cherubs are
real Romans, 'to the manner born/ and he sent
his wife down yesterday to tell me the Italian and
French clubs are filled with the vilest scandals
against the poor Captain.
"Now, Hollingsworth has grown into the very
core of the Italian life here, and he thinks that the
active agents are local foreigners — whoever the
veiled principals may be.
"He fears that Captain Landon may be en-
trapped in a quarrel, — or forced into a duel with
some of these matchless swordsmen and then —
killed while yet weak!"
158 CAPTAIN LANDON.
"I will take care of that!" grimly replied For-
rest Grimes. "He shall fight no one in Rome if
I can prevent it."
The brave fellow had locked up in his own gal-
lant heart the details of the fracas between Lan-
don and Clark. "Thank God, no one overheard
that row," he mused. "Landon seemed to catch
Clark's meaning instantly ! He certainly will not
talk ! And they dare not!"
Grimes smiled as he remembered Mr. Burton
Wilmot's baffled rage as Clark's confidant and
friend had approached him on the next day after
the trouble with a pompous challenge for Landon,
addressed to him as the second of the sick man.
"See here, Mr. Wilmot," Grimes had sharply
answered. "I shall not, at any time, deliver your
cartel to Captain Landon.
"You, as the bearer of it, know the man is rav-
ing helplessly in the delirium of a relapse of
fever.
"Now, Landon only threw wine at your friend
Clark, while / struck him! I accept the whole re-
sponsibility for both insults! You, as a respon-
sible second, are a coward to push a challenge at
a bed-ridden man! I will, however, accommo-
THE BUREAU AT WORK. 159
date you! I will send for my friend, Mr. Charles
Hollingsworth. We will follow you and Clark
out of Rome. / insist on fighting him, first!
"If he does not challenge me now — within
twenty-four hours, — I will have the right to re-
fuse any future cartel, and also to post him as a
coward.
"As to you, I take the place of my principal. I
will cheerfully go out with you and show you
that I can hit a five-cent piece nine times out of
ten at ten paces! After that exhibition, if you
wish to take Clark's place, — try me on, as Lan-
don's representative.
"In any case, if either of you breathes any slan-
ders against that dead woman, or tries to vilify
Landon, while sick, I will publicly horsewhip
both of you !"
And, then — a week had gone by in silence,
Grimes easily learning that Burton Wilmot had
left Rome for America, "recalled by sudden busi-
ness."
"No," he mused. "It can not be Clark! He
would not dare. For he has too much to lose —
to face a pistol."
The journalist was firm in this belief, for in all
160 CAPTAIN LANDON.
the rumors the occurrence at the American Club
had been strictly ignored.
Not even the honest-hearted Hatton had an
idea of the scene which took place in the little pri-
vate room.
So, when Forrest Grimes said, with a sigh,
"We must leave it all for General Hatcher to
fathom," the little coterie agreed.
"Certainly, the General is the only one to
whom Captain Landon could properly unveil
himself," thoughtfully remarked Mrs. Melville,
"but all these slanderers will be careful to shun
General Hatcher. He will not hear the damag-
ing slanders, and then — if he goes away unin-
formed— as Captain Landon is himself ignorant
of all, we leave our friend entirely helpless."
Her clear eyes met Grimes' steady gaze.
"You are the only man, Mr. Grimes, who can
frankly tell the General all, for my husband's offi-
cial position would prevent him so doing.
"Then, before the General's final departure,
you and he can decide how much Captain Landon
shall know; afterwards — Arthur can follow up
all these matters and meet them at the Depart-
THE BUREAU AT WORK. 161
ment, for there, I apprehend, is the place where
the poison is intended to injure him."
While the anxious friends reviewed the situa-
tion, at the Hotel Quirinale, Rawdon Clark con-
ferred with his now crafty master, the secretly
jubilant Maspero.
"Mark you, my man," he curtly said, "this
thing may come to an open issue in two or three
months, at longest.
"You now understand all my wishes. This old
fool, Mrs. Montgomery, is going home in a few
weeks. She has been frightened away by the
stories about the Via Appia affair.
"Your friends in the Clubs have done their
work well ! We will have her soon off our hands !
"Then, all that I ask of these women, Emilia
and Lucia, is to meet my friend, Mrs. Bran-
don, and to tell her the whole truth — that Miss
Hawthorn was with Landon when the shooting
occurred. That is all I wish Mrs. Brandon to
know.
"As for the two vetturini, they can, later, tell
their story to Mr. Brandon in my presence.
"I shall have my revenge on this young fool;
you will have him out of the way ; and he will fail
11
162 CAPTAIN LANDON.
in his chase of the heiress. That will soon drive
him out of Rome !"
Maspero's glittering black eyes rested hungi ily
on Clark's face. "The people are to be kept
apart?" he demanded.
"Of course, of course," hastily answered Clark.
"And to be paid separately — paid well for their
work?"
"You know how I pay, you dog!" angrily cried
Clark, rising in wrath.
"Basta! Count on me!" growled Maspero.
"The thing is done."
He folded up a roll of notes as Clark rapidly
strode away. "How he hates that Captain ! What
a gold mine to me! What a fool!
"And all for a woman who has to be trapped to
get her! Corpo di Bacco! He will have a fine
time to keep such a sly bird! Fool! when our
ruby-hearted Italian women are here — white
bosomed and open armed — waiting for the
shower of gold ! Such a Jupiter could choose his
Danae here among the proudest !"
But late that night Rawdon Clark labored in
his splendid apartment over the "Intelligence
Bureau."
THE BUREAU AT WORK. 163
"I must work quickly," he resolved. "Already
Agnes Hawthorn shows a restlessness! She
wishes to leave! Thank Heavens, she will wait
until disembarrassed of this old Mrs. Montgom-
ery! That leaves me a clear field! Then, with
Myra Brandon ready to work upon her pride,
with the old army scandal, with both Myra and
her husband to arouse her fears in this Via Appia
embroglio, it only leaves her the choice to give up
Landon, or else, — lose her reputation! I am
safe! Agnes Hawthorn will never dare to dis-
close her relatives' confidential warnings !"•
After several attempts, the revengeful capital-
ist succeeded in producing the draft of a letter to
be addressed simply "My Dear Friend."
This carefully drawn document was to bear the
signature of Mrs. Dora Prindle, — and to be for-
warded to the hostile wife of "Black Bill" for her
personal signature.
Clark leaned back and lit a cigar, dreaming of
his future Philadelphian glories.
"Yes!" he mused. "This will work. The
story is well and yet vaguely told. The envelope
is to be addressed directly to Mrs. Myra Bran-
164 CAPTAIN LANDON.
don, who is not named in the body of the letter."
He read a clause or two with delight.
"I have learned through Mr. Burton Wilmot
of the possibility of an engagement between your
beautiful niece, Miss Hawthorn, and an un-
worthy man, formerly of our Regiment, a trick-
ster, and one whose social misdeeds drove him
out of the army."
The capitalist read over and over Barker Bol-
ton's explanation of Mrs. Prindle's hatred of
Landon.
In the inevitable opposing cliques of regimental
life, poor Landon had loyally held to the side of
Colonel and Mrs. Atwater.
It seemed but natural that Lieutenant Colonel
Prindle should hate the man who on the one step
above debarred him from active regimental com-
mand, and his wife from queening it over the
forty-seven regimental officers.
A little social frontier maneuver which had
failed, the importation of Mrs. Prindle's dashing
unmarried sister, with a set purpose of marrying
her off to Sidney Landon, the eligible social star,
was another cause of deadly personal hatred.
THE BUREAU AT WORK. 165
The fish did not bite, and both sisters hated Lan-
don with a due acerbity.
Barker Bolton had written that Mrs. Prindle
had been loud in accusation of the man who had
"skipped his regiment," and now grimly pointed
to Major Murray Raynor's reckless death in the
fierce Nez Perce fight.
"I am ready to begin my campaign," mused
Clark, "as soon as Mrs. Montgomery leaves. Old
General Hatcher will be very soon out of the way.
Brandon can use Bolton's letter to arouse his
wife's aversion of Landon and kindle it to a bitter
hatred !
"Landon, the young fool, has ignored the
Brandons here, worshiping at the shrine of that
finicky social lay figure, Mrs. Melville.
"Maspero's information can be divided up, —
the women going to Mrs. Brandon, and the coach-
men confessing to her husband. All this will
frighten Agnes Hawthorn away from Rome.
Landon is poor and tied down here. He can not
afford to follow her! I can, and Mrs. Brandon
can later chase on after the girl, as my secret
guest and agent. And, so — I will be in at the
finale, 'a sure winner, the last in the race !' '
166 CAPTAIN LANDON.
Two weeks later, General Rufus Hatcher
judged Sidney Landon to be well enough to be-
gin the main business of his Roman visit.
He had now fortified himself with a letter from
Colonel and Mrs. Atwater, whose leave was put
over to the next season, by virtue of certain spo-
radic Indian raids calling for the immediate
handling of the veteran Chief.
Loyal Forrest Grimes, loth to enter into un-
pleasantness, was watching his chance to confer
with the General upon the continually rising tide
of scandal involving both Landon's past and pres-
ent.
With all the watchful loyalty of Hatton and
Grimes — no straw as yet pointed to either Clark
or the Brandon faction as in any way responsible
for the wriggling scandals.
"By Jove!" growled Grimes. "I believe that
the best thing for Landon to do would be to apply
for a transfer to Vienna or Paris, or to some
other continental station. There is a fatal under-
tow pulling against him here.
"Why, even Charley Hollingsworth tells me
that the Melvilles and Miss Hawthorn have heard
THE BUREAU AT WORK. 167
many of these disgraceful stories, and they are
becoming, to say the least, uneasy.
"I'll wait for another week. Landon is now
gaining rapidly, and I will then bring things to a
head before General Hatcher leaves for home.
He can, at least, send on from the War Depart-
ment such authoritative letters as will scotch the
snake."
It was a pleasant spring afternoon, and Gen-
eral Hatcher had left Sidney Landon pleasantly
sleeping, when he stole away to bring up all the
arrears of his correspondence.
He sighed as he contemplated convoying home
the faded Mrs. Montgomery, but who could re-
sist that most fascinating of invalids, Miss Haw-
thorn, the only woman who had ever invested
crutches with piquancy and grace?
General Hatcher pushed back his spectacles
and dropped his big cane penholder with an impa-
tient snort, when the butler brought him the card
of "Mr. Charles Hollingsworth." Upon the
turned-down corner was penciled "Very import-
ant."
"What the devil" — began Hatcher, but his so-
liloquy was cut off by the entrance of the head-
168 CAPTAIN LANDON.
long Hollingsworth, with the light of battle in his
eyes. "You must excuse me breaking in on you,
General," he began, "but in an affair involving
Landon's honor I could not wait !"
"Speak out," hastily cried Hatcher. "What's
up now?"
He pointed to a seat and pushed over his cigar
box. "They are the most lightly damned of all the
cigars I could find in Rome ! Now, sir!"
The undaunted Hollingsworth came to the
point at once.
"You are the oldest friend, I apprehend, of
Sidney Landon, and the only army officer of
rank now in Italy! I come to you to aid me in
solving a mystery which is taken advantage of by
Landon's enemies to work his social ruin."
"What's your mystery?" roared the old vet-
eran.
"Why did Captain Landon suddenly throw up
his command — leave his regiment, transfer, and,
then — suddenly quit ' the army ?" gravely asked
the visitor.
"What's that to you?" fiercely demanded
Hatcher. Charley Hollingsworth kept his tem-
per admirably.
THE BUREAU AT WORK. 169
"A great deal, General," he quietly answered,
"to Landon, himself, to you — and, to all his real
friends here!
"Just before his illness came on, I put his name
up at the Cercle de Rome.
"The Marquis de Pallavinci, a good fellow,
signed as sponsor with me, at my especial re-
quest. I was astonished that the election after
the four weeks' wait, was put off through January
and February.
"Here we are at March first, and the season
already beginning to wane.
"To my horror and surprise, I received this
morning the official notification that Captain Sid-
ney Landon had been heavily blackballed and re-
jected."
General Hatcher sprang up, his face reddened
with wrath. "The damned Italian curs!" he
cried. "When a man is in the jaws of death to
so openly insult him !"
Hollingsworth's voice was sorrowful in tone
as he mechanically continued :
"Now — I started this morning to look up Pal-
lavinci, for I was not at the election.
"I met him on his way to my house, and he was
170 CAPTAIN LANDON.
fierce in a white heat. There was simply a storm
of black balls.
"Now, Pallavinci happens to be a high-spirited
fellow, a man of sterling honor, and he wants to
go in, at once, and fight the whole damned club!
It appears he has forced out of some of these fel-
lows the stories which have worked this wrong.
"He will not tell me, for he is afraid that I will
go and get a rapier through me in championing
Landon.
"He reminded me of my duty to Elaine and my
frolicsome 'cherubs.'
"But the insult to the United States is a flat
one ! This poor boy Landon is our Vice Consul
General, as well as a representative of the army.
Our Secretaries of Legation are all members of
the Club ! There'll be blood shed sure !
"For Pallavinci said, 'I am a bachelor! You
and I have been insulted as sponsors, — I have no
ties, I am a Roman, and — they insult Roman hos-
pitality through me. Find out the truth, and I
will try my hand on one or two of them.'
"So there is the whole story! I shall not go
into the club again, save with Pallavinci, and —
if he fights, why—/ do,— that's all."
THE BUREAU AT WORK. 171
The two men gazed blankly in each other's
eyes, while Rufus Hatcher swore an old-time
Army of the Cumberland oath, — as long as an
army mule train.
"Does anyone else know anything of this?"
the General growled.
"I fancy that Forrest Grimes can enlighten
you," sadly said Hollingsworth. "He is a man
of the world, of our own world. Melville is an
artistic dreamer in his little home Paradise, while
Frank Hatton is an unsuspecting simple-hearted
manly Christian! I thought that Grimes had
told you of this trouble, before!"
"See here, Hollingsworth," the old veteran
said, with a husky voice. "You are a game and
loyal gentleman. I will go deeply into this for
the honor of the army!
"I will see Grimes myself before dark, and,
leaving the club matter out, will soon gain all he
knows.
"To-night, I'll go into the subject with Sidney
Landon. In the meantime, promise me to keep
Pallavinci away from the Club!
"I will meet him at your house at breakfast
to-morrow! And, — let there be no fire-eating
CAPTAIN LANDON.
on your part, sir ! You have a charming family !
I am a lonely old oak! It makes no difference
where I fall! I will look out for the honor of
the Army!"
The two men separated with that convulsive
grip of the hands which speaks more than the
vain jingle of words with true-hearted men.
Hollingsworth's graceful form had no sooner
disappeared than General Hatcher sought out
Forrest Grimes, who was seated in the midst
of a pyramid of sheets, his weekly syndicated
review of "Roba di Roma."
For three long hours the two friends conferred,
and then the story of the mysterious flood tide
of gossip was given in all its details to the now
maddened veteran.
Forrest Grimes, pacing his floor, with his old
mahogany-colored cutty pipe in his teeth, grimly
said, "And, as an additional humiliation, Mr.
Rawdon Clark was duly elected a member of the
Corde de Rome at this same balloting. I know
that he's a cad, but I will stake my soul that
there was no hand of his in this!"
Something in Grimes' voice betrayed his hid-
den knowledge of the fracas!
THE BUREAU AT WORK. 173
"Are you holding anything back, Grimes?"
eagerly demanded the General. And then the
game fellow quietly said:
"Nothing that anyone has a right to know!
You must let Sidney Landon enlighten you!"
That evening, before General Hatcher opened
his batteries upon Landon, he re-read the letter
of Colonel Miles Atwater and the gallant hearted
Mrs. Mary. He sighed as he read the lines,
"Even if you can not persuade Landon to re-
main in the army he should re-enter it, serve a
couple of years, and then go out in due form.
"I cannot reach all the low gossip here, — but,
his sudden transfer, his hasty resignation after-
wards and his leaving the country, have been
made the basis of dark rumors. Of course, these,
in their worst form, are kept away from us!
Make Landon, at least, unbosom himself! His
new regiment went into a hot campaign just as
he left, and — yet, — I'll swear there is no white
feather in Landon!"
With a confidence born of his own high bred
sense of honor, General Hatcher, that night,
seated by Landon's bed, cautiously approached
the tender subject. He sheltered his real purpose
CAPTAIN LANDON.
behind the generous offer of the President to
reappoint Captain Landon upon the staff, and
later retransfer him to the line, and the old be-
loved "Grays."
The old General's face was hidden behind the
green lampshade under which the yellow gleams
lit up Sidney Landon's wasted face, with its
straggling beard of the sick room. The young
soldier's face was keenly scanned by the speaker,
who noted the nervous twitching of the sick
man's thinned hands.
Driven on by his own earnestness, the General
became slowly irritated by the negative attitude
of the listener.
There was an evasiveness in Landon's manner
which was foreign to the man of old, the man of
whom a Commanding General had once said,
"There's a soldier! See young Landon take his
troop into action! He will go up to the stars
yet!"
General Hatcher paused when he had fired off
his official ammunition, and tossed his head in
surprise as he saw Sidney Landon slowly shake
his head.
There were tears stealing out under the young
THE BUREAU AT WORK. 175
soldier's closed eyelids, but his lips merely moved
in whispers.
General Hatcher's heart melted as he drew out
the letters of the Colonel and his beloved wife!
He read recklessly on until he was checked by
the tell-tale finishing clauses. Sidney Landon
feebly turned his eyes to the old General's face.
"It is impossible," he said. "I can not re-enter
the army. You can thank the President for his
kindly consideration ! By and by, I will write to
the Atwaters."
And then — all General Hatcher's solicitude for
Landon's honor thrilled in his voice, as he
pleaded : "Sidney ! I am an old and broken man !
I have neither wife nor child! You would have
been the son of my heart ! Tell me, at least, that
you will consider this for three months! You
are weak and broken now!"
The sufferer turned his head away.
"Not for a single moment!" he whispered.
"When I rode past the Regimental flag of the
Grays, it was for the last time !"
"Then, by Heaven, you shall tell me why you
left the army?" the General eagerly prayed.
176 CAPTAIN LANDON.
"For the sake of the Regiment, for my sake,
for your oivn sake, Sidney, tell me!
"You are a young man, you have much to
learn! Let me beg you, before I leave, — that I
shall know!"
The General started up, as Captain Landon
answered, his voice almost sinking into a hollow
groan :
"My past life is a sealed book, — there are two
graves now hiding what you would know, — and,
— for good or ill, I shall go on silently to the end,
— for the past is voiceless!"
The old General grasped the sufferer's hand.
"My God! Boy! You do not know what you
say! Tell me! In your sickness you have raved
incessantly of Ethel! Who is this Ethel!"
Landon's voice rose almost to a shriek.
"Her very memory is too sacred for my lips to
profane! Let them say what they will! I will
be silent! I am forced to be silent!"
"And, so — let disgrace fall upon you?" sharply
cried the General. Landon turned his face to the
wall with a sigh.
General Rufus Hatcher summoned the attend-
ants and left the room without another word.
BEHIND CLOSED DOORS. 177
"Can it be true?" he muttered; but he choked
off the unbidden suspicion.
General Rufus Hatcher's face was very grave
as he reported at Hollingsworth's home, the next
day, a half hour before Pallavinci's arrival.
Drawing his host aside, he sadly said : "You
must not let Pallavinci fight! As for yourself, —
as my countryman, — I bid you to guard your own
home.
"There is some ugly mystery here! I shall
leave Rome as soon as I can — and, — advise Lan-
don to do the same!
"For he has locked his lips — in a stubborn
folly!"
"And his reputation?" said Hollingsworth.
"He must guard that for himself, as best he
can!" sadly said the old man.
CHAPTER VIII.
BEHIND CLOSED DOORS.
The week which followed Captain Landon's
club blackballing was one of many fiercely
foughten social battles in Rome, and many
12
178 CAPTAIN LANDON.
society vehme-gerichts were held behind closed
doors.
The subject of all this bitter wrangling was
now hobbling around the Eveless Paradise, and
faithfully attended by the golden-hearted Hatton.
Captain Landon's gloomy face brought no
brightness to the joyous circle of the gathered
good men and true.
He even met the unwearying General Hatcher,
with a slight constraint, tacitly acknowledged by
both, for, either Hatton or Grimes always seemed
now to singularly happen in upon their meeting
hours.
And Forrest Grimes' face was soberly over-
cast, for in vain he had essayed to plead with
the young fever patient to reconsider his refusal
to re-enter the army.
In a conference with General Hatcher, Grimes
had agreed to push the matter on, but only on the
basis of the favorable career reopened to the
soldier.
Forrest Grimes resolutely refused to touch
upon the scandals, or upon the matter of the
emphatic blackballing of a high United States
official.
BEHIND CLOSED DOORS. 179
"Either you or Melville must deal with that,"
resolutely said Grimes. "You two men represent
the War and State Departments! I will stand
by Sidney Landon, but he must 'dree his own
weird.' "
Landon himself was astonished at the number
of cartes de visite showered in upon him, pro
forma !
In his ignorance of the social battle, he fool-
ishly ascribed these visits to a general solicitude.
As the Doctor still forbade his receiving guests,
he was guarded by the happy chance from any
unlucky disclosure.
Forrest Grimes, though revolving through all
the polyglot circles of Roman society, could not,
even with his keenest sagacity, touch upon the
hidden machinery of this sudden social crusade.
In fact, he had even acquitted, in his mind,
Rawdon Clark, who was now giving breakfasts
and dinners, ad libitum, to the Roman aristocracy
at the forbidden ground of the Cercle de Rome.
With all the finesse of a cautious enemy,
Grimes caused Landon's name to be brought up
again and again before Clark, by his own Italian
loyal-hearted brothers.
180 CAPTAIN LANDON.
The cautious plotter merely spoke gravely of
the Captain's serious illness, or referred to the
attacks on his past army record or official be-
havior in his present place with no prejudice.
Rawdon Clark was, however, laughing in his
sleeve. "It's the quiet poison that does the deadly
work," he smilingly resolved, and yet, his masked
batteries were all now regularly in action.
Jacopo Maspero, a past master of cowardly
duplicity, had taken the "unfortunate occurrence"
in commission. There was no gossipy circle in
Rome which did not have its busy chronique
scandaleuse in which the previous slanders were
nailed down with this public disgrace. For the
Italian was earning his vile money — the gage of
dishonor.
While a saddened coterie secretly met at
Arthur Melville's drawing room to sigh over the
growth of the rising storm, — Landon was all un-
conscious that his chief, and Grimes, General
Hatcher and Hatton, even the optimistic Hol-
lingsworth were forced to agree that Landon
stubbornly would not explain his abrupt exit from
the army, and, — that there was no one else who
dared to leap into the daily widening breach.
BEHIND CLOSED DOORS. 181
It was far otherwise with Gertrude Melville
and Elaine Hollingsworth.
With all the fond ardor of womanhood, they
adhered to the fixed idea of some coming sun-
burst of explanation which would clear away all
the black clouds lowering over the romantic
young official.
These were halcyon days for Mrs. Myra Bran-
don! With an exquisite skill, she slyly rallied
at the Art Bungalow all the acrid-tongued ene-
mies of the Melville regime. The burly form of
Brandon bobbed around from the American Club
to the English Library, — from artists' guilds to
villa coteries — and all the details of Sidney Lan-
don's social disgrace were thus artfully sowed
broadcast.
It was with a fine application of the cowardly
art of backbiting that Myra Brandon made the
timid Mrs. Montgomery the vehicle of carrying
all these oft-repeated slanders to Agnes Haw-
thorn, now eagerly craving to leave Rome, and
so to avoid the possibility of her name being
coupled with the unfortunate Landon. The
lonely girl dared not confide her secret fears to
any one.
182 CAPTAIN LANDON.
Mrs. Montgomery, deep in the mystery of
marking her boxes, timidly crooned over the dan-
ger of the Via Appian adventure becoming
public.
"It would be your social ruin, my own precious
darling. To think that this young man should
turn out to be such a character."
And floods of tears accentuated her forebod-
ings.
A personal timidity, now amounting to fear,
forbade the lonely heiress from confiding this
news to Mrs. Melville and the loyal Elaine Hoi-
lings worth.
For, Mrs. Brandon, a daily visitor, artfully
brought those who, by their own tongues, con-
firmed the very worst of the floating rumors.
And, at last, pushed on by an overweening
anxiety, the orphan girl questioned Rawdon
Clark, whose unflagging attentions had given
him the right to an almost daily admittance at
the Costanzi. He seemed to be now Rome's fore-
most American citizen, — and decidedly the vogue
— everywhere.
The capitalist was armed and ready for this
welcome sign of a growing confidence.
BEHIND CLOSED DOORS. 183
"My dear Miss Hawthorn," he sadly said. "I
never repeat boudoir gossip nor club scandals!
The young man is certainly most unfortunate, —
to say the least, — and, more I can not tell you !
"In your place, — I should confide alone in your
worthy relative, Mrs. Brandon. She has a vast
social experience. It would seem that the intimate
acquaintance of Captain Landon is not desirable,
— but, — after all, he is a mere minor official, and,
I hear, one shortly to be removed !"
The conservative quiet of his manner lulled
the girl's lingering suspicions.
And yet, — there was her still unpaid debt of
gratitude, — but, — it was a social secret (their
joint property), and most undesirable as to pub-
licity !
And, — so with all a timid woman's halting
indecision, — Agnes Hawthorn quietly avoided all
mention of Landon's name! The tide was run-
ning strongly against his bark of Life, now
weathering adverse gales!
Even General Hatcher — now anxious to quit
Rome, evaded the young beauty's questions, lest
his tell-tale face should betray his own heart-
184 CAPTAIN LANDON.
wearing sorrow over Landon's seemingly pusil-
lanimous behavior.
"A bitter disappointment, — he's not the man
I took him for," sighed the old hero.
"By Jove! When I get home, I will just run
over to Fort Stanton and see the Atwaters. I
dare not write to them this ugly situation, — for
half the letters posted in Italy are stolen for the
stamps, and — the other half are opened and read
to sate the gnawing curiosity of police spies,
officials, and to further the perpetual warfare of
the adherents of Pope or King.
"If any one can wake up Sidney Landon, it
certainly will be Miles Atwater."
The General consumed boxes of cigars in a
vague unrest. He feared each day some fatal
confirmation of the lies.
General Rufus Hatcher was, however, loth to
abandon any of his few cherished ideals. Cap-
tain Landon had been to him as the ideal rising
cavalryman of the army. Hatcher spent a whole
day in writing to the War Department and the
President a euphemistic statement of Landon's
condition.
He finished with strongly recommending that
BEHIND CLOSED DOORS. 185
the President kindly extend his gracious favor to
Landon, and allow the matter of the reinstate-
ment of the young soldier to be held open for
another year.
The honest old soldier blushed as he wrote the
closing paragraphs:
"I shall have the honor upon my return to call
personally upon Your Excellency and to explain
the peculiar mental and physical condition of my
young friend. He has been the victim of a very
severe attack of Roman fever, and is just now
able to resume his official duties. Doctor Cesare
Corvini, the leading specialist of Rome, who at-
tended him, has fully explained to me the mental
and moral dejection which follows on, as an
aftermath, of this dreadful and weakening
malady.
"I have been unable to arouse Captain Landon
to a just conception of the gravity of the situ-
ation, as affecting his future career.
"He is in a state of weakness and physical
inertia, following upon the inroads of disease.
His honorable wounds, received while leading
his troops, have greatly added to his debility."
"That is all I can do, to hold the situation
186 CAPTAIN LANDON.
open," growled Hatcher, as he sealed the docu-
ment. "The boy shall have a fair chance to
reconsider, and to learn by his own experience,
that the social world has some claims to a man's
confidence."
Captain Sidney Landon's altered manner was
not lost upon any of the keen observers now
watching him, when he silently took up again his
work at the Consulate General.
There seemed to be an uneasy unrest in the
way that his chosen friends hovered around him
at the Eveless Paradise, and, even the Melvilles
forebore to break in upon the young official's
proud reserve.
Before the departure of General Hatcher, the
Melvilles assembled the Hollingsworths, Grimes
and Hatton and the old soldier at a farewell
dinner.
To the astonishment of his chief, Sidney Lan-
don declined his invitation, though sent in a
strictly formal manner.
In vain, Gertrude Melville informed her guests
that Doctor Corvini had strictly forbidden all
social excitement and unnecessary fatigue.
There was the shadow of a coming storm
BEHIND CLOSED DOORS. 187
brooding over the pleasant household in the
Palazzo Vecchio.
Two of the anxious circle were not deceived
by Captain Landon's perfunctory letter of regret.
Forrest Grimes had noted that Landon now
avoided the American Club, and all the usual
haunts of the jeunesse doree of Rome.
"That sinister disclosure of Clark's has turned
him in upon himself," mused the journalist, "and
he has some reason, — a powerfully impelling
one, that he does not face the music."
The absence of Miss Agnes Hawthorn from
the Melville dinner did not escape the quick-eyed
guests.
And Grimes, with great astonishment, also
noted the anomaly of a superb dinner at the Hotel
Costanzi, in honor of General Hatcher, at which
the Melvilles met their secret social enemies, the
Brandons, and Mr. Rawdon Clark was the second
star of the evening.
A final reception and dejeuner at the Brandons
was also graced by General Hatcher, but, the
Consul General and his graceful wife were con-
spicuously absent, — the western capitalist, how-
188 CAPTAIN LANDON.
ever, acting as "Pere d'honneur" to the superb
festivity.
It was idle to deny that the absence of the
Vice Consul General from all three of these func-
tions set the ball of gossip again rolling, and with
unexampled velocity.
"Tabooed, sent to Coventry, and, ignored,"
soliloquized Forrest Grimes. "These public in-
sults are his final ruin, unless he acts! Shall I
tell him all? The whole story of the blackball-
ing? Useless, — for there seems now to be no
one to fight!"
Forrest Grimes wondered at the calmness with
which Rawdon Clark had explained the fracas at
the American Club to its managing President.
"Who could notice the ravings of a poor fever
patient?" the suave capitalist had pityingly said.
"I was breakfasting with an American partner,
Mr. Burton Wilmot, when this unfortunate
young man wandered in, behaving in a most in-
coherent manner!
"He created some little confusion, but my
friend, a cool frontiersman, — and a fearless man
of honor, — simply advised me to ignore the whole
affair !
BEHIND CLOSED DOORS. 189
"I pity the young man, for he could not dis-
tinguish even his friends from myself and com-
panion.
"He was only fighting shadows, — poor man, —
let it go at that!
"You see that he now feels so much ashamed
of himself, that he very wisely avoids the club!
His proper place is in a sanitarium! Of course,
— he merits all our compassion !"
"Clark is either a very smooth article, or else
he was really innocent in that matter," mused
Grimes. "I am not called on to fight for the
whole Army, but, — I will watch over poor Lan-
don! If there is to be any more of this 'dead,
cold, open cut,' I shall certainly ask Hatton to
join me in begging Landon to leave Rome at
once ! No one can fight the whole world 'en Don
Quixote!' That day has passed forever!"
It was on the eve of General Rufus Hatcher's
departure that the Minister Resident gave his
formal dinner of farewell to the national hero,
who was now gladly turning his face homeward.
While every American of note in Rome was
honored with an invitation, Forrest Grimes,
with Hatton, both guests, could not control their
190 CAPTAIN LANDON.
astonishment at the absence of Captain Landon.
Melville, silent and distrait, merely filled a lay
figure's place at the Minister's splendid entertain-
ment. Landon determinedly kept his rooms and
avoided all social appearances without exception.
There were those who marveled much to see
the third place of honor filled by Rawdon Clark,
Esq., of the Elkhorn Mine.
But the more worldly-wise of the guests re-
flected that — after all — the Minister Resident
was dependent upon the home politicians for his
transitory glory. His tenure of office was the
slender single hair of political favor, and the
Presidential guillotine axe was always suspended
over his head.
What could be denied to the mighty Croesus
Clark, the reputed owner of two western sena-
tors as well as the richest carbonate mine in
Leadville ?
What might not be done by Rawdon Clark,
Esq., directing owner of the "Philadelphia Mail,"
which staid old journal was now popularly known
as the "Philadelphia Flail." He was a man of
power "in esse" and "in posse."
The tactful wife of the Minister had duly as-
BEHIND CLOSED DOORS. 191
signed the now convalescent beauty, Agnes Haw-
thorn, to the prandial care of Clark, at her astute
husband's direction.
"We must cultivate that man, Maria," he con-
fided. "He is a pyramid of political weight; he
is booked for the U. S. Senate, and my promo-
tion lies in his power !
"From Colorado, he could at once enter the
Senate, double banked. He carries both the
other men in his pocket ! But his social position
is higher ! He even dreams of conquering a share
of the Keystone State's representation ! He will
soon be a political Warwick! So, give him all
your spare moments, and distinguish him as far
as possible."
It was the evening of Clark's social culmina-
tion in Rome as a bright particular star, for his
lavish hospitalities at the Cercle de Rome had
hypnotized the foreigners.
Mrs. Myra Brandon's "open door" policy had
drawn the floating Americans, and, now, the
Minister Resident openly crowned him as the
"first citizen" of the social constituency.
Champagne and Roman punch made General
Rufus Hatcher very communicative as he drove
192 CAPTAIN LANDON.
home that night in the splendidly appointed car-
riage of the wily Clark, who was to convoy the
departing guest as far as Florence.
With a subtle flattery, Clark had retained a
private car as far as Florence for the General
and Mrs. Montgomery.
On this evening drive home, the General con-
fessed to a few thousands of dollars of hard won
savings, and asked the capitalist's advice as to a
"turn in stocks."
The dancing light of joy glittered in Clark's
wary eyes, as he confidentially said : "I will give
you a letter to my New York broker. I will see
that you are put into a deal that will double it!
No! No thanks! General! Leave all to me! I
will give you my own guarantee of honor against
loss!"
Disarmed by all this "brotherly love," the old
General opened his heart when Clark asked him
if he could be of any service to him in Rome.
"I shall remain on the Continent for another
year," complacently said Clark.
The story of Sidney Landon easily oozed out
of the old veteran's addled mind. Leaning back
BEHIND CLOSED DOORS. 193
in a delicious reverie, Rawdon Clark listened with
a deferential interest.
"Trust to me to keep an eye on this young
man," he purred, "for your sake! You can write
to me, after you reach Washington, just how the
President views his case!"
Rufus Hatcher went to his rest somewhat
shamefaced that his adieu to Sidney Landon
could be only for an hour in the morning before
the departure of the noon train. He felt they
had grown sadly apart. He burned to demand
flatly of the Minister or Melville the reason of
Landon's absence from the fete par excellence.
But he was forced to grumble himself to sleep,
while Rawdon Clark, still in his dress suit, —
drank to his own future glories in a little private
seance in his own rooms.
"Capital," he laughed. "I can now have both
Allerton and Bostwick flatly oppose Landon's re-
entry to the army. These powerful Senators can
overweigh the simple old soldier! What a fool
a man is to tell all he knows!"
Clark glanced at his table loaded down with
invitations !
"I have snowed this young jackanapes under,"
13
194 CAPTAIN LANDON.
he mused ; "and, the fool stands off in his stupid
pride, now, and is playing right into my hand !"
He well knew from Mrs. Montgomery that a
simple carte de ceremonie had been Sidney Lan-
don's only social approach upon Miss Agnes
Hawthorn, now thoroughly afraid of some gos-
sipy disclosure.
"The Minister's dinner was a ticklish corner,"
laughed Clark.
He chuckled over his own acuteness at sending
Mrs. Brandon to frighten the Minister's timid
wife with stories of Landon's frightful "Epilep-
tic" attack at the club.
"Such a man is positively dangerous, my dear,"
said Myra Brandon, as she sailed away in proud
swings like a Spanish galleon.
But the poison deftly insinuated into Minister
Van Buren Hartford's mind had done its work!
Rawdon Clark builded well when he lost five
thousand francs at baccarat to the Marquis di
Santa Lucia, at the Cercle de Rome. A friendly
staking of this same noble later made the impe-
cunious Italian as soft as wax in the schemer's
hands. And so, Santa Lucia had, under the
guise of an official confidence, filled the Minister's
BEHIND CLOSED DOORS. 195
ears with the story of Landon's blackballing and
a resume of all the rolled up Roman scandals.
"There is my friend Rawdon Clark," he said;
"he knows that this man was kicked out of the
American army, only his generous, noble soul will
not let him blacken a countryman."
As Santa Lucia really held a minor place in the
Foreign office, the startled Minister at once men-
tally crossed Landon off his social books forever !
"Remember, mon cher Ministre," silkily said
the Marquis, "this is all in strict confidence, —
behind closed doors! It is only to shield you that
I violate a club rule, — never to talk of our inner
life."
The parting between General Hatcher and Sid-
ney Landon was one of mutual constraint and
relief. The Captain awaited his estranged friend
in his own rooms at the Eveless Paradise. Lan-
don was but slowly groping toward the light as
regarded his altered social position. There were
few cards and no invitations seeking him now,
and he awoke at last with a start to realize that
Doctor Corvini, the faithful Morgan, and Grimes
and Hatton now comprised his entire active social
list.
196 CAPTAIN LANDON.
The singular avoidance of the Melvilles by
Miss Hawthorn had also forced itself upon his
inner consciousness, for he knew of her social
reappearance, a thing of beauty and of added joy
everywhere in Rome. He was aware also of her
invitation to Myra Brandon's dearest friend,
Mrs. Agatha Waring, a prononcee young widow,
to share her splendid solitude.
General Hatcher's manly heart smote him as
he saw the pale face of the young soldier, now
shaven, but only to display his sunken cheeks !
"Sidney!" he cried. "Will you not give me
your confidence?"
"There is nothing to give, General!" proudly
answered Landon, turning his head away to hide
a sudden emotion.
"I am thinking of soon leaving Rome."
"See here," pleaded the kindly old Hatcher,
with a quiver in his voice. "You are bent now
upon ruining your second career! Recall your
foolish words! Let me cable to you your army
appointment! Come back to us, my boy!"
"General!" sadly said the agitated Captain,
"My honor, my peace of mind, and — the honor
of others — forbids!"
BEHIND CLOSED DOORS. 197
"Then, all I say is," cried the excited veteran,
dashing his card down upon the table, "when
you are at the end of your rope, you'll find me
at the Army and Navy Club, Washington."
The young man rose and stood in a respectful
salute, as the old warrior hurried away to hide
the gathering tears.
"/ believe that the boy is mad," he testily cried,
as he drove away to join Mrs. Montgomery at
the Hotel Costanzi.
Captain Landon slowly dressed, and then made
his way to the Consulate General. He merely
nodded to Grimes and Hatton, who were watch-
ing him, hidden in a corner of the smoking room.
When Landon's tall form disappeared, Grimes
resolutely said : "Now that Hatcher is gone, we
must dip in our oars! Landon must face the
music at once, or else leave Rome! And, if he
stays, — we must tell him all from the first to the
last!"
Frank Hatton bowed his head in a sorrowful
silence. He had been made aware of Rawdon
Clark's changed manner in the last month, a
patient urbanity, a deferential courtesy now
marked his employer's newer moods.
198 CAPTAIN LANDON.
The magnate had even spoken of Sidney Lan-
don with a cordial sympathy.
"I suppose the blonde goddess has decided in
Clark's favor!" mused Hatton. "The Croesus
is to be the happy man.
"Yes!" gloomily said Grimes. "Landon's
career in Rome is ruined ! The women, too, have
all turned their thumbs down! Vae Victis! He
has been tried and condemned unheard behind
closed doors! And, money has won its usual
victory — a golden walkover!"
While they were speaking, Vice Consul Gen-
eral Landon, entering his office, was startled by
a sudden recontre with the United States Minis-
ter Resident.
The pompous diplomat was wending his way
down the long hall of the Palazzo Vecchio to the
private rooms of the Chief.
Utterly ignorant of the Minister's secret decree
of social banishment, Landon courteously spoke
and offered his hand "en Americain."
He remained rooted to the spot as the Min-
ister, calmly ignoring both outstretched hand and
polite greeting, — passed on in silence, with a
frozen stare.
AT THE FOUNTAIN OF TREVI. 199
A ferocious gleam of joy lit up Jacopo Mas-
pero's eyes as he touched Landon's arm, and,
with mock humility, handed him his letters.
Landon mechanically tore open the first, and
read it, with an increasing wonder!
It was postmarked Cairo, Egypt, and bore the
chiffre of the Egyptian War Department! The
young man's eyes flashed out with the old soldier
light again!
"Thank God! I shall have a chance to die by
the spears of El Mahdi's fanatics!"
He realized that the Minister's person was
sacred, — and, an instant leave of absence was his
only possible safeguard!
"I'll cable my acceptance at once!" he mused,
while within Melville's room he was being judged
behind closed doors.
CHAPTER IX.
AT THE FOUNTAIN OF TREVI.
While Captain Sidney Landon awaited the
departure of the highest American representative
in Italy, he mechanically busied himself with the
200 CAPTAIN LANDON.
arrangement of the few private paper? which
were locked in his personal desk.
Suddenly he caught Maspero's glances resting
upon him, in an ill-disguised triumph.
And at the sight of his enemy's glee his old
fighting spirit returned.
He drew the faithful Morgan aside into the
little consultation room.
"Edwin," he said, with a voice trembling with
rage. "Pray go into Mr. Melville's studio and
tell him that I ask for a few words with him,
here, instantly, on an important matter which
must be laid before His Excellency before he
leaves the building!"
The faithful secretary hastened away mutter-
ing "What's in the wind? Landon looks as if
he had received his own death sentence!"
While awaiting the arrival of his Chief, Cap-
tain Landon began to feel the full force of the
open and avowed insult offered him before the
man whose now totally experted accounts proved
him to be a tricky scoundrel.
"I must not abandon Morgan to Signior Mas-
pero's rancor," he muttered. "The mills of the
AT THE FOUNTAIN OF TREVI. 201
gods shall grind him slowly, perhaps, — but, — all
in due time!"
When Morgan returned, Sidney Landon whis-
pered: "Reserve to-night for me! Come and
dine with me, and spend the whole evening. I
leave the office to stay forever, but, your work
must go on ! This Italian hound must finally be
brought to bay!"
As the young man left the consultation room,
Arthur Melville hastily entered with his face a
curious study of sorrow and indecision.
He had vainly sought for the particular plati-
tude to cover the "mauvais quart d'heure." The
first glance at Landon told him that some random
shaft had gone home.
Captain Landon bowed with all the formality
of a duellist upon the field of honor. He ex-
tended a sheet of dispatch paper upon which a
few lines had been hastily traced.
"Will you favor me with asking His Excellency
to approve this leave of absence for one month?"
coldly remarked Lando<n.
"The State Department usually acts upon these
matters!" murmured the astonished Melville.
"Inhere is no time to wait," calmly rejoined
202 CAPTAIN LANDON.
Landon, his face now as tensely drawn as a young
Pawnee's upon his first war path.
"I shall cable my formal resignation through
you, the very moment that you have approved this
and Minister Hartford has signed it."
With a perfunctory sigh, the irresolute Mel-
ville turned, and quickly vanished in the direction
of the studio. The soldier walked into the main
office room.
In five minutes his few belongings were all
locked up in his dispatch box.
Calling the office messenger, he sent the lad
away to the Eveless Paradise with his simple
archives.
With a whispered direction to Morgan to take
charge of the office until the Consul General
should give his own personal directions, the
young man, picking up his hat, stick and top
coat, "stood at attention" when the fluttered
Consul General joined him in the private room.
He extended his hand for the paper without
a word, read the signatures, and then bowed
gravely.
"I will now cable my resignation to the State
Department, sir, and ask that my successor be
AT THE FOUNTAIN OF TREVI. 203
instantly appointed. I only take this month's
leave of absence so as to be enabled to sign any
papers covering my official career. Mr. Morgan
alone will have my address."
Then, without turning his head, he strode out
into the gloomy hallway of the Palazzo Vecchio.
There he encountered Miss Rose in Bloom,
departing for her morning walk.
."My little playmate," he cried, touched with
some gentle emotion.
He lifted the rosebud child, kissed her fair and
innocent face, and then slowly descended the
stairs.
As he stood in the shadow of the great gate-
way, a hand was laid upon his arm. Landon
almost fiercely eyed Arthur Melville.
"Pray, not one word," he said. "I can never
forget your kindness to the stranger within your
gates ! I only hope, for your own sake, that you
will awake to the grave responsibilities of your
office. I go back to my rooms! I shall leave
Rome, probably forever, to-morrow at midnight.
You can meet me as a private citizen down there
on the Corso !"
Arthur Melville was left speechless, for vain
204 CAPTAIN LANDON.
words had failed him. He saw the agony on the
young soldier's face.
There was the sudden frou frou of silken skirts
and Gertrude Melville stood beside them, on the
very spot where Agnes Hawthorn had fallen on
the luckless night of the visit to the Colosseum.
All the mute entreaty of a woman's awakened
soul in her shining eyes ! She gently drew Cap-
tain Landon aside!
"Morgan has told me," she softly said, "that
you are to leave us forever ! Have you a right to
go without one word to me? You need a cham-
pion, now! Remember, too, that you have broken
our bread !
"Promise me that you will not leave Rome
without seeing me!"
Her gentle bosom was heaving with some un-
explained thrill of suddenly evoked sympathy for
the friendless man.
Captain Landon stood there silent and irreso-
lute, while Arthur Melville had hastily sought the
other end of the loggia.
"I will never re-enter the Palazzo Vecchio,"
sadly said Landon. "The shadow of some great
wrong broods over me! You can not come to
AT THE FOUNTAIN OF TREVI. 205
me ! And, — I would not have you write ! When
I go — I go, as the crow flies, to far-away lands !"
"What I must say to you can not be written,
and no friend could intervene," murmured Ger-
trude, a crimson blush stealing over her pale
cheeks.
"When do you go?" she faltered.
"I take the midnight train to-morrow for Ge-
noa," the soldier said. "Best that we do not meet!
You can do nothing for me! 'Centre la force, il
ny a pas de resistance!' It is the work of the
Fates ! I am doomed to suffer in silence !"
The beautiful woman was reading his shad-
owed soul in his darkened eyes.
"Be at the Fountain of Trevi at nine to-mor-
row evening," she whispered. "/ must see you,
if only for Agnes' sake! You shall not leave
Rome without one heart vowed to right you from
these frightful scandals."
He raised his head in a proud disdain, but the
gentle lady fled away, with a dainty finger on her
rosy lip in a last mute command !
Sidney Landon watched her light form vanish
in the gloom of the winding stair.
"May God go with you, Madonna!" he softly
206 CAPTAIN LANDON.
said, and then strode out into the garish sunlight.
An hour later he entered his room at the Eve-
less Paradise, and, locking the door, threw him-
self down to cool his throbbing temples.
He had changed his whole life by a dozen
cabled words to the War Ministry of the Khedive
at Cairo, and his unconditional and immediate
resignation had been duly telegraphed to the De-
partment of State at Washington. He had
burned his ships! A new field — new dangers —
new adventures lay before him in the misty veiled
future.
His stern pride now flamed up in his bitter,
desolate heart.
"Morgan alone shall follow on my work of en-
trapping this Italian scoundrel ! Grimes and Hat-
ton are good fellows enough, but why should they
suffer for me ?
"As for this timid snob of a Minister, I sup-
pose that my place is wanted !"
He wondered from what quarter the stab in the
dark had come, for all his later social isolation
now flashed over him.
"I am a free man, at any rate," he bitterly
cried, as he unlocked a case and slipped a revolver
AT THE FOUNTAIN OF TREVI. 20?
in his pocket. "God help the man who* crosses my
path now. I will play a lone hand against a lying
world!"
His eyes rested on General Hatcher's last card
of adieu flung upon the table.
"Poor dear old hero! Gallant old friend! You
shall have a letter, — at least, a few lines to show
that I am grateful !"
After he had written and personally mailed his
acceptance of the Egyptian army commission and
his formal Consular resignation at the end of the
leave of absence, his mind reverted to the harm-
less assignation at the Fountain of Trevi.
Still in ignorance of the web of scandal deftly
woven around him, he remembered Gertrude
Melville's words, "for Agnes' sake!"
"And, she, too, has fallen off, her gratitude was
short lived enough! It matters little, for I will
have ample time to forget her over there in Abys-
sinia.
"The Soudan's sands may cover my bones and,
— / find a welcome rest forever by the palm-
fringed Nile."
Captain Landon's evil genius ruled the hour!
He was still stemming adverse seas, for, while he
208 CAPTAIN LANDON.
looked out into a dreary future, — there was a
woman pacing her splendid boudoir at the Cos-
tanzi in a wild unrest of heart !
With tears and sobs, — Mrs. Montgomery had
thrown herself at Agnes Hawthorn's feet and left
behind her the legacy of all the artfully contrived
slanders of Mrs. Dora Prindle, filtered through
Barker Bolton's letters. "The proof s^ — the proofs
— they are all now on their way ! You must shun
this disgraced man or else pay the penalty of a
blackened name ! Myra Brandon will watch over
you! Trust only to her !"
And then, breaking in upon this stormy mood,
resolute Gertrude Melville, — now a secret cham-
pion,— came to warn the heiress of an unpaid
debt of gratitude.
"Landon is leaving Rome forever, — poor, —
friendless, — disheartened, and with not a single
champion left behind! Even Morgan does not
know where he will recklessly cast himself away,
— he has parted in coldness and estrangement
with General Hatcher, — the old veteran himself
charged me to watch over him !
"And, — the Minister has socially crushed him !
"I know not why — for — Arthur, — my hus-
AT THE FOUNTAIN OF TREVI. 209
band, — for the first time in our marriage, — has
plead a sworn secrecy !
"I owe to Captain Landon nothing but a
woman's loyal faith — but, Agnes, — you owe him
the unpaid debt of a life preserved!"
The two fair women clasped heart to heart,
mingled their tears, as the heiress sadly recalled
her own pledged secrecy.
But, when Gertrude Melville left her orphaned
friend, there had also been given to her the pledge
of a sisterly aid in the masquerade of the Foun-
s tain of Trevi.
"I come to you for help," pleaded Gertrude.
"To whom else could I come? No one must ever
know! You must be alone the guardian of my
secret !
"For Landon shall know all his danger, and, —
you can help me in this and pay your debt in this
wise! I dare trust to no one else! You can be
draped beyond all recognition !"
With a trembling heart, Agnes Hawthorn,
smiling through her tears, consented to brave the
night shadows of Rome.
It needed all the stony apathy of Landon's sol-
dier nature to control himself when Forrest
14
210 CAPTAIN LANDON.
Grimes and Frank Hatton burst in upon his rapid
packing.
A sudden wave of excitement seemed to have
permeated the whole of the Eveless Paradise.
But the military aplomb of the Captain was equal
to the occasion. On Doctor Corvini's noon-day
visit he had gently forced upon that quaint old
savant a very handsome honorarium.
"I am going over to the Riviera for a month,
my dear Doctor," he gently said.
"I have a leave of absence for thirty days. It
can be extended, ad libitum, — and, so, I will slip
away and say good-bye to no one !"
The gentle-minded old physician looked
troubled at heart. He had learned to love his
patient.
"Have you any one to look out for you there, in
case of a further relapse? Ah! The tiger that
Roman fever is! I shall be glad to give you a
letter to my dear colleague, Doctor Montaverde!"
Captain Landon's eyes glistened, for the old
man had been untiring.
"There is Consul Swasey, a lifelong friend of
my father's — the American Consul at Nice.
"All my letters will go to him! And, so, — I
AT THE FOUNTAIN OF TREVI. 211
can consult you by letter, and I shall still feel near
to you! It is best that I should go at once. I
need a change from here.
"I have threaded every gallery, — dreamed in
every church, — climbed every historic mountain
and," he faintly laughed, "I could gain a living
as a Roman guide, for from the depths of the
Catacombs, — to the ball on St. Peter's, — from
the dungeons of San Angelo, to the summit of
Soracte, — I have filled myself with the mournful
atmosphere of the Eternal City.
"Perhaps, Monte Carlo and the rattling fun of
Nice may brighten me. There are always some
American war ships at Villefranche, stationed as
'near the ladies' as possible!"
"Ah, my boy," sighed the old Cavaliere, who
wore a dozen orders over his wasted breast,
"promise me that you will drink of the Fountain
of Trevi. Throw in a silver coin, — shut your
eyes and pray to Fortuna, — then — you will surely
wander back to Rome — and, remember — you will
meet those who stand there beside you! The
fountain is faithful, — it is the shrine for parted
lovers! Its very waters whisper of peace and
happiness 1"
212 CAPTAIN LANDON.
And, so, with a fatherly benediction, the aged
Doctor left his strangely reticent patient.
It was fortunate that the two journalists fell
upon the medical man and extracted his story,
for, with a hollow pretense of gayety, Landon
only told his two chums that he was taking a run
over to the Riviera. "You are packing every-
thing, however!" agnostically said Forrest
Grimes.
"A good soldier is never separated from his
baggage," laughed Landon. "My possessions are
so few that I can not spare them! Now, seri-
ously— " he said, with averted eyes, "I shall say
good-bye to no one, — for, — my return is only a
matter of time !"
Frank Hatton broke out into an unaccustomed
enthusiasm. "I will rally all the fellows for a
good-bye send off!"
"Pray do not, Frank!" harshly cried Landon.
"I have asked Ned Morgan to come down and
spend the whole evening in closing up my papers
and returns ! It will take us till midnight.
"To-morrow morning I close up all my busi-
ness. I'd like to see both you men in the after-
noon, and then I send my luggage to the station,
AT THE FOUNTAIN OF TREVI. 213
taking the midnight through train! Morgan
claims the right to close up the little odds and
ends I leave behind."
There was a long secret conference on this last
evening of Landon's Roman life between Grimes
and Hatton. For the sake of friendship, they de-
cided to say nothing to the Melvilles of Landon's
sudden flitting.
"I suppose there has really been an official row
following Minister Hartford's ignoring the Vice
Consul General about that dinner matter. It's a
pretty mess as it now stands !
"But, — as to the Captain's reputation! This
sudden flight will leave his name at the mercy of
every coward in Rome!"
A long discussion of the whole miserable busi-
ness decided the friends to jointly write to the
American Consul at Nice a full statement of the
whole veiled intrigues, holding nothing back !
Even the club blackballing was to be detailed
in full ! "We will wait to see what happens for
the first fortnight," said the cautious Grimes,
"and then Landon can either come back and face
the whole situation, or, if he so chooses, resign
and go home from Nice !
214 CAPTAIN LANDON.
"It would only make him a victim of butchery
to tell him all now ! Some of these Italian sword
twisters would surely kill him! He can advise,
there, with dear old Swasey, a pattern gentleman
of the old school."
It was two o'clock in the morning before Ed-
win Morgan left Sidney Landon's apartments,
and Signior Jacopo Maspero, busied in an ex-
cited conference with Rawdon Clark, on the
Quirinal, would have shuddered for his future
had he known that Sidney Landon bore away in
his luggage a full set of the tabulated proofs and
calculations vouching for Maspero's ingenious
rascality of years.
"I shall hold these certified copies, for a time,
Morgan," said the ex-Vice Consul General. "Do
you follow on and accumulate further and quiet
proofs of your own !
"You will be the only man in Rome to whom
Consul Swasey will give my address, and, — that
— only, as the last extremity. He will send on
all letters, but we will, with patience, be able to
trace out who is behind Maspero in his villainy.
"Either some one of the rapacious Roman
bankers, or a committee of the thieving shop keep-
AT THE FOUNTAIN OF TREVI. 215
ers and pseudo art dealers ! Perhaps even Bran-
don uses him as a stool pigeon to draw trade to
his 'art' mill !
"If forced to act, by accident, go in yourself
and crush Maspero! I will not open Melville's
eyes. He is a vague dreamer, the unsuspecting
tool of this political Minister Resident, and, pop!
— some day he will be cast out, and then, some
one of Rawdon Clark's political proteges will re-
lieve Melville! So, — only guard your own head,
for Maspero will surely attack you — and, — who-
ever has been secretly 'gunning for me,' will also
try to punish you, dear boy, for being my friend !"
The two men's eyes meet in a silent pledge of last-
ing friendship.
"There are rumors," said Morgan, as he
wrapped his cloak around him to leave, "that this
millionaire, Clark, is soon to marry Miss Haw-
thorn and then begin his political life with sup-
planting Van Buren Hartford as Minister Resi-
dent! I'm told that he has even been pricing
palaces, and proposes to entertain in a way to
dazzle even the impoverished King Humbert !"
Edwin Morgan left without noticing the spasm
of disgust which swept across Sidney Landon's
216 CAPTAIN LANDON.
face, but the restless soldier paced his lonely
rooms till the star dials hinted of morn !
Too late he felt that he had been outwitted and
maligned.
"I suppose it's the old thing!" he gloomily said.
"These cursed anonymous letters! If I could
surely trace them to that stony-hearted woman
fiend, — not even her bluff old husband's bravery
would save her !"
In the smoking room of the Eveless Paradise
Hatton and Grimes were still uneasily discussing
the sudden hegira. Frank Hatton, whose robust
manliness was evoked by the defenseless loneli-
ness of Captain Landon's position, sighed as he
summed up his final opinion.
"It seems half-hearted and unfriendly in us to
let Landon go away in total ignorance of the un-
derhanded fight against him !
"It has been all carried on behind closed doors,
but it has done its work — even — to the estrange-
ment of the Melvilles, — his dearest friends !"
Forrest Grimes sadly shook his head as he took
his bed candle. "If we overwhelmed him, now,
with a full disclosure, — there would surely be
blood shed before to-morrow night ! Remember,
AT THE FOUNTAIN OF TREVI. 217
— we may save him yet by watching his enemies
in this month. It's time enough to stand by him,
if he comes back to face them !"
The friends were ignorant of Sidney Landon's
proud resentment of the Minister's official insult,
— a grossness offered in his own office.
They knew not of the self-deception of the un-
happy Landon, who had recognized in the
averted faces of friends the effective work of the
anonymous letters which had pursued him for
years in the army — and, he, — looked far away to
the veiled hand which had dealt the dastardly
blow.
But the saddened man, pacing his room, in vain
tried to hide the sharpest wound of all, — Agnes
Hawthorn's seeming cold indifference.
Her beautiful face had illumined his shaded
life, — his soul had leaped into a newer life, — the
resurrection of Love, — when her helpless head
lay upon his shoulder !
Pausing in his midnight "sentry go," he bit-
terly murmured, "If we stood on even terms, —
I would face her, — right here, with the truth!
She should have the key of the past, — she alone!
But, her riches, — and my poverty, — have made a
218 CAPTAIN LANDON.
gulf between'us wider than the green rolling At-
lantic,— the unbridged chasm of unequal sta-
tion!"
Consul General Melville was keenly watched as
he emerged from Captain Landon's rooms, after
making his good-bye call upon the silent and
stately young man on the morning of his last day
in Rome.
Ignorant of the details of the Minister's open
affront, — Melville felt rebuffed when Landon
coldly thanked him for his offers of closing up
any social or business matters left unfinished by
the hasty departure.
"I leave all my affairs to Mr. Morgan," Lan-
don stiffly said. "I am under a lifelong debt of
gratitude for the kindness of yourself and Mrs.
Melville in my illness.
"As to my social name and fame, — I care noth-
ing,— for the roads which all lead to Rome, — also
lead out again to that wide, wide world, in which
I can find peace or strife, — rest or torment, — just
as God wills!"
In answer to the Consul General's flat demand,
Landon curtly remarked: "My movements are
uncertain! I go — whither — / know not — / care
AT THE FOUNTAIN OF TREVI. 219
not! I am now a free American citizen, and, —
the wide world is my home!"
Melville's weak indecision alone prevented him
from pouring out his troubled heart, but the "fac-
chini" bustling off the luggage broke off the last
tete a tete, and so, — Melville left his friend,
weakly guarding the Minister's pusillanimous
confidences, and the last door was closed upon
Sidney Landon's Roman life !
True it was that Rawdon Clark and Robert
Brandon, junketing at the American Club, —
laughed with good reason, over Sidney Landon's
abrupt retreat !
"Dropped at the first flash of the gun," gaily
said the capitalist.
"Now for a clear field! This jackanapes is out
of the way ! When Agnes gives me her plighted
word, my way to the Senate is open, my passport
to the home circles I must enter, — and, — your
Consul Generalcy here is assured — the moment I
am elected to the higher house ! So, now, follow
up Miss Hawthorn's movements to-day ! / want
no last emotional interview! Maspero is watch-
ing all at the Consulate and will dog this fellow's
movements; I shall be waiting here at the Club
220 CAPTAIN LANDON.
till midnight! Then, when he is gone, we will
give Miss Agnes the whole story! I have the let-
ters now from America which will rouse the last
spark of womanhood in her heart ! She will de-
spise a man both seducer, fugitive and coward !"
Captain Landon left the Eveless Paradise be-
fore sundown with the unconcerned air of a tour-
ist seeking a brief run in new pastures.
His perfunctory and careless adieux had de-
ceived all in Rome save the Melvilles and the
secretly hostile Minister. No one but the faithful
Morgan was to be at the station at the time of his
midnight departure and both Grimes and Hatton,
respecting his wishes, had gone out on their far-
winging search for new note book padding.
Alone in a little trattoria outside the walls, Sid-
ney Landon anxiously awaited the hour of his
meeting with Mrs. Melville. It was the last
chord in his heart to snap — the only tie binding
him to the graceful and spirited woman whom he
had loved in spite of fate. The matron's offered
championship touched his heart, and, yet, when
the pale moonlight struggled with the somber
shadows of the old Roman streets, and the bells
of San Vincenzio tolled nine, he had found no
AT THE FOUNTAIN OF TREVI. 221
words of farewell for the one woman who had
vowed herself his defender. Gertrude Melville's
loyal bravery had stirred his heart to its utmost
depths.
There were broken gleams lighting the somber
walls of the Palazzo Poli, — as Captain Landon,
wrapped in a cloak, his features shadowed with
an Italian hat, approached the magnificent basin
of the Fontana di Trevi.
His restless heart was soothed by the dashing
floods pouring down over the massive rockwork,
where bearded Father Neptune lorded it over the
shimmering pool reflecting the silvery stars
of night. Health and Fertility, half hidden in
their riches, gazed out upon the tranquil night
blessing the crystal flood still gurgling through
Agrippa's subterranean channel. The romance
of the old lingered around the hallowed parting
place of generations of lovers.
The spring night was soft and balmy. Whis-
pering lovers were gathered now around the
great basin, — in all the tender thrills of a last
farewell, — invoking the friendly spirit of the
Aqua Virgo, and, watching with tear-stained eyes
their silver offerings disappear in the darkened
•:•:•: CAPTAIN LANDON.
waters wherein the broken reflection of the moon
danced fitfully.
Mustachiod gens d'armes. cloaked and with
folded arms, — silently peered out from tinder
their laced chapeaux at the world wanderers, —
the crowding beggars, — the self projecting blat-
ant British tourists, — and the nervous Americans
"doing Rome on a gallop!*'
With a beating heart, Captain Landon thread-
ed the crowd, until a soft hand was lightly laid
upon his arm. He recognized in a moment the
svelte figure of the gallant-hearted Gertrude Mel-
ville.
But he knew not the tall and stately form
shrouded in deep black, which hovered at the
lady's side.
"Hasten" whispered Gertrude. "/ have much
to say to you!"
Sidney Landon paused, and drew a silver coin
from his pocket. "I must invoke the spirit of the
fountain. Do you the same!"
And then two gleaming coins disappeared un-
der the cool waves now rushing onward to their
triple outlets.
The laughing waters danced away to the Piazza
AT THE FOUNTAIN OF TREVI. 223
di Spagna, — the far off Piazzi Navona, and the
Piazza Farnese, — but, as the two turned away,
the stately Niobe following them, suddenly ex-
tended a graceful arm and a third coin flashed in
the pale moonlight.
Landon stopped not to admire the somber mag-
nificence of the great cascade whose splendors re-
call Hadrian, Pope Nicholas V. and a noble line
of historic art lovers.
In a shadowed angle, covered by the frowning
walls of the Palazzo Poli, — with bated breath, —
Gertrude Melville told the excited soldier of the
cowardly slanders torturing all semblance of
truth from the adventures on the Appian way.
The stately figure lingered a few paces apart
until a persistent beggar finally drove the woman-
ly watcher for shelter to the side of Landon and
Gertrude.
It took all the soldier's menacing promptness to
frighten off the bent figure of the bearded mendi-
cant wrapped in a tattered coat!
"We must hasten! / have more to tell you!"
anxiously whispered Gertrude Melville, as they
watched the sullen beggar scuttle away.
Once around the corner of the piazza., the beg-
224 CAPTAIN LANDON.
gar spy leaped into a waiting carriage ! "Here's
news to wring more gold out of Rawdon Clark,"
muttered Maspero, "or, — to sate my revenge
against this petit-maitre Melville.
"Per Bacco, the handsome wifely nurse steals
out like a 'femme galante' to say addio to her sol-
dier lover ! This is rich news! I will keep it — till
fit to sell, then Clark shall pay, — and — Melville
know that he has been both betrayed and dis-
graced ! But, who the devil is the confidante!
"Too large for that Rollings worth gadabout,
— it can't be Emilia or Lucia, — she would not
dare to bring her own servants. Perhaps some
sewing woman — or some American friend who
has her own veiled amourettes! Basta! We are
safe ! The boy will track him down to the station.
"The handsome heiress, Miss Million, is at the
Costanzi — fast enough! For she has been ill,
locked behind closed doors, all the afternoon !"
And so, secure in the presence of his office mes-
senger, left behind to follow the unsuspecting
Captain to the train, Maspero returned to his own
lair, so as to report to Rawdon Clark at mid-
night !
"Cospctto! I would have liked to have lin-
TWO GLEAMING COINS DISAPPEARED UNDER THE COOL
WAVES.— Page 222.
AT THE FOUNTAIN OF TREVI. 225
gered — but, — the fretful fool advanced harshly
upon me ! False beard and wig would not stand
a tussle — and, — a discovery now would ruin all.
The clock on San Vincenzio tolled eleven be-
fore Gertrude Melville had ceased her disclosures.
She started suddenly, an innocent Cinderella. "I
must leave you," she fearfully said. "I have my
ball dress hidden under these dark robes! My
husband thinks that I am at the Princess Contar-
ini's soiree. Do not attempt to follow us. Our
carriage waits down there before the church.
"Remember, — if you would repay my care of
you when you lay helpless, — swear to me that you
will never divulge the name of Agnes Hawthorn,
— as the woman whose life you saved on the Via
Appia ! I will watch for your sake — for her sake
— over these slanderers here. My husband must
protect your honor. He knows how nobly you
have acted to save Agnes' name from the rending
fangs of these human ghouls. But those who are
fighting you from ambush here, — have some sin-
ister purpose!"
Captain Landon grasped both the fair woman's
hands. "I take but one heart sorrow away with
me! The one woman on earth whom I could
15
226 CAPTAIN LANDON.
have loved, — is as far from me now as the stars
above the sordid earth below! Tell her that
though I shall never see her again, I loved her, —
but Fate was against me! But, Thank God — I
can prove to her, in life and death, — I will be
mute and silent !
"Her fair fame shall be preserved! Let them
go on and slander me! I go out on my lonely
way! But I carry her dear face graven in my
heart, and, — / will never forget her!"
A choking sob made Landon start ! The stately
woman in black was standing with averted eyes —
her face covered with her hands !
Gertrude Melville's voice thrilled his every
fiber as she said :
"Confide in me! There is yet time! Recall
your resignation !"
Sidney Landon was swayed as the storm
shakes the pine. "No," — he sadly cried. "Her
wealth fences her from me with golden bars!
And, — Agnes Hawthorn shall not stoop to con-
quer! There is a pride of wealth! There is also
a pride of poverty! It is too late ! Listen — Count
upon me, in life and death ! If there is any positive
slander, — if this low cabal penetrates our inno-
AT THE FOUNTAIN OF TREVI. 227
cent secret, — if there is the name we both love at-
tached to this alleged 'intrigue, only give Morgan
a letter for me, — he will know where I am — and
I will come back from the ends of the earth!
And — now — God be with you, — my sweet sis-
ter!"
He stooped and kissed the trembling woman on
her forehead, "Go now, — there is no time to
lose! I shall watch you safely to your carriage."
In a sad silence, the three sought the darkened
angle where the carriage waited.
The half disclosures of a half knowledge had
driven Sidney Landon into a tossing sea of un-
rest!
He stood, hat in hand, as the carriage turned !
It halted, a slender arm was extended ! He cov-
ered the trembling hand with passionate kisses,
and instinctively took the handkerchief and the
knot of flowers which were clasped within the
timidly extended fingers !
And then — the carriage moved swiftly off,
bearing away the innocent truant from the Pa-
lazzo Vecchio.
Captain Landon turned with a smothered
groan, — and hailed the first passing carriage.
228 CAPTAIN LANDON.
His brain was still throbbing with the madden-
ing disclosures, and his pulses bounding with the
timidly hinted possibilities of a return !
"Never!" he sternly said, as he wrung Mor-
gan's hands and leaped into the waiting train. "If
I had only known this before — but, — it is too late
now. My resignation is on the sea! The Egyp-
tian War Ministry has my acceptance! I will
bury my regrets in the Soudan! And, dear old
Swasey has already taken my passage from Mar-
seilles!"
Three hours later, at Orvieto, he awoke with a
start, and, suddenly drew forth the little offering
which he had thrust in his bosom.
There was a delicate bunch of rich Parma vio-
lets, a filmy lace handkerchief, — and knotted in
the corner — a slender golden ring. He sprang up,
and by the light of a fusee read, within the little
circlet the word "Agnes."
His heart gave one mighty throb, as he remem-
bered the veiled Niobe, the stately goddess of the
night.
"My God ! Was this her mute farewell !" He
slept with the delicate token resting on his wear-
ied heart.
ONE WEARY YEAR. 229
CHAPTER X.
THE HARVEST OF ONE WEARY YEAR.
As the train rolled into the station at Nice —
Captain Sidney Landon started to find General
Rufus Hatcher and Consul Swasey, both there
awaiting him.
He had recovered his composure since the dis-
covery of the golden token now more precious to
him than the ring with which the proud Venetian
Doge made the Adriatic his bride.
When he had seen the lights of Rome sink
down in the Campagna behind him, he had wrath-
fully murmured, "Banished from Rome ! What's
banished, — but set free, from daily contact with
the things I loathe !"
And, now, he recognized the soft strategy of
Gertrude Melville.
"Dear Heart!" he thought. "She fain would
have the General persuade me to return ! Never!
Jacta alea est !"
And, yet, as he recalled the stately Niobe, he
230 CAPTAIN LANDON.
heard again that choking sob, — the fond self-be-
trayal of a woman whom he now knew he loved
beyond all of Eve's graceful daughters !
With a modulated courtesy, Landon held his
inner soul, until after his establishment at the
Hotel Chauvain. General Hatcher was dragged
away to a dinner of the flagship.
"Remember, Landon, you are to give me one
night, to-night, my last! I must take home some
explanation of your sky-rocket path in life ! Now,
my boy, — no heroics! I've just had telegrams
both from Melville and his fairy wife. Also a
last joint appeal from Grimes and Hatton !"
Sidney Landon bowed his head before this evi-
dence of friendships that followed on! With a
quiet smile -of triumph the silver-haired Consul
haled Landon away to his office.
"Here we are, my meteoric young American
friend! You are just such a fly-away as your
gallant father !"
In the seclusion of the private office, — the old
Consul handed Landon his letters and telegrams.
"There you are, sir! When you are done I will
have a few words with you ! I'll take a stroll on
the Beau Rivage till you digest these important
ONE WEARY YEAR. 231
things ! You must listen to the General's last ap-
peal!"
The first telegrams he read were from the
Egyptian War Ministry and they confirmed his
appointment, and suggested his coming On, via
Brindisi, to avoid the espionage of the English
authorities at Malta.
The words, "Expedition ready and awaiting
your command," set his soldier's heart proudly
beating.
The Messagerie Maritimes' dispatches reserv-
ing steamer accommodations at will was hastily
thrown aside, and he tore open the last. His eyes
lit up with a strange fire as he read Gertrude Mel-
ville's dispatch:
"Do not leave Nice until you receive my letter.
You will understand why! The ring will ex-
plain."
He started up to seek the Bureau de Tele-
graphes, and then remembered that he held the
reputations of two women now dependent upon
his prudence.
When General Hatcher, escaping from the
fleet, opened his batteries upon the young soldier,
232 CAPTAIN LANDON.
he was astonished at the buoyant brightness of
the young man's demeanor.
And, nodding his approval, the courtly Swasey
listened with joy to Landon's promise to remain a
few days in Nice and think over all the General's
newly fledged arguments.
The soldier's singular cheerfulness gave new
hopes to the two amicable old conspirators, who
brought right and left flank batteries to bear upon
him.
The one plead with him to re-enter the Army,
— and the other — to recall his resignation from
the Consular service or to ask a transfer to the
purely diplomatic career.
But loyally had Arnold Swasey guarded the
secret of the Egyptian appointment, first tendered
to Landon through him, as a lifelong friend of
the gallant and accomplished Ferik Pasha — Lieu-
tenant General Charles P. Stone.
Long after the elders had sought their rest,
Sidney Landon poured his heart out in a letter to
Gertrude Melville. He could devise no safe way
of sending it so as to guard Agnes Hawthorn's
secret, but to send it as a sealed Consular Dis-
patch to Edwin Morgan.
ONE WEARY YEAR. 233
He dared not write to the heiress whose golden
token still rested upon his heart, but when he had
finished a letter whose veiled suggestion was
meant in every line for the Lady of the Violets,
he enclosed a ring which had been a companion in
many a dangerous fray.
"This ring was one of my beloved and unfor-
gotten mother's. Give it to my little playmate,
and let her not forget the companion of so many
happy hours. I will keep the other, and its return
to you for the giver will only be the silent proof
that my life is done! But, remember, that we
parted at the Fountain of Trevi, — under its mys-
tic spell! God be with you both till we meet
again."
Under the protection of the Consular seal, with
a note to the watchful Morgan, — Landon well
knew that it would reach its destination ! "And,
so Agnes will know," he mused, "that I have
recognized her token, — and respect the silence
which I am now bounden to !"
While the three men sat in council at Nice,
Rawdon Clark and Signior Jacopo Maspero craft-
ily conferred at the Quirinale. "Who the devil
could this woman be, the one whom he met?"
fruitlessly demanded the baffled capitalist
234 CAPTAIN LANDON.
matters it to you?" sulkily rejoined
Maspero. "Your inamorata was in camera, —
surely locked up, — that we know, and, — your
only enemy in Rome, Madame Melville, was
away at the Contarini's ball ! So the maids told
me ! Of course, if you wish it, I can trace out the
intrigue, and find who was his only friend!
Don't be surprised at any disclosure. Woman's
eternal deviltries, — infidelities, and vagaries, are
the only book of Life!"
"Stop your damned nonsense," roughly cried
Clark. "Go ahead and find out ! I will pay you !"
He was in a towering rage, for Madame Myra
Brandon had reported to him that Miss Agnes
Hawthorn had received the full disclosure of
Dora Prindle's venom-filled letter unmoved and
in a stony silence.
All that the heiress would vouchsafe was the
cold remark, "What matters it about this man?
He has passed out of our lives ! He has departed
from Rome! And, / — will leave next week for
Vienna, my accident has only delayed the long
settled trip."
Both suitor and spy were sorely smitten by this
sudden blow.
ONE WEARY YEAR. 235
To Myra Brandon it meant the cessation of
Agnes Hawthorn's golden generosity — and,
moreover, the end of Rawdon Clark's concealed
subsidies.
To the angered capitalist it meant a long chase
after the beautiful woman, whose dearest girl-
hood friend was now the wife of the American
Minister at Vienna.
"She will be swept away from me," he growled
— "the winter's work is lost, — or it will have to
be all done over again !"
He trembled at the idea of a definite rejection
— and, — yet, — the golden bird of Paradise was
spreading its wings.
As he went home, Clark decided to have Rob-
ert Brandon make the full disclosure of the now
open secrets of the rencontre of Agnes Hawthorn
and Captain Landon on the Via Appia.
"I'll pop in pat, then, with my proposal — and,
— she may see the prudence of marrying me!
The only thing is to watch the mail and see that
this puppy is not writing to her! I've fixed the
thing with the Head Porter of the Hotel Cos-
tanzi.
"Myra Brandon will see every letter before she
236 CAPTAIN LANDON.
gets them. And, — Jacopo Maspero will watch
the private mail of the Consul General.
"Confound this Landon ! He was far too inti-
mate with Madame Gertrude. If Missy goes
down there for a visit, it will show that the sly
Melville is the go between! Great Heavens!
What a fool I've been to forget. I must watch
Landon at Nice and see that he does not sneak
off to join Agnes Hawthorn in Vienna ! And, —
dare I follow her over there? Wait, my lady, —
wait till I have you, under my thumb!"
It boded ill for the success of Rawdon Clark's
Intelligence Bureau that Agnes Hawthorn was
hidden the whole afternoon and evening of the
day, when the rporning's disclosures had shocked
her, with Gertrude Melville. "That's the one
place where I can not control her actions,"
growled Clark, hidden at the American Club and
receiving Maspero's furtive messages.
Captain Sidney Landon's behavior was an
enigma to the two seniors, when upon the third
day of his arrival he fell again into the dull dejec-
tion which had marked his last days in Rome.
'And, yet, a wolfish, haggard anxiety burned in
his gleaming eyes ! All the newly founded hopes
ONE WEARY YEAR. 237
of General Hatcher were quickly buried — when
the soldier sternly announced his irrevocable de-
cision to abandon the army forever.
And, so, in sadness and sorrow, the old veteran
made his way Parisward, cursing all regimental
mysteries and foolish boys! "It's some bit of
devilish woman work, I'll swear ! I wish to God
there was not a woman in the whole army."
But Consul Swasey alone knew that some new
bitter grief had choked the dawning sunlight out
of the young man's heart.
Hour by hour, while waiting for the answer to
a letter just dispatched, heavily corded and sealed
with the inviolate seal of the Consulate, Sidney
Landon pored over the last womanly appeal of
Gertrude Melville. He read again these words of
doom:
"Agnes has come to me to hide her sorrows in
our home! She is surrounded with sycophants
and flatterers, — with false friends, and harassed
by an importunate wooer. You now have your
honor, — your peace of mind, — perhaps your fu-
ture happiness in your own hands! I have not
seen the letter, but Agnes has told me the whole
story of Ethel Raynor, — of her death, — of her
husband's self sacrifice, — of your hasty departure
from the regiment, — of your sudden resignation !
238 CAPTAIN LANDON.
And, now, if you would prove to the woman
who might have loved you and blessed your life,
that a blasted home, a woman's wrecked life, a
gallant husband's betrayed honor, have not un-
fitted you for an honest woman's love, — then, —
come back! Come at once! You can tell me
the facts! You stand now at the parting of the
ways! If you are innocent, you will come!"
Sidney Landon's face was seamed with thought
as he waited for the response which was to de-
cide his whole career in life.
He had, with his own hands, deposited in the
mails the officially sealed envelope which con-
tained the one appeal possible to the heart of the
woman whom he now madly longed to crush to
his bosom. He rejoiced that she had taken refuge
with the Melvilles.
"Safe in that home, I can write her, and let
her judge between the sorrows of a dead past,
and the infamous lies of the woman fiend who
has followed on my path for years!"
Too well he knew whose hand had dealt the
blow, but how, and why, in what form, he knew
not, — he only yearned to be called back to give
the key of the past to the one whose withered vio-
lets still lay upon his heart !
ONE WEARY YEAR. 239
After a heart struggle, he had decided to write
to Agnes Hawthorn, and then leave the final de-
cision with her!
In plain words, he briefly told her of his ap-
pointment in the Egyptian Army, for the desper-
ate service in the Soudan and the Abyssinian
campaign.
"I sought it to forget you, — your face, your
smile, your haunting presence.
"Only if entitled to know that my whole, hon-
est heart lies at your feet, can you ask me to tell
the story of the past! There is but one woman
I would tell it to, — to the woman who is to be
my wife! I waive the question of your riches,
to save my honor, to leave at least my memory
white in your stainless heart! And so, — if you
write me 'Comef I will come to you! I can re-
turn to Rome, and then go on to Egypt via Brin-
disi. I should wait until you have heard all
from the only one who watches over the graves
of two who suffered with me! It will take time!
I ask you not to plight your word ! Only to say,
'Sidney! I will trust you until the truth shall
deepen that trust into the certainty of my inno-
cence! I will make the Abyssinian campaign,
as bound in honor now, do a soldier's duty, and
then come back to read my fate in your dear eyes !
I will now wait here one week for your answer.
Even Mrs. Melville has no right to the unsealing
of my heart!"
240 CAPTAIN LANDON.
While Sidney Landon, in burning impatience,
walked the shores of the Riviera, at Rome, Jacopo
Maspero laughed in a silent glee!
"This is surely my harvest year," he gaily
cried.
The postman laughed as he pocketed Maspero's
hundred-lire note for bringing all the mails for
the Melvilles surreptitiously to a little wine shop
fronting the Palazzo Vecchio.
Maspero chuckled at the possession of a set of
the Consular seals of all the subconsulates in
Italy, to reseal the correspondence sent on
through the Consulate General.
It had paid him well to have one made, also —
so as to open and reseal Consul Swasey's letters
to the dilettante Melville.
A past master of the art, the private seal of
Sidney Landon was easily taken off with a bread
paste impression, and this, in plaster, gave a
matrix to close again the document upon which
the soldier's life happiness hung!
In half an hour, Rawdon Clark was possessed
of the copy ! The millionaire's brow drew down
in the scowl of murder as he said, "You are sure
Morgan can not detect this letter opening?"
ONE WEARY YEAR. 241
"7 pride myself," smiled Maspero, "upon an
accomplishment which is hereditary in the
family!"
"Then," deliberately said Clark, "there is five
thousand francs cash for you to trap her answer,
— this golden-haired fool ! / see it all! Gertrude
Melville has been Landon's mistress, and — hus-
band and wife work together for profit. They
covet Agnes Hawthorn's fortune!
"Now, Emilia and Lucia must watch both the
Melville woman and my shy bird ! Her answer
must fall into my hands!"
"Safe enough" laughed the scoundrelly
Italian. "My postman will catch it at the office.
If I do not get it there ! The two women servants
will do their work! They handle the letters."
"The cash is yours!" gruffly cried Clark.
"Damn that Landon! I hope that he will feel
what I feel now!"
Jacopo Maspero laughed over the love-lorn
schemer's agony of jealousy — as he bade Emilia
and Lucia do their devil's work, when Morgan
glided in to the family apartment with the en-
closures.
Arthur Melville, now wrapped up in his liquid
16
242 CAPTAIN LANDON.
greens and yellows, had forgotten all his official
cares and again — Maspero, — as of yore, — lorded
it in the Consulate.
By midnight, the Italian scoundrel was at
Rawdon Clark's bedside.
"I have the letter," he said. "Here is a copy
of it!"
"You must give me the original," sharply cried
the excited Clark.
"Softly, softly," brutally answered Maspero.
"It is a State's prison offense to steal a letter!
/ will not go to the galleys even for you! I will
open it, — read it to you, — show it to you — and
give you the copy ! Then I will seal it up again,
and keep it for my protection. This fool will be
far over the seas soon! If the loss is ever dis-
covered, I can have the letter some months after-
wards, discovered in some out-of-the-way place!
I will hide it back — even for years, — but, I will
not go to the galleys for you!"
"Give me the letter" yelled Clark.
"Money first!" sternly said Maspero, holding
the letter and copy in one hand, and a glittering
knife in the other.
With a curse — Clark handed over the money.
ONE WEARY YEAR. 243
"You see how she loves him," gloatingly said
the Italian roue. "I told you all women were
alike!
"Better go in and amuse yourself with the
Consul's dainty wife; she is really the gamer
intrigant of the two! Don't you see, if you get
her in your power, she will help you to gain this
golden-haired American Borgia's favor!"
He. slowly backed out, warned by Clark's eyes.
The half-crazed Croesus read the words:
"Come to me — Sidney! Come — and you will
find my heart open to you! If you clear away
this mystery, you will know that my heart has
been yours — from the first."
There was the clear, womanly signature,
"Agnes Hawthorn."
But three sentences were added below !
"I will wait for one week for your appearance !
// you do not come, — I shall leave Rome and all
its shams and lying deceits behind me — but, with
a heavy heart ! / will have lost my whole faith in
manhood!"
Ten days later, Sidney Landon gazed moodily
over the quarter of the steamer "Sphinx," at
the green billows of the Gulf of Lyons, and —
244 CAPTAIN LANDON.
Miss Agnes Hawthorn, — pale-faced and haughty
— was watching the gay Viennese crowds upon
the Kaiser platz.
The stolen letter had sundered two loving
hearts! With cautious scoundrelism, — the Hon-
orable Rawdon Clark nursed his secret rage
smoothly in Rome! He had followed up Sidney
Landon's every movement, — day by day, — until
he sailed for the land of the Pyramids.
With a sudden spasm of indignation, — Clark
now shut his purse strings to the exuberant Mrs.
Myra Brandon.
"By Heavens! I believe you bungled it, you
clumsy fool," he said. "You and your goggle-
eyed husband can now shift for yourselves!"
No one but himself knew of the stony com-
posure with which Agnes Hawthorn had received
his earnestly worded offer of marriage.
"Let it be just as if I had not heard it!" she
calmly said. "Come back to me in a year, — and
tell me the same story! If you are the same, —
if 7 am different, — I may spare you the pain of
a refusal, but I am world-weary now, and, — I
must and will be alone !"
"There goes my Senatorial campaign," growled
ONE WEARY YEAR. 245
Clark, who dared not press his fate further, and
lose the golden-haired beauty forever!
And, — only Maspero was happy as he stole
out, at night, to laugh over his dupe with the
velvet-eyed Emelia, and the full-bosomed Lucia.
"Pray God to send us another fool like this!"
he laughed, — ignorant that the steadfast Morgan
was silently weaving the net around the unfaith-
ful official!
And now — life dragged on wearily enough in
the Palazzo Vecchio!
"He was base metal!" sighed Gertrude Mel-
ville, "and so he dared not face the ruin he had
wrought! God forgive him, and — God help
Agnes, who has lost all her faith in man!"
And, so — only the little playmate was left to
mourn for the vanished man whose name in the
clubs was now bandied as that of the common
adventurer to whom the world is but an oyster!
And far away, on the burning sands of Egypt,
a haggard-eyed man pressed on to where the fierce
swordsmen of Abyssinia crouched like lions in
their mountain gorges ! It was a lean year, with
only a harvest of sorrows.
The whole Roman community was set agog by
246 CAPTAIN LANDON.
the leakage from the United States Legation of
the cabled news of the appointment of Mr. Still-
well Meacham, late of Princeton University, as
the new Vice Consul General of the United
States.
The fact that the new appointee was the favor-
ite nephew of the Minister Resident was artfully
concealed by that wily official, now secretly afraid
of being supplanted by Mr. Rawdon Clark.
This energetic capitalist, — at once, verified the
rumor through the delighted Jacopo Maspero.
This crafty Italian duly presented his dupe and
employer with a copy of the official cablegram
of the State Department.
Clark was lifted at once from the dejection
caused by the indifference of the Philadelphian
heiress to his suit!
The magnificence of his hospitalities at the
Cercle de Rome had endeared him to the local
petite noblesse, and, now, he decided to vigor-
ously follow up all the attacks upon the vanished
Sidney Landon.
Even the Marquis Pallavinci was forced to
confess to Charley Hollingsworth that the whole
story of Landon's blackballing was now common
ONE WEARY YEAR. 247
property, backed with a general denunciation of
his cowardice in stealing away from Rome under
the guise of a sick leave.
Forrest Grimes and Frank Hatton were even
forced to fight nightly battles at the Eveless
Paradise over the hopeless cause of a man who
had not even dared to leave an address.
The story of the attempt to cover a Roman
intrigue with the murder of a poor unarmed
peasant, — and the imprisonment of two innocent
carriage drivers was bruited abroad!
A hundred tongues were clacking away, "Dove
la Donna?"
Rawdon Clark artfully hid behind the bustling
Brandon and his now triumphantly revengeful
wife.
There was none so poor as to do reverence to
the memory of the man who had leaped on to the
position of social favorite, only to fall in utter
disgrace.
The American scandals of Landon's expulsion
from the army were also now common property,
and Gertrude Melville remained, — a forlorn hope,
— the last friend of the absent one, save Doctor
248 CAPTAIN LANDON.
Cesare Corvini and the imperturbable Edwin
Morgan.
Rawdon Clark was following his enemy, ham-
mer and tongs, and the arrival of several anony-
mous letters from different parts of America
addressed to the United States Minister, — the
Consul General and the Secretary of the Ameri-
can club, completed the pyramid of obloquy
heaped upon the memory of the ruined man!
Plentifully accompanied with newspaper slips,
these letters fanned the flames of scandal into a
furious conflagration.
Mr. Rawdon Clark laughed as he carefully
went over duplicates of these documents, in the
safe retirement of his room.
"Barker Bolton is a cool one," he gaily cried.
"No one will ever find out here that these same
newspaper articles are fictitious."
The neat expedient of pasting headers cut from
Western journals on matter printed by the "In-
telligence Bureau" was a stroke of genius worthy
of a Robert Macaire.
Resting content, now, with his labors, — Clark
closed his campaign with having Mrs. Myra
Brandon send on these apparent verifications of
ONE WEARY YEAR. 249
Landon's disgraceful record to the unhappy
heiress in Vienna.
"I will let these things do their quiet work,"
mused the capitalist. "I will send Mrs. Brandon
over on a visit of motherly solicitude in a few
weeks, and, before the Legislatures meet, I will
find Miss Agnes in the Tyrol and offer her what
few women dare decline — the proud place of a
Senator's wife.
"When I tell her that my public career will
depend upon her, this will shorten her year of
probation. At any rate, Mr. Sidney Landon, I
have paid you off, — and, — with compound in-
terest!"
There was one fatal stroke of ill fortune which
marvelously aided Rawdon Clark's plans. Ger-
trude Melville felt all a woman's resentment at
Sidney Landon for leaving Nice without a single
word of adieu to her.
"I risked my reputation as a woman, my
honor as a wife, — to meet and warn him, — to
give him a chance to meet his enemies with a
frank defense! I even lured Agnes Hawthorn
to the Fountain of Trevi, — and, — he covers his
retreat like a criminal fleeing the thief taker !"
250 CAPTAIN LANDON.
It had been in vain that Gertrude Melville had
used all her arts upon Edwin Morgan, whom her
husband vaguely deemed a Consular spy in his
office.
The pale-faced student was only willing to state
that he was ordered to send all matters for Cap-
tain Sidney Landon to Consul Arnold Swasey
at Nice.
And, a personal appeal to that courteous old of-
ficial only gave Mrs. Melville the news that Captain
Landon had left Nice after a sojourn of ten days,
simply directing all his mail to be sent to "Frey-
cinet Freres," Bankers, Marseilles.
"More I can not tell you," he wrote, "for I
have been obliged to answer a cablegram of Gen-
eral Rufus Hatcher. 'Whereabouts absolutely
unknown' I can only say that Landon left Nice
in a desperate and unhappy mood!
"He seemed to wait for news from Rome of
some character, and haunted the Post and Tele-
graph up to the moment of his leaving."
But neither Gertrude Melville nor the unhappy
Agnes dreamed of any treachery.
And, all this, with the forged newspaper arti-
ONE WEARY YEAR. 251
cles, Gertrude Melville sent on to Miss Agnes
Hawthorn at Ischl in Tyrol.
The Melvilles were leaving Rome for their
summer villa at Frascati, and only awaited the
arrival of Vice Consul General Stilwell Meacham
to go away for the long, unhealthy Roman sea-
son. Every turr of the tide had aided Clark's
adroit scoundrelism.
When Miss Hawthorn read all these excerpts
by the rushing rivers of the Austrian Alps, she
sighed and then tore the letters and papers to
tatters !
Throwing them in the black, sparkling moun-
tain torrent, she sighed, "It is true! He dared
not return and face his record !"
She resolutely closed the gates of her heart to
the past; she tried to forget the shattered idol,
and her cheek burned in blushes at the shame of
her impulsive offering on that fateful night by
the waters of Trevi, of the gentle self surrender
of the unanswered letter.
While the two fond women buried Sidney
Landon's memory away out of their sight, —
stung by the treason of the recreant soldier's de-
sertion of his social colors, Gertrude Melville did
252 CAPTAIN LANDON.
not know the last sting which had rent Agnes
Hawthorn's heart!
For, the fair girl could not bring herself to
own to her dearest friend that she had called
back to her side, — a man who had scorned her!
"Never!" the orphaned girl swore in her heart !
''Death first, — this crowning disgrace is my secret
alone!"
And, the happiest man in Rome now was Sig-
nior Jacopo Maspero, fondling his hoard of yel-
low French gold, the dirty wages of his triple
betrayal.
"One more triumph is 10 be mine!" he gloated.
"To sell the news of Madame Melville's midnight
assignation at the Trevi fountain to Clark! He
will strike her mercilessly — for she always has
flouted him!
"I will be safe, and my cup of revenge will be
a delicious draught !"
Maspero now exulted in the possession of the
number of the carriage and the coachman's name,
used on the fatal rencontre by Trevi's glittering
cascade. He was on the verge of the discovery
which would have made his fortune for life and
ONE WEARY YEAR. 253
given Agnes Hawthorn's reputation over to Raw-
don Clark's cruel keeping.
But, the brave American girl had returned
alone and on foot to the Hotel Costanzi, slipping
in at a side door, in garments picked up by her
for the Carnival, a simple black dress of the mid-
dle class Roman women, with a shrouding veil.
Brave at heart she had been, in her unconfessed
love for the wanderer in Egypt — the man who
had scorned to answer her appeal!
The long summer had burned itself away, and
the winds of November were shrieking about the
Pincian hill, when Consul General Arthur Mel-
ville summoned Edwin Morgan to a crucial ex-
amination of Sidney Landon's affairs in the
studio of the Palazzo Vecchio.
Poor Morgan was now only the office drudge
of the supercilious young collegian who "ruled
the roost," and threw "my uncle" even at the head
of the Consul General upon all occasions.
It was the same old Rome, with a new budget
of social scandals!
But, all the gilded circle "within the pale" knew
that Mr. Rawdon Clark was lingering at Vienna,
hovering in the bewitching presence of Miss
254 CAPTAIN LANDON.
Agnes Hawthorn, who was soon going on to
Paris, to prepare for her presentation to that most
august of majesties, Queen Victoria.
The brilliant reign of Miss Hawthorn at the
Austrian Court had led the ambitious beauty to
spread her wings for further flight.
The owner of the Elkhorn mine had left hosts
of friends behind him in Rome, for his genial
way had been paved with golden hospitalities.
Steady old Forrest Grimes, loyal at heart, con-
fided his last lingering doubt to Frank Hatton,
now an avowed protege of Clark, who lavished
every possible consideration upon the man who
was a cover to his masked guns!
Unsuspicious in prosperity, Frank Hatton was
blinded by Clark's officious generosity. He was
now a noted knight of the pen !
"II avait fait son chemin."
"Frank," wrathfully ejaculated Grimes, sud-
denly, one lonely night, "I shall always believe
that Sidney London was trapped in some mean
-way! I can not tell you all! Clark 'had it in'
for him, with abundant good reason ! This west-
ern Crcesus is a tireless lover! Such a man is
a desperate enemy! I believe in some hidden
ONE WEARY YEAR. 255
way Landon fell into a pit dug by his enemy."
But honest Hatton only sighed :
"He nailed down his own coffin by clearing
out! Why did he not trust to us?"
It was after an hour's close mental scrutiny
that Consul General Arthur Melville gave up the
task of entrapping Consular Clerk Edwin Mor-
gan into admissions of confidential relations with
the departed Landon.
"I have not heard from Captain Landon since
his departure, save one brief note, written at
Nice, with final orders to send all mail to Consul
Arnold Swasey," said Morgan.
"And, for good or ill, you must rest content
with this! It is the whole truth, so help me
God!"
Morgan dashed away and returned with the
letter !
"You can certify a copy of that under seal,
arid keep it !" said the now defiant young man.
"See here, Morgan," cried the mollified official.
"Look at this ! We must find this man ! We are,
in honor, bound to find him!"
He handed the young man a letter and narrow-
ly watched him as he read:
256 CAPTAIN LANDON.
"Urgent and Important.
"Law Offices of. Hayward, Homans and Ross,
"No. 58 La Salle Street,
"St. Louis, Missouri,
"November loth, 18 — • — .
"Consul General Arthur Melville,
"U. S. Consulate General,
"Rome, Italy.
"Dear Sir : — We appeal to you to officially aid
us in discovering the whereabouts of Captain
Sidney Landon (late U. S. Army), and, later,
Vice Consul General, accredited to your office.
"We are now in correspondence with all the
Legations and Consulates of Europe upon the
same subject, as well as those in the Orient.
"Messrs. Freycinet Freres, of Marseilles, ab-
solutely decline to give his whereabouts, as be-
ing a confidential instruction of their depositor
and client, though they claim to have forwarded
a letter sent to them by us, on the advice of Con-
sul Arnold Swasey, of Nice.
"The urgency of our business is explained by
the fact that our esteemed client, — the late Mr.
John Vaughan Landon, of St. Louis, died three
months ago, leaving an estate, consisting of
realty, steamboat property, cash in bank, and
various lead manufactory stocks, amounting to
over one million dollars.
"This vast property is absolutely and uncon-
ditionally left to Captain Sidney Landon.
"Our late client had no communication for
many years with Captain Landon's father, as he
was an unsuccessful suitor for the hand of the
Captain's mother.
ONE WEARY YEAR. 257
"The young gentleman thus suddenly enriched
may be even ignorant of the existence of this past
family tie.
"Both the dead Landons were peculiar men.
"If you can give us no information, cable to
us at once.
"Any expenses that you may incur will be at
once remitted. You may advertise in such papers
as you choose.
"Failing to find him, we shall send our special
agent to Europe to look him up, directed by Frey-
cinet Freres. We refer to Messrs. Drexel, Mor-
gan & Co., London.
"We have also invoked the aid of the Ameri-
can Ambassador at Paris.
"Cordially yours,
"Hayward, Romans and Ross."
The young official laid the letter down with
a sigh.
"If it were Golconda's mines, I can tell you
no more.
"I fancy, in time, these cautious Frenchmen
will divulge their secret, when they know it is to
his advantage. I have already forwarded a half
dozen letters from these lawyers to Nice.
"I keep a record of all Captain Landon's mail
with the ear marks."
When the clerk was dismissed, Arthur Mel-
17
258 CAPTAIN LANDON.
ville drove to the Telegraph Bureau and sent a
reply to the St. Louis lawyers.
Some undefined fear of thf hostile Minister
Resident tied his tongue, and, when he returned
from a week's visit to Nice, he had still concealed
from even his wife all reference to Landon's
windfall. He brought Morgan into the studio
to give him a confidential disclosure.
"Swasey tells me that Freycinet Freres have tel-
egraphed Captain Landon's address to the law-
yers in America upon the peremptory demand of
an Assistant Secretary of Legation sent down
from Paris.
"Also, that they guarantee Landon's receiving
the entire mail forwarded ! He is now somewhere
in the Orient, and, — all this, you are to keep as
a strict secret! No one but Swasey, you and I
know of these facts."
While the fickle goddess of Fortune was chas-
ing the mortal whom she had so bitterly chas-
tened,— upon the deck of an Italian transport, —
in the harbor of Massowah, — a gaunt and wasted
form lay stretched out in a hammock under the
deck awnings.
No one who had ever seen Captain Sidney
ONE WEARY YEAR. 259
Landon lead his squadron of the Grays across
the cavalry plain at Fort Stanton, would have
recognized the bearded skeleton, who now
watched, with hollow eyes, the sand dunes of
Massowah fade away, as the steamer "Colombo"
swept out into the burning waters of the Red
Sea!
An English orderly, an adventurer, — a hard-
ened East Indian deserter, — watched over the man
who had brought away a terrific sword slash in
the left shoulder, as a memento of the desperate
fighting on the fatal plain of Gura.
But, when the Abyssinian hordes had swarmed
down over the one six-gun battery which held
them back for an hour, — Deserter Jack Haddon,
a game Yorkshire tyke, shot the leading Ras, —
at half pistol distance, and then — aided by the
last of a gun crew, dragged Lieutenant Colonel
Sidney Landon into a place of safety, where a
few desperate men, at bay, working the deadly
Remingtons, turned the tide of assault down upon
the shrieking mass of Egyptian fugitives in the
ravine below. They were richer food for the
thirsty two-handed swords of the mountain
devils.
260 CAPTAIN LANDON.
With incredible hardship, Sidney Landon had
been gotten down to Massowah, and, touched by
his lion-like daring, the recreant Prince Hassan
pinned a grand star of the Medjidjie on the
wounded man's breast, and then ordered him to
have every honor shown him in that disgraceful
home-coming to Cairo. The Giaour had been
the bravest of the brave, and saved the right wing
of the army.
Leaving the wreck of the proud army of Abys-
sinia to be brought home later from Massowah,
— Prince Hassan urged on the "Colombo," so as
to be the first to report the disaster at Court, —
wrapped in euphemistic lies.
While the Abyssinian lions and jackals feasted
upon the bodies of nine thousand slain, — while
the desert vultures followed the train of captives
and gorged themselves in feasting upon the de-
capitated bodies of those who fell by the way, the
harem-bred Egyptian prince hastened back to the
delights of the Shoubrah, — to the mystic pleas-
ures of the lordly seraglio.
Deserter Haddon, loyal when others fell off,
brought his man into Suez in good shape.
Colonel Landon's staring eyes had regained
ONE WEARY YEAR. 261
their brightness, — his wound was healing, fairly
well, for the sweep of the two-edged sword had
been stayed by his thick shoulder knots and tough
canteen strap.
"We'll have you on your feet in a jiffy,
Colonel," cheerily cried the Yorkshireman, as he
skirmished for the best place in the special train
waiting them at Suez!
Two days later, Doctor Warren Bey took
charge of the hero of Gura, and installed him in
a fair upper chamber at Shepheards'.
It was only after General Stone had heard the
story of the disgraceful rout at Gura from Colonel
Landon's own lips that he handed over the sol-
dier's accumulated mail!
"You are to have a year's leave of absence, with
the rank of Pasha, — upon full pay!
"I do this by Prince Hassan's direct order. He
informed His Higness the Khedive that you were
the man who saved the wreck of the army by the
magnificent fighting of the steel battery upon the
hill!"
The silver-haired old veteran whispered, "Get
out of Egypt! Leave as soon as you can! I'll
send your orders and your advance pay down !
262 CAPTAIN LANDON.
"Be sure to give the paymaster twenty-five
guineas backsheesh! They are uneasy till you
leave! The palace circle do not want you to
talk!"
Colonel Landon silently bowed his promise to
get out! He well knew now where poison and
assassination lurked.
'Where to?" he murmured. "Greece, or
Sicily, or the south of Italy, — there is the place
to recover! Make it Sicily! It is the garden of
the Mediterranean."
So said the anxious Lieutenant General, as he
took his hasty leave.
Handy man Jack Haddon ran into the Colonel's
room, when he heard the wounded soldier's shout
of surprise.
A couple of hastily opened letters lay upon the
floor.
"Jack," laughingly said the new-made Pasha.
"It rains good luck! I've just been promoted
to the rank of Pasha, — I have a year's leave of
absence, and, / have had a fortune left to me in
America!
"Now, let us get out of here, as soon as possible!
General Stone wants me to take the next steamer
ONE WEARY YEAR. 263
to Brindisi. He will send me down to Alexan-
dria on a special train."
"Do I go, sir," hastily cried the excited En-
glishman. "You shot the fellow who made that
unfair left-handed slash at me," good humoredly
said the soldier.
"You have a soft billet for life! I'll never for-
get you lugging me up into that little dead angle
on your back! If you can stand being a valet,
consider yourself enlisted, for life!"
"I waited on Captain Maitland, of the Eighth
Hussars, two years in India," joyously exclaimed
the deserter.
"Remember" sternly said Landon. "Not a
word of my private affairs! I wish no one to
know of my American windfall ! The paymaster
comes down to-night ! I want you to get me up
a complete traveling outfit!"
"Right you are, sir" laughed Haddon; "the
blackeys got all our luggage! God! How the
beggars came boundin' on with them 'ere long
cross-handled swords! and that there bloomin'
Ras I shot !
"He loomed up through the smoke like a giant,
and then, when I potted him, — his blasted horse
264 CAPTAIN LANDON.
came rockin' down almost on my head with the
dead man!
"An' they're a decoratin' themselves now with
our belongin's, — the boundin' big black beg-
gars!
"We are left almost naked."
"Be sure to get your own outfit, a regular swell
gentleman's gentleman," laughed Landon.
"Is it safe where we be a goin', Sir?" hazarded
the deserter.
"Oh ! We are off for Palermo la felice," gaily
cried Landon.
"I shall winter in Sicily. I want to run over
and see Naples and the south of Italy ! Don't be
afraid! A pair of mutton chop whiskers and
dark clothes will take all the soldier out of
your appearance! Besides, I can get any Amer-
ican consul to give you a provisional 'laissez
passer' passport ! When we go over next year to
shoot some big game in the Rockies, you shall be-
come an American citizen.
"I will go over in the early spring to settle my
affairs! I would not dare to cross the Atlantic
just yet !"
The newly made Pasha fell into a dreamy ret-
ONE WEARY YEAR. 265
rospect as the soft night fell and the great white
stars glittered on the blue flowing Nile.
One mad, wild thought came to his awakened
heart! "We are equals now! I am within the
golden pale! Shall I seek Agnes out?"
The stinging remembrance of her cold ignoring
of his last heart-wrung appeal to her mercy
chilled him! "Never!" he cried. "She would
not even notice my cry in a last agony of soul!
And, — my fortune comes to me too late! I will
see the south of Italy, but never return to Rome,
my via dolorosa!"
And then some strange spell fell upon him!
"We drank together of the waters of Trevi! I
saw her throw her own silver offerings into the
water. 'Date obolus Neptune!' Ah! No," he
sighed, waking.
"Ah! No! Ah! No! The waves may fling their white-
ness o'er the sea,
But Time nor Tide will never bring my false love back
to me!"
While Landon mourned his vanished hopes,
Agnes Hawthorn at Vienna was startled at an
appealing letter from Gertrude Melville begging
her to visit her at Rome, while en route to Paris.
266 CAPTAIN LANDON.
"You know you asked me to watch over your
name, — to be your defender here ! There is dan-
ger of a complete disclosure of the adventure out-
side the gates of San Sebastiani. I dare not write
all — I can not come to you, I am tied down here !
"I can not confide even in my husband, and the
Fountain of Trevi calls you back to me! I can
arrange all! Telegraph at once!"
That evening Gertrude Melville cried, "Thank
God !" — as she opened a telegram saying, "I will
come and — we will go down to Naples together,
as we planned so long ago."
BOOK III
THE FAITHFUL FOUNTAIN
DEAR TO LOVERS
BOOK III.
THE FAITHFUL FOUNTAIN DEAR TO
LOVERS
CHAPTER XL
IN THE BLUE GROTTO.
It was two months after the quiet flitting of the
newly made Pasha from Cairo when Sidney Lan-
don, now rejuvenated by the soft Sicilian air, be-
took himself to a pretty little villa at Sorrento.
In vain he tried to face the idea of a visit to
Rome! There was a pang in every memory
which called up that fair imperial face, golden
wreathed, which had first met his ardent gaze
upon the Pincian.
"I should not care to meet her," he mused. "She
has answered the eternal No ! by her cold silence.
Not even a single word did she waste on the man
who at least saved her from the brutal pillage of
the robbers of the Campagna."
269
270 CAPTAIN LANDON.
His face hardened when he thought of the un-
revenged insult of the pompous Minister Resi-
dent, and the frightened subserviency of Arthur
Melville !
"No! I will not go to Rome! I will never
drink of the waters of Trevi again," he indig-
nantly vowed. "I can easily get Grimes and Hat-
ton out of Italy for a tramp in Switzerland, or a
month in the Scottish hills by and by !"
The pseudo Pasha was as yet ignorant of all
the clouds resting upon his name, the simple fall-
ing off of Agues Hawthorn's social friendship
being enough to banish him from Rome !
"I suppose that she belongs to Clark noiv" he
sighed.
With a careful agnosticism as to the St. Louis
fortune, he wrote to Messrs. Freycinet Freres to
have their American correspondents investigate,
and to report back by cable the results at once.
With a sudden freak of Timon-like misan-
thropy, he carefully concealed his identity at Sor-
rento. It was an easy matter.
His Marseilles mail was all sent under cover to
Mr. John Haddon at Naples.
And a confidential letter to Consul Arnold
IN THE BLUE GROTTO. 271
Swasey gave that same lively English person's
name as a forwarding mail agent. Locally, dis-
guise was easy.
Landon now sported a red fez and a flowing
beard, his face was burned almost black by the
Abyssinian sun and the glare of the Red sea.
Haddon, the newly fledged soldier valet, had
picked up a very fair French knocking around the
Mediterranean after that desertion which forced
him to avoid even the shadow of the British flag.
For the "Widow's" arms are long, her "steel
bracelets" have an enduring grip, and Jack Had-
don was not desirous to become an expert in
"oakum picking."
There seemed to be little doubt of the solidity
of the strangely devised fortune. For Consul
Arnold Swasey wrote under cover to "Mr. John
Haddon" that he was authorized to advance
through Drexel, Morgan & Co. any sum of ready
money to the beneficiary up to the sum of fifty
thousand dollars, upon the heir's draft on Hay-
ward, Homans & Ross, accompanied by a legal
certificate of Sidney Landon's identity under the
Consular seal.
"It seems that it is not fairy gold— after all!"
273 CAPTAIN LANDON.
mused Landon. The one bitter drop in his cup of
joy was Swasey's careful statement that neither
letter, telegram nor message had reached the
Consulate at Nice — coming from Rome.
And, Edwin Morgan, secretly notified by Con-
sul Swasey, had duly sent on a list of all Landon's
outgoing mail. There was the tell-tale date, with
the note of the delivery of two sealed letters to
Mrs. Gertrude Melville. "There could have been
no miscarriage of my letters," sighed the newly
made Pasha, whose brow darkened as he learned
that Miss Agnes Hawthorn was once more back
in Rome, the guest of the Melvilles, on her way to
Paris and London.
The fact of Rawdon Clark being her principal
escort and magnificent entertainer told an omin-
ous story.
Beyond the fact of Vice Consul General Stil-
well Meacham's alliance with Maspero, and Mor-
gan's renewed official slavery, there was no news,
save that Forrest Grimes had been made Chief of
a great Literary Syndicate in London, — and that
honest Frank Hatton was now given carte
blanche and a roving commission to cover all the
Continent and the Orient for the Philadelphia
IN THE BLUE GROTTO. 273
Mail, now rapidly becoming an aggressive sensa-
tional journal under the hard pressure of Rawdon
Clark's unflagging ambition.
"Poor Morgan!" sighed Landon. "If this
estate turns out what it might be I will make him
my personal representative and business mana-
ger, for I'll settle things up, — take Jack Haddon
as 'man Friday' and, — then — do the world in
good shape."
His youth stood him in good stead, and the
beauty of the witching coast led him far seaward
in his splendid lateen sailed cutter, "Santa Lucia."
Jack Haddon proved to be a human treasure
and on his excursions to Naples transacted all his
master's business, while Landon, in mufti,
dreamed around Herculaneum and Pompeii, only
visiting Naples at night to escape American
tourists.
To the villa dwellers, the young Pasha was only
known as a Turk of vast wealth, and so, many
bright-eyed women vainly peeped over the garden
walls to see Fatima with the Silver Veil hovering
in the gardens of "El Turco."
These pretty tourists and local visitors were,
however, all doomed to disappointment, even that
18
274 CAPTAIN LANDON.
audacious Russian Princess with the dancing
black eyes, who so frankly invited herself to
breakfast with the recluse.
Over the cigarettes and cognac, with a plead-
ing glance, — she cried seductively : "Mon Pasha !
Montrez moi votre harem ! Ca ne vous fera pas
mal! Je vous assure que je suis bon garcon!"
The mutine Princess sighed in a pretty distress
at the embarrassed denials of the mysterious
Pasha, but the little dejeuner was really charming
— and, she gaily bore away a bracelet of priceless
scarabei as a trophy, leaving only a rose from her
passionate bosom to remind Landon that he could
not escape "1'eternal feminine."
Judicious letters from Ferik Pasha Stone soon
convinced Landon of the unanimity of the
Cairene princes in their desire that Lieutenant
Colonel Landon should continue to amuse himself
abroad and never return to tell the story of Prince
Hassan's cowardice and the incapacity of the
Egyptian generals who allowed their men to be
butchered like sheep.
"You must not come back to Egypt," wrote
the courtly old West Pointer. "There have been
some brutal courts martial, — a number of officers
IN THE BLUE GROTTO. 275
summarily shot, — and murderous duels arranged
to put men out of the way, in which paid Italian
renegades have butchered honest officers who
knew too much ! Consider that your leave with
pay is extended a discretion. A word to the wise
is sufficient!"
It was only when the young Pasha had re-
ceived the final cabled confirmation of his good
fortune from Freycinet Freres that he felt free
to answer General Stone. "I guess that it's all
right," he laughingly said, when he read their
telegram :
"Lawyers and executors perfectly reliable.
Estate has no involvements. No contests or ad-
verse claimants. The property is solid and most
advantageously invested. Draw on us up to a
hundred thousand francs a votre Volonte."
"That settles it!" mused Landon. "When
these sly Frenchmen will offer a stranger a hun-
dred thousand francs of their own money, — this
fortune is not a ghost story."
He wrote at once to the loyal old General Stone
that he would use his full leave and keep his
Pasha's rank merely as an incognito.
Briefly telling of his good fortune, — he said:
276 CAPTAIN LANDON.
"I shall buy a stiff big schooner yacht, a sailing
vessel of five hundred tons, and run around the
world, for my knowledge has been too much con-
fined to the waving grassy sea of our boundless
prairies.
"You can drop me off the Egyptian Army List,
but not out of your heart, at the expiration of the
year — for, when I next see the royal advance of
the wild Abyssinian horse, — or meet the rush of
their leaping two-handed swordsmen, — their
frantic spearmen, — I want something stiffer than
Egyptian fellahs behind me!
"But one thing would ever call me back to
Gura's bloody plain. It would be to put up a
monument to my dead friend, the plucky little
Captain Mohammed Ali, who died fighting that
steel battery as bravely as Pickett's men struggled
up to Hancock's bloody Gettysburg lines, where
Lee found the Yankees, at last, a living 'Stone-
wall!' Poor Mohammed! He stood the pyra-
midal rush off for an hour and a half! I saw
him carrying shell in his own hands, and the very
last time he passed me, the gallant Arab cried, in
his broken English, 'Battery good; — you see!'
"To which I replied with my only Arabic
IN THE BLUE GROTTO. 277
words, 'Taib Ketir!' — in other words, — 'way up,
— you bet!'
"A single brave man, in a clan of cowardly
officers! As Sergeant Jack Haddon lugged me
away, I saw Mohammed's white, ghastly face
lying under his favorite gun!
"When he crossed Al Sirat, let us hope that
hordes of the beauties of that Mussulman Para-
dise escorted him to cooling bowers by the heav-
enly Bendemeer!"
Perfectly secure now in his incognito, — safe in
the loyalty of Swasey, — Morgan and Freycinet
Freres, — Sidney Landon soon became the boldest
yachtsman of the Tyrrhene sea.
The wild sweep of the winds from old Car-
thage curling the white-crested billows delighted
his troubled soul ! The stars mirrored in the blue
deep soothed him, and he felt a fierce delight as
his craft bounded along as "shrill sang the tackle,
sang the sail."
Drifting under Sorrento's storied steeps, glid-
ing out from under the purple shadows of Monte
Tiberio, into the sapphire bosom of Amalfi's bay,
or, — floating off Castellmare, — his winged boat
hanging between heaven and earth, — he listened
278 CAPTAIN LANDON.
to the laughter of the Italian women, borne by the
willing winds out across the soft foam of the sil-
ver breakers !
Ischia, sculptured and stately, — blue Capri
haunted by the memories of the voluptuous Ti-
berius,— Tarentum, Gaeta and Isola, — he
watched them all glide by, in an unrivaled pano-
rama, while his wild boatmen sang "Santa Lucia,"
and eyed their strange master in a stupid wonder !
These were days in which the beauty of sea and
shore stole over his darkened soul, and he put off
from day to day, in this enchanting dolce far
niente, the answer to the lawyers' appeals to set-
tle a time for his home coming.
He had put all the sorrows of his past life be-
hind him, even the malignity of the envious
woman far away whose anonymous letters had
darkened the last year of his army life!
He would have swept on to Rome as an aven-
ger of his honor — had he known of the web of in-
famy woven around his dishonored name!
But the half confidences of his friends had left
him unarmed against the poisoned breath of
secret slander.
It was with a delicious sense of indecision that
IN THE BLUE GROTTO. 279
Landon bade the sailing master run out to sea,
when he left his anchorage under the walls of
Paradise, on an entrancing morning, and vaguely
pointed toward Capri and Ischia.
He had made the ocean his friend, and, blown
far off to sea, he felt the truth of Buchanan
Read's exquisite lines:
"No more, no more the worldly shore
Upbraids me with its lewd uproar."
Five hours later the falcon fleet boat skimmed
into La Marina, where the Pasha gave his crew a
run among the laughing-eyed women of that
merry shore where care never abides.
A fancy to visit the Blue Grotto once more was
upon him, and as the "Santa Lucia" swept on
toward the Grotto Azzura, Landon merrily
cracked on all sail and chased a pretty little yacht
flying the American colors.
He lay at ease as the swift lateen boat skimmed
by its overtaken adversary, and idly watched
that silken fluttering ensign !
He noted not the graceful forms of the two
ladies, nor the face of the one cavalier ! His mind
was far away in the past !
280 CAPTAIN LANDON.
He dreamed over again the wild days of his
life in the Sioux country ! He felt again the thrill
with which bearing down upon the yelling Indian
foe he had raced with his guidon bearer in the
maddening charge.
But he suddenly sheered off his yacht as he saw
field glasses brought into requisition, — the
"Santa Lucia" was well to the front, he was in
no mood for a rencontre, and so he bore away
with the rippling laughter of the two women
still ringing in his ears.
It was for mere social self protection that his
dainty cutter bore the white flag with the blood-
red crescent and star of Egypt.
"They are probably guying me for a 'terrible
Turk,' " he murmured to Haddon, who was act-
ing "Boatswain" and contemptuously bossed the
swarthy Italian crew, whose red knitted night
caps and golden ear rings were the secret scorn of
the sturdy Englishman.
"Looks like a lot of bloomin' old women, —
they does," sneered Haddon, '"an' yet spry
enough, for beggars as lives on yard long bread,
drinks green sweet oil and has a pocket of dried
olives in them frenchified trousers.
IN THE BLUE GROTTO. 281
"Say, now, — a steamin' joint or a rattlin' beef-
steak would drive 'em all mad. An' them yaller
crawlin' snails — Damme!"
Pasha Landon curiously watched the strange
yacht brail up her sail and come up in the wind
before the low entrance of the world-renowned
Bower of Undine, the fairy Grotto Azzura.
'They've a lubberly way of handlin' that there
pinnace," growled Haddon, as the two ladies and
their escort were got over the side, in the lee of
the little pleasure craft, into its small boat towed
astern.
"Better a' trusted to these skiff fellers what
haunts these holes in the rocks here like the
comes ! This 'ere grotto is their only livin' !
"Aye ! There, you lubbers !" he cried as one of
the ladies half rose in fright, and was restrained
by the man who sat in the stern.
Sidney Landon kept his boat on under way and
feasted his eyes upon the incomparable panorama
of Monte Solaro dreaming there above them, the
white-walled Hermitage, and the shattered walls
of the Castello di Barbarossa.
"A fairy island, floating on an enchanted sea,"
he murmured. "No wonder the world-sated Ti-
282 CAPTAIN LANDON.
berius dreamed away ten years in this delightful
maze.
"With his twelve villas dedicated to the Gods
— his great palace 'Villa Jovis,' — the proud
Roman thought little as he governed the world
from this island speck, that the pale face of the
martyr of Calvary would drive his gods away
into an eternal oblivion.
"But Rome's eagles have perished, — the cross
of the Nazarene still glitters over the .Capitoline
hill, and, Pan murmurs no longer in the reeds by
the river!"
At an inquiring sign from Haddon, Landon
briefly cried, "Go about, we'll go back to the
Grotto!"
"Will you go in, sir?" asked Haddon. "Them
there Americans is gone, their yacht is out of
sight!"
Sidney Landon nodded an assent, and the
"Santa Lucia" swooped down to the shoals west
of the grotto's half-hidden entrance.
In a few moments, the anchor was dropped, and
Landon, with Haddon, stepped into the skiff of
the eagle-eyed islander who well knew how lib-
eral El Turco was.
IN THE BLUE GROTTO. 283
"The light will be superb to-day," carelessly
said Landon as he lay down in the skiff, while
Haddon lay down on the other side. Only in this
way could they glide under the low wall of the
opening.
They darted in under the low three-foot arch
of the huge overhanging rocks, and the boatman,
with one last vigorous stroke of his oars, laid
himself flat down — as the light skiff dashed in,
swept on by the gleaming blue and silver flood !
There was a sudden crash, — then a woman's
voice rang out in a shrill wail of agony, and, in a
moment, Sidney Landon was swimming for his
life in the phosphorescent gleaming flood.
As he rose to the surface, the soldier saw a
woman's form swept by him, gleaming strangely
in the lambent blue light.
"All right,, sir, I've got this 'ere one," puffed
Haddon, as he vigorously swam toward the little
landing place at the right of the grotto where the
broken steps still marked the old land entrance
used by Tiberius.
Landon never glanced at the three boatmen
now clinging to their overturned skiffs, but he
284 CAPTAIN LANDON.
firmly caught the drapery of the woman near him
as the undertow was drawing her out to sea.
With a dozen vigorous strokes, the Pasha
gained the rocky landing, where, in the blue
radiance, the hardy Englishman was now leaning
down to aid him with his helpless burden.
There was puffing and sputtered prayers as the
boatmen, swimming alongside their skiffs, piloted
toward the safe landing place a man who was
frantically clinging to the gunwales of the water-
logged craft.
Landon paid no attention to the cowardly man
as he scrambled out, but was leaning over the
young woman whose face rested upon his knees.
Scream after scream rang through the cavern
while Landon labored to revive the half-suffo-
cated woman.
The three boatmen had skillfully righted the
Capri built skiff and were now quickly bailing it
out with the scoops lashed to the gunwales.
"Get out to my boat and bring some matches
and candles, and a bottle of brandy," cried Lan-
don, while Haddon grumbled, " }0w the devil
did this 'ere thing 'appen? The blasted fools had
a right to sing out ! Who knew you were in here
IN THE BLUE GROTTO. 285
anyway ?" he wrathfully cried to the rescued man
who was shaking himself like a water dog !
But Sidney Landon paid no heed to all their
clamor ! He cried in his anguish, "Dead, my God,
dead. Agnes, speak to me, speak but once."
For it was the lovely face of the woman who
had scorned him, — the face of the beauty of the
Pincian, the fair American, heiress, which lay
there, gleaming pale and cold in the exquisite
blue light!
It seemed an age till the skiff returned, and
•
then, Paolo, Landon's man, lit a port fire and
handed a lighted candle to each of the little party
clinging to the narrow rocky ledge.
Landon was on his knees forcing a draught of
cognac into the mouth of the woman whose faint
moans now told of returning consciousness.
"Who are you?" blubbered Robert Brandon,
as he gazed at Landon's flowing beard and the
Turkish fez still clinging to his sunburned tem-
ples.
"Norie of your business, you fool!" shouted
Landon. "Keep off, — or I'll throw you into the
water! Paolo!" he cried. "Get out around the
286 CAPTAIN LANDON.
point and have these people's boat come up to the
cave !"
The quick-witted Italian tossed a dry boat
cloak up to the narrow ledge.
"Now, madame," decisively said Landon. "I
will get you and this young lady out to my yacht,
here at anchor, and send the pinnace back for the
others. Let me direct the boatmen!"
"Great God! It is Sidney Landon!" almost
shrieked Gertrude Melville, but the soldier an-
swered nothing, as he directed Haddon and one
boatman to steady the now bailed-out pinnace of
the Naples yacht, while he wrapped Agnes Haw-
thorn in the boat cloak and lowered her into the
shallop.
"Step in now, Gertrude," cried Landon. "Drink
a draught of this brandy ! It may save your life!"
Handing the bottle to the frightened artist,
Brandon, — the soldier, with cool, sharp com-
mands, guided the pinnace out under the danger-
ous arch.
"How did it happen?" faintly asked Gertrude
Melville, still half dazed as she gazed in wonder
at Landon's altered appearance.
"Your people should have kept the boat lying
IN THE BLUE GROTTO. 287
off the cave, or had your men shout a warning in
coming out ! But I see that they are only Nea-
politan boatmen and know nothing of the rules of
safety of this dangerous entrance !"
By this time the pinnace had glided alongside
the Santa Lucia, — and a dozen brawny arms
lifted the helpless Agnes Hawthorn out of the
boat.
"Go back and get that man!" sharply ordered
Landon, as he said, "Mrs. Melville, you shall
have the cabin. The little Italian boy will give
you anything you wish. I recommend you to get
back to La Marina as soon as your boat comes !"
"Promise me that you will come to us at
Naples, Hotel Bristol ! We will be there a week,"
— cried Gertrude Melville shaking herself like a
water rat.
"Where have you been?" she eagerly de-
manded.
" In Abyssinia" Landon gravely said. "I am
now a Pasha in the Egyptian Army, serving with
Lieutenant General Stone. I was wounded at the
Battle of Gura, and I have been given a year's
leave of absence to go around the world !
"Go to her, — Gertrude," he cried, as the hulk-
288 CAPTAIN LANDON.
ing form of Robert Brandon came over the side.
The artist's face blackened in a scowl as he, at
last, recognized his maritime host. "Don't go
down in that cabin," sharply said Landon. "Here,
Tito, wait upon this man !"
They could see the Naples boat now being
warped along with sweeps a half a mile away.
"Whose boat is this?" gruffly demanded Bran-
don.
"Mine!" emphatically said the soldier. "Hark
ye! — Mr. Robert Brandon, if it were not for
these two half-drowned women, — I would pitch
you overboard, and let you swim ashore ! I know
you for a dirty lickspittle and a coward tale-
bearer,— an eater of crumbs from other men's
tables!"
And then — Landon, turning his back, philo-
sophically cast off his drenched sea jacket, and al-
lowed the alert Italians to unloose his shoes,
wring out his garments, and, quickly wrapping
himself in a long boat cloak, he took a generous
draught of cognac and lit a Trabuco! "See that
the Signior wants for nothing," the Pasha or-
dered to his over-anxious cabin boy.
A grim silence reigned until the hired Naples
'MR. BRANDON, MY MEN WILL PUT YOU ON YOUR OWN
BOAT! I WILL BRING THE LADIES OFF ! "-Page aSS.
IN THE BLUE GROTTO. 289
pleasure boat tossed idly upon the oily waves a
half cable's length away.
When the pinnace of the stranger boat touched
the side of the "Santa Lucia," Landon's own boat
was manned alongside.
Striding across the deck, the young Pasha said,
"Mr. Brandon, my men will put you on your own
boat ! I will bring the ladies off !"
"I'll not submit! I'll not submit!" he roared.
"Then, sir," coldly said Landon, "I will pub-
lish to the world the fact that you sought only
your own safety, and let the two helpless women
shift for themselves! You are a pattern cow-
ard!"
Without another word, Brandon jumped into
the skiff, and was swiftly rowed to the other cut-
ter ! "I wish to sail at once," he howled when a
hundred yards separated them.
Stepping lightly aft, Sidney Landon called to
Mrs. Melville: "It is time to go! I will put you
on your own boat ! You will find a decent little
hotel at 'La Marina Grande.'
"I recommend a good night's sleep on shore —
and that you both take the steamer for Naples,
19
290 CAPTAIN LANDON.
and let that picked-up pleasure boat follow home
without you ! The crew are incompetent fools."
Silently, and with downcast eyes, — Agnes
Hawthorn clung to Landon's arm, as supported
by Gertrude Melville, she tottered to the pinnace.
The fair face looked pinched and ghastly, peep-
ing out of its rough sailor capote, and the golden
hair clung in graceful wreaths around her stately
head.
Not a word was spoken as they reached the
side of "La Aguila de Oro."
Gertrude Melville's face flushed crimson as
Landon handed them over the side.
With a truculent scowl, Robert Brandon
clasped his drooping charge in his arms.
The quick-witted Consular lady saw that Sid-
ney Landon would not willingly step upon the
deck of the hulking coward's boat. The boatmen
were already loosening the yacht's sails.
Gertrude Melville's face was flushed in very
shame as Agnes Hawthorn stood there as if
transfixed, gazing mutely at the man who had
saved her from the fanged rocks of the Capri
shore. "You will come to us at the Hotel Bris-
IN THE BLUE GROTTO. 291
tol," Gertrude cried. "You will let us thank you !
I must also reward your brave servant." •
'7 am leaving Italy at once" coldly said Lan-
don, his form stiffening into the soldier's atten-
tion.
"But, your address, we can write," pleaded
Gertrude, with hopeless tears welling into her
eyes.
"You owe me nothing" — gravely said Lan-
don. "I have waited a year for a letter which
never came!"
Agnes Hawthorn started forward as if she
would speak, but Brandon's rancorous voice broke
in : "I can allow no communication of my niece
with a man who was disgracefully dismissed
from the Army and blackballed as a blackguard
from the Cercle de Rome.
"A man who was driven to resign by the
United States Minister and who fled from Rome."
Landon leaped from the frail skiff and grasped
the dotard's arm, wrenching it till he writhed in
pain.
"You think yourself safe here!" he cried. "I
shall come to Rome and make you eat those
292 CAPTAIN LANDON.
words before the Minister himself, if I have to
drag you by the heels !"
"For God's sake ! Listen ! There has been a
terrible mistake!" murmured Agnes Hawthorn,
as she laid her chilled hand upon the young man's
arm.
"You know why I left Italy!" he sadly said, as
he turned, leaped into his boat, and was swiftly
rowed away.
Then the heiress tottered and fell back into
Gertrude Melville's arms.
"What did he mean?" she murmured. "He
surely received my letter!"
The boat gathered headway, and soon Lan-
don's yacht was seen afar, a white-winged rover
of the deep, heading toward Sorrento !
The two women cowered in the cabin of "La
Aguila" with their eyes fastened upon the reced-
ing silver sail, as they were speeding on to
Marina Grande.
"It is a world of lies," moaned Agnes Haw-
thorn.
"He must have received my letter, — and, — yet,
— I owe him now an added debt which never can
be paid ! Shame — shame!"
IN THE BLUE GROTTO. 293
That night in the Hotel Gran Brettagna, the
unhappy women lived over the wretched year
whose harvest had only been unhappiness.
Their door was resolutely locked, and the hu-
miliated Brandon panted for the morning when
the steamer would bear him back to his "alter
ego" at the Hotel Bristol, in Naples.
He knew that his conduct had been that of a
cur, and, — he feared the deadly light on Sidney
Landon's face.
"My God ! If he follows it up, — what may not
happen ? I must get back and warn Clark." He
had seen the pitiless wrath upon Landon's stern
face ! The ass had brayed once too often.
"/ shall leave Italy instantly, — Gertrude," said
Agnes Hawthorn, as she buried her glowing face
on her friend's bosom and burst into bitter tears.
A sudden happy thought thrilled her friend's
agitated bosom.
"If there has been wrong, I will set it right!
The Consul at Naples will surely aid me! The
Naples boatmen will all know where the 'Santa
Lucia' is harbored !"
Gertrude Melville called back the grave flash of
Landon's eye as he leaped upon Brandon. "There
294 CAPTAIN LANDON.
has been some hideous wrong done here," she
mused. "And I shall right it, God helping me!
That man is no craven, — no scoundrel ! There is
truth and honor in his eyes !"
Pacing his walk under the silvery olive groves
of Sorrento that night, Sidney Landon suddenly
called his valet to his side. "Get all ready to lock
the place up for a month. Pay off and furlough
the yacht's crew ! We are going out into the gay
world !
"I go to Naples, Rome, perhaps Nice and Mar-
seilles ! We leave in the morning ! Pack all my
traps! And get me now clipped and shaved 'en
militaire !' I am a Pasha no longer !"
All that long night the soldier dreamed of the
blue waves of the Grotto, where under the som-
ber-arched roof he struggled for the life of the
golden-haired darling who lay a helpless Undine,
a silver Naiad Queen, on his shoulder !
IN THE BLUE GROTTO. 295
CHAPTER XII.
UNEXPECTED ALLIES.
As the touch of the Fairy Prince woke the
sleeping Beauty from her trance of years, so the
words of sweet Agnes Hawthorn roused Sidney
Landon from the morbid death in life of the last
year. He forgot all its bitter harvest of sorrows.
He only remembered the young goddess with
her half outstretched arms crying, "Listen! For
God's sake! There has been some terrible mis-
take!"
Landon was awake at dawn, and, walking in
his garden, gazed out upon the heaving bosom of
the blue gulf.
The fisher's children were singing in the rocks
at play, the silver sails of the fishing boats flecked
the sapphire zone, and his heart bounded as he
gazed at the happy islands hovering far out at sea.
"Here, Ischia smiles, o'er liquid miles, —
And yonder, — bluest of the skies, —
Calon Capri waits, her sapphire gates,—
Beguiling to her bright estates."
A bird broke out near him, singing in a blos-
somed tree, — the song went into his soul and a
296 CAPTAIN LANDON.
fierce new delight in life, a fever of delicious un-
rest took possession of him.
For the first time he realized the concrete power
of money.
"I am rich now. I can fight a good fight. I
have 'the sinews of war!' She shall know all,
and then, I will leave My Lady Disdain, but not in
shame!
"As for Robert Brandon — ," he turned and
sped into the house.
Jack Haddon was already bustling around,
and, at nine, when Sidney Landon stepped into
his carriage, he directed the van to follow with
the luggage to Parker's Hotel, at Naples.
The sturdy valet, Haddon, was gaily humming
an old regimental war song as he watched the
new light upon his master's brow. "Aye," he
chirruped. "There's nothing like a lass to wake
a man up! There'll be rich fun soon ! The mars-
ter's a proper young swell enough now !"
It was true that Landon was reproduced as the
glass of fashion and the mould of form in that
ultra English "style" which is considered strictly
"High Life" by the continental nobility.
Landon gazed back at "Sorrento le gentile."
UNEXPECTED ALLIES. 297
He had found peace and nepenthe, — "sweet sur-
cease of sorrow," — among those fragrant groves
of lemon and orange lining the cliffs of Torquato
Tasso's natal town.
He gaily waved his handkerchief as the captain
of the "Santa Lucia" dipped the Khedive's flag
to the metamorphosed Pasha.
As the carriage rolled along he mentally can-
vassed the situation. "There's Morgan, — there's
also game Charley Hollingsworth ! I'll confide
only in them! Hollingsworth will soon dig up
the secret of the Club infamy.
"I think that I will drop the trap over Signore
Jacopo Maspero, now! It will take me about a
month to communicate with Colonel Atwater,
and, then, I will face his High Mightiness, Min-
ister Van Buren Hartford."
One side of the case presented delicate features.
"Melville has been but a faint-hearted friend!
But, for Gertrude's sake, — for very gratitude, I
must leave him out of the row ! He only lives in
his dabbled blues and yellows, his faded grays
and his splotched crimson lake!
"At any rate, I can save him from future loss,
298 CAPTAIN LANDON.
perhaps even shame, by unmasking this Roman
wolf Maspero."
The ferret-eyed Haddon keenly watched his
young master, as the train sped on from Castella-
mare to Naples.
"He 'ave the look of a hunting cheetah in his
eyes, now! Blow me! There's somethink up!"
mused Haddon, as he gathered the traps together
when the train reached the station.
Landon had forgotten all the superb panorama
of the pictured shore.
He saw not Vesuvius, hovering there a mighty
menace of Nature, "with outstretched hands,
o'erlooking the volcanic lands," — buried Pompeii,
revisiting the glimpses of the moon, — sad Hercu-
laneum, still entombing the luxurious community
who mutely died, and the unequaled sweep of
that bay, whose proud motto is "Vedere Napoli e
poi, morire."
He was now on the trail of his secret enemies
at last, — and no lean Sioux ever crouched more
tiger-like in the path of the headlong Pawnee
braves than Landon, now for the first time scent-
ing the traitor's path encircling his way in life.
UNEXPECTED ALLIES. 299
"77/ scatter the wolf pack!" he swore in his an-
gered heart.
"Faster, faster," urged Landon, as the carriage
sped down the Rue Vittorio Emanuele toward
"Parker's."
He feared now that Robert Brandon might
have sneaked over from Capri and taken the
morning train for Rome.
"By Heavens! he shall face the music now"
cried Landon, as his spirit burned within him.
No sooner had he registered at Parker's than
he dispatched the acute Haddon on a reconnois-
sance to the Hotel Bristol.
He was seated in the courtyard, under the lime
trees, enjoying a cigar, when a handsome fellow
in the undress uniform of the United States Navy
tripped over the tall soldier's loosely extended
legs.
"Harry Wainwright, by all that's holy !" cried
Landon, leaping to his feet.
In ten minutes, the two chums were deep in the
reminiscences of the fifteen years, since the one
left Annapolis,— and the other,— gaily said
good-bye to "Benny Havens, oh."
They had sampled the choicest brands of the
300 CAPTAIN LANDON.
cellar before spry Jack Haddon glided into the
courtyard.
"Party just in on steamer from Capri, sir.
Ladies resting. Tickets bespoke for the evening
train. The gentleman have just gone up to Castel
St. Elmo, with a hotel shouter, to see the old
fort."
"Get me a good dog whip, a good stout one,"
cried Landon. "Have a carriage at the door at
once, the best you can get !
"See here, Wainwright," said Landon, his eyes
gleaming with a newly aroused passion. "I want
you as a witness to a little matter here."
"Fire away, my boy. I'm with you," cheerily
said Wainwright. "If it's anything serious I can
send off to the 'Kearsarge' and get another of our
officers!"
"Oh, you'll do, you restless old fire eater,"
laughed Landon. "I only wish you to look on !"
In five minutes Haddon had returned. " 'Ere's
the best I could do, sir!" he whispered, handing
his master a snaky looking contrivance of water
buffalo hide.
"Haddon, you're a jewel," calmly remarked
UNEXPECTED ALLIES. 301
Landon. "Get us a bundle of good cigars and a
flask of cognac ! Look alive now !"
Wainwright eyed Landon curiously as the car-
riage slowly climbed the Monte Santo.
He turned when they reached the gates of old
St. Elmo.
Far below them lay the unrivaled amphithea-
ter of old Rome's sin-haunted dens of summer
luxury.
The forts of Castello dell' Oro, — Nuovo, — del
Carmine, and Capuano, flew the Italian flag,
while Britain's blood-red banner burned over a
huge ironclad, and the star flag fluttered over the
saucy Kearsarge, waiting yet to lay her bones on
the white-fanged reef of Roncador.
Haddon had slipped into the old keep; and
soon came gliding back. "He's coming out, now,
sir — this 'ere's his carriage!"
"Take that fellow over and give him a bottle
of wine," carelessly said Landon, tossing his fac-
totum ten lire.
Lieutenant Commander Wainwright laughed
merrily as he lit a fresh cigar. "Cutting off the
enemy's retreat. Say, old man, — be quick about
302 CAPTAIN LANDON.
it! I'm going over at three to Pompeii with Col
onel and Mrs. Atwater."
Sidney Landon leaned back in the carriage as
Robert Brandon came hulking over the lowered
drawbridge. He gazed around for his missing
carriage, and, while the cicerone went one way,
Brandon hastened down the winding roadway.
"Quick, quick," cried Landon. "Do you mean
Miles Atwater of the Grays ?"
"Certainly" calmly said the astonished naval
officer. "Didn't you know that Mary Atwater
was my cousin?"
"Thank God!" cried Sidney Landon. "Just
the man! They are unexpected allies! Where
are they?"
"At the Bristol, of course," proudly replied
Wainwright. "They are visiting me, and are
going to take a cruise over to Tripoli on the old
sea dog!"
"See here, Wainwright. That's the chap!
Drive right down to him! I'll head him off!
Don't get out of the carriage. Just be a witness
though to what he says ! That's all!"
While Wainwright urged the carriage on, Sid-
ney Landon, leaping nimbly down the tables of
UNEXPECTED ALLIES. 303
the slope, cut off the further progress of Mr.
Robert Brandon.
The slanderer turned pale when he saw the
metamorphosed Landon. In his craven heart, he
felt that his victim had turned upon him at last.
He essayed to pass, but Sidney Landon's hand
was on his collar now, with a vise-like grip.
Wainwright gazed down in passive wonder
from the victoria, halted so as to cut off the art-
ist's flight.
"Gad! The fellow's twice his size," mused
Wainwright, gazing at Landon's idle right hand
holding the doubled up buffalo hide blacksnake.
Landon's face was white with wrath as he
slowly brought out his sentences. "You said, sir,
before ladies, — yesterday, — that I had been dis-
missed the United States Army, — blackballed as
a blackguard from the Cercle de Rome, — and
forced out of the Consular service by your pro-
tector, the Minister Resident !
"Now, sir, I want your authority for each one
of those damned, craven lies! Quick, too!"
It was ill done in Brandon to try to swing his
huge bulk back!
With a merciless swish, the whip caught him
304 CAPTAIN LANDON.
full in the face, the red blood leaping into the
triple welt!
"That for the army lie!" almost shrieked Lan-
don.
Again the whip descended, while Brandon
yelled with pain. The lash cut a strip from his
coat sleeve!
"That for the club lie, you brute, — and, that,
for the story about the Minister!"
Cowering and bleeding, Brandon begged for
mercy.
"I ought to shoot you like a dog here, you
cur ! You have stabbed me behind my back, when
lying at the point of death! Only your wife
saves your life! And, hark ye! Bridle her
tongue! Now, you coward, — out with it! Your
authority for the first."
The lash came down again before Brandon, in
sheer terror, murmured:
"Clark had letters; he showed them to my
zvife!"
"And she showed them all over Rome, you
sneaking character thief!" yelled Landon, as he
flogged the brute's shoulders.
UNEXPECTED ALLIES. 305
"That for her social assiduity! Your back is
broad enough!"
"Now, sir! The Club story!"
Brandon clutched Wainwright's knees, and
begged, "Save me! By God! I'll tell all!"
"Tell it, — to me," cried Landon, his wrath pos-
sessing him like a demon.
"It was Montaverde — the Italian nobleman!"
"And, you never went to Hollingsworth or
Pallavinci to find out the truth? You claim to
be an American ! You knew that my name was
shoved in there as a mere idle compliment!
Damn you! I'll drag you to Montaverde — and,
he will prove you a liar! You were paid, — to
take this damned scandal in commission.
"And, now, sir, my dismissal by the Minister
Resident ! Did he or Melville tell you that ?
"Did you ever ask Morgan to show you my
dispatches resigning, or the return dispatches of
the Department?"
Nothing was heard but Brandon's jibbering
cries for mercy! Landon, in disgust, threw his
whip over the edge of the cliff! He held up
Brandon's craven head to gaze into his eyes!
"I am coming back to Rome! If by the time
20
306 CAPTAIN LANDON.
I get there you have not publicly withdrawn all
these stories, both at the American Club, — to
Melville and to Hollingsworth, — I will post you
as a liar, a coward, and a slanderer, and tell the
story of your leaving two helpless women to
drown in the Blue Grotto! Off with you!"
With a last powerful shove, — Landon sent the
coward tumbling head over heels, and signed to
Jack Haddon to mount the box.
They drove rapidly down the hill, while Had-
don murmured, under his breath :
"Aunt Maria! But, 'e got it on his nob! 'E
h'ain't much of a fighter, — that 'un."
When the carriage stopped at Parker's, Landon
held out his hand to Wainwright and laughed :
"You're a good silent witness!
"Now, Atwater is my old Colonel! I'll send
you up in the carriage to the Bristol ! I will fol-
low in ten minutes. Don't let them leave till I
come! Tell Miles and his wife that I must see
them for a few moments, before they leave for
Pompeii."
"You're a little bit of a fire-eater, yourself, my
boy!" laughed Wainwright. "I'll bet ten dollars
UNEXPECTED ALLIES. 307
there's a pretty woman behind all this ferocity of
yours!"
But Landon only shook his head in a gloomy
silence.
"He deserved all he got !" was his only remark.
Fifteen minutes later, Sidney Landon was
clasped in the bear hug of Colonel Miles Atwater !
The sturdy, solid old soldier danced around his
newly found "lost lamb," while matronly Mary
Atwater sat there, with tears of happiness in her
clear, brown eyes!
"We thought you were in the Orient, or God
knows where," puffed Colonel Miles, as he pro-
ceeded to mix a cavalry toddy.
"And you must come and stay here. Gertrude
Melville is here, with some friends, the Bran-
dons, and a young lady."
While the Colonel of the "Grays" impartially
divided the results of his cavalry toddy making,
the ex-Pasha led Mrs. Mary Atwater aside.
"You must go in and tell Mrs. Melville that I
must see her alone, here, this afternoon, in your
rooms, while you go away to Pompeii!"
Landon's grave face alone kept the good army
wife from thinking that he had lost his wits !
308 CAPTAIN LANDON.
"I need you and Miles, to-night," he said.
"This is the turning point of my life ! You see,
I can not go into the Brandon's apartments.
"I have just thrashed him, for a slanderer, with-
in an inch of his life!
"Now, he will try to sneak his party out, back
to Rome, this evening, but I must see her!
"Bring her in here, and I will speak to her
before you!"
When the two gentlemen drained their glasses
to the old frontier toast, "How?" — Landon said
simply :
"Miles, I have just fallen into a million dollars!
My uncle in St. Louis, of whose existence I was
unaware, has done this neat little trick of financial
legerdemain for me!
"Poor fellow! I'm sorry to say that he does
not need it any more ! I'd divide his own money
with him if he were alive!"
"See here, Sidney," jovially cried the Colonel.
"We never had a dollar in the Grays that we did
not have to fight the paymaster for !
"You've got to come back to us, that's clear, —
you imitation Jay Gould! We will let you pre-
UNEXPECTED ALLIES. 309
sent us a decent set of band instruments. Some-
thing that we never had!"
And Miles Atwater drained his glass, pulled
out his sheer sweeping mustache, and gazed
fondly at his crack Captain!
"The offer of the President still holds good.
Poor old Rufe Hatcher is wearing half mourning
for you, still!"
"It all depends upon Mrs. Mary and yourself,
now, but keep my good fortune a profound secret,
as yet," cheerfully replied Landon. "I'll tell you
all to-night!
''Yes! There is another, — one other person!"
"Great Scott ! The thing is done, then," roared
Atwater, as he grasped Landon in his brawny
arms.
"We are all right, and I think YOU can answer
for 'the other person L' "
"Not yet, — not so surely" laughed Landon,
as Mrs. Atwater glided back silently into the
room.
"Miles," said she. "Go down and wait for
Lieutenant Wainwright! I will join you in a
few moments. You must not miss this excur-
sion!"
310 CAPTAIN LANDON.
"I will move up here from Parker's to-morrow,
Commandante," gaily cried Landon, as the
Colonel filled his two cigar cases, grasped his
tourist umbrella, and departed with a sly wink to
his rediscovered Senior Captain.
"You were right, Sidney," murmured Mrs.
Miles. "The whole party is going home to-night !
Poor Mr. Brandon had 'a frightful fall out of
the carriage, — up at Saint Elmo/ and his wife
has gone to him down at the station! He is al-
ready in the coupe lit of the train, with a Doctor."
"That's his story, is it," coldly remarked Lan-
don. "He is a glib liar !
"Well, Miss Hawthorn shall know nothing of
it, but, Gertrude Melville must know all, and, to-
night,— you and Colonel Miles will agree with
me that I did right.
"Trust me, dear Madonna ; your heart will be
with me in the work I have to do! It is for the
honor of the dear old Grays."
"I did not tell you that Lieutenant Colonel
Prindle retires next month !" said Mrs. Atwater.
Sidney Landon grasped both the dear kindly
hands and kissed them.
"Then, when he leaves the Regiment, I may
UNEXPECTED ALLIES. 311
come back to it, but, I make no promises until
you know all!"
Sweet-faced Mary Atwater noiselessly left the
room, while Landon murmured:
"Poor old Black Bill! He has had a hard
row to hoe, with the implacable Dora as his
spouse! If God would only take her to His
bosom !"
But, Landon sprang to his feet, forgetting all
as the pale-faced Gertrude Melville followed Mrs.
Atwater into the room.
"Before you go, dear Aunt Mary," said the
ex-Pasha, with an affectionate smile, "I wish
to say that my whole future depends upon you
two true hearts — so, that after each has helped
me in her own way, — you can tell each other all
you know, — but, not now ! Leave Gertrude Mel-
ville to me to-day, as a beloved sister !"
"We may hold your future in our keeping,
Captain Landon," said the fair Gertrude, "but
your happiness you will yet owe to the woman
who has just told me, through her tears, — 'I
dare not meet him ! I owe my very life to him,
and I have wrecked his happiness !' '
"I only wish," gravely answered Landon, "to
312 CAPTAIN LANDON.
set my honor right before the world ! Then, — /
drop out of her life forever! I shall go back into
the army, and try and die under the colors of the
old Regiment!"
The overjoyed Mary Atwater threw her arms
around his neck and kissed him.
"And you'll be Major of your old Battalion!
The President has promised!"
The stentorian voice of Miles Atwater was
heard below, loudly calling for his "winsome
marrow," and Mrs. Melville was left alone with
the still excited soldier.
"Why do you avoid Agnes Hawthorn, Sid-
ney?" the graceful woman said, seating herself
at his side, as he dropped his head into his hands.
"I shall right my honor, — I shall trace out this
cabal of damning wickedness, and then, — put the
seas between us !" sadly cried Landon. "She has
a marble heart!"
"A marble heart," echoed the spirited woman,
springing up, her silken hair loosening and fall-
ing over her shoulders in a glorious cascade!
"How far would you have a woman stoop to
show her heart, waiting with its opened doors?"
"Listen" cried Landon, in an agony of pain
UNEXPECTED ALLIES. 313
and doubt. "I waited a whole week at Nice,
when I wrote her that her slightest word would
call me back to Rome! / would have told her
all! I could have gone on to Egypt by Brindisi !
Oh! the hell of that week of doubt! I haunted
the Post and Telegraph ! Not a word ! Silence,
— the silence of contempt!
"But, that Stone had organized my expedition
up the Nile, I would have killed myself there,
— but, I would then have been ranked a coward
who feared the Abyssinian spearmen!"
A strange light shone in Gertrude Melville's
eyes !
"Tell me what you propose to do?" she said,
her bosom heaving with a new and strange emo-
tion. "I have thrashed the truth out of this dog
Brandon here to-day! I know now who is be-
hind one of the lies ! I will settle with that per-
son,— myself!"
His face was as hard as flint.
"But you, Gertrude Melville, are the man of
your family ! You have a gallant heart ! I shall
confer with the Atwaters and follow you up to
Rome.
"I shall go to Frascati or Tivoli, and call Mor-
314 CAPTAIN LANDON.
gan and Hollingsworth to me. Arthur Melville
must, himself, as well as Minister Hartford, fully
and openly make it clear to all Rome that I re-
signed, voluntarily, — that the State Department
telegraphed back and begged me to reconsider.
"This grave wrong must be publicly set right !
If it is not done, — I shall publish in the Roman
papers my telegram and letter of resignation, and
the telegrams and dispatches of the Department !
"If either of these officials refuse, I shall certify
the whole matter up to the Secretary of State
himself, and request that the Department write
to the Italian Bureau of Foreign Affairs and vin-
dicate me, and I shall insist upon being presented
to King Humbert !"
"It is the least that you could ask," cried the
indignant Gertrude. "Clark's veiled influence is
behind Hartford's ungentlemanly treatment of
you! I heard all from Morgan, — and, — even
that spider Maspero has helped to ruin you.
"Oh! If Arthur were only more practical!
But I will engage that this is done, and that the
Hartfords give an official dinner for you, with
all the Legation and Consular Staff."
Landon's brow lightened.
UNEXPECTED ALLIES. 315
"God bless you," he softly said. "The club
matter Hollingsworth and I will handle, — and all
Rome shall ring with that! I can handle that
easily !
"The other matter must be met by the Presi-
dent reappointing me in the Army, — but not until
the whole slander has been probed.
"Only the Atwaters can aid me in that."
"If you only knew Agnes Hawthorn's heart, —
if you would only clear up the mystery of Ethel
Raynor!" cried Gertrude.
"It is that which has torn the darling girl's
bosom ! The letters shown her were so convinc-
ing,— coming from the wife of a high officer in
your own Regiment! The story was so heart-
less, so "
"Stop, stop," whispered Landon, his face as
white as marble. "No one shall speak of the
dead ! Let them defame the living ! I begin to
see the trail of the serpent! It will take two
months to unseal the. past, and, then, I shall face
Agnes Hawthorn with the truth. She has suf-
fered? God! I have been mad for a year!
"And she alone shall have the truth! How
I left the army in perfect honor, the whole social
316 CAPTAIN LANDON.
world here shall know, — why I left the army,
no one but Agnes Hawthorn ever shall know !
"But I will lay the lash of punishment upon
those who have come between us ! The name of
the informant was Mrs. Dora Prindle?"
Landon read the truth in Gertrude Melville's
eyes.
Two hours later, he escorted the bright-hearted
woman back to her own apartment! He paused
at the door.
"Give her this" he said, handing Gertrude a
little parcel. "Morgan will privately tell you of
my movements. I shall know all. I will be at
Frascati or Tivoli until your husband and the
Minister have acted !
"Then, I will come to Rome for justice and
vengeance !"
Two loving women wept on each other's
bosoms when Agnes Hawthorn opened the little
packet! Her golden ring and filmy lace hand-
kerchief were there!
But they never knew that the withered violets
lay on the soldier's breast when he faced the mad
Abyssinians at Gura, — and — that they were still
UNEXPECTED ALLIES. 317
resting there, while the orphaned neiress sobbed,
"It is all over! I can never see him again!"
Both ladies wondered, as two magnificent
bouquets were handed irito their carriage as they
drove to the station! Gertrude's was a mass of
blush roses, but Miss Hawthorn's was a superb
cluster of Parma violets, an offering fit for a
prince !
The orphaned beauty avoided her friend's eyes
as she read the mute message of the flowers !
It was after midnight when the Atwaters fin-
ished their long council of war with Landon.
"I am zvith you to the death," cried the hearty
old Colonel. "I'll write poor Black Bill a letter
to-night! By Gad! He shall certify the truth
to me!"
And then, Landon broke the silence of years
and wrote one letter to America to the only human
being who knew the story of Ethel Raynor !
"For your dead daughter's sake, speak now!"
he implored.
318 CAPTAIN LANDON.
CHAPTER XIII.
JACOPO MASPERO'S CONFESSION.
Five days later, all Naples was familiar with
the very merriest quartette of its forastieri.
The stalwart blue-eyed Wainwright was a nau-
tical Apollo, whose curling brown hair, laughing
glances and springy step betokened the ideal
sailor.
Miles Atwater's fifty-five years sat lightly on
him. His piercing dark eye, stocky build, sternly
good-humored face and close-cropped locks "en
militaire," with the wiry cavalry mustache, the
pride of the Grays, all spoke of the old soldier.
Mrs. Mary Atwater, "discretement vetue," —
gazed out with her beautiful brown eyes under
an unruffled brow.
A notable beauty in her girlhood, the Colonel's
wife had the sober matronly air of the veteran
army wife.
Still handsome at forty-five, her voice was sweet
and low as the summer wind.
Many a poor soldier in the hospital had listened
to its soft accents while tossing in the hospital
JACOPO MASPERO'S CONFESSION. 319
under the delirium of the wounds of Indian lance
and Sioux bullet.
Friend and associate of the pretty girl wives
who came to reinforce the "Grays," — all ignorant
of the sad realities of the frontier, — she was
"Aunt Mary" to the whole Regiment, "with
malice towards none, with charity to all!"
It was only when Landon had led them a merry
dance from the Museo Borbonico to Paestum, —
and after a Grand Ball in her honor on the glory-
hallowed "Kearsarge," — that the ex-Pasha de-
termined to move up to his chosen entrenchment
at Frascati.
The whole story of the year, with its harvest
of sorrow, was known now to the three friends!
It was a merry party of adieu at the Railway
Station. Jack Haddon had been sent forth, "a
dove out of the ark," to a secret conference with
Mr. Charles Hollingsworth at Rome, and also
to post Edwin Morgan upon the location of his
friend's social headquarters.
This conscience-stricken Tommy Atkins was
greatly cheered by Pasha Landon's promise to
have Colonel Stanton, H. B. M., courtly military
attache at Rome, get him a full pardon for the
320 CAPTAIN LANDON.
desertion which had sullied his name after eleven
and a half years of a twelve-year enlistment!
" 'Twas this how," honestly confessed the
sturdy Briton. "Rum got me left on my troop
ship, an' a pretty Italian lass, at Port Said, made
me forget 'the Old Lady of Windsor' until it
was too late to compromise with Her Majesty,
so I cut stick, han' become a bloomin' Hegyp-
tion sodger ! That's how."
When the first bell rang, Harry Wainwright
drew Landon aside.
"Go back to the service, my boy. A dismounted
cavalryman is like an eagle waddling on the earth,
a being shorn of all his glory.
"I've watched the men who left the Navy, —
just flopping around helplessly, like fishes out of
water !
"With your money, you can illustrate and adorn
the Grays ! So, go up and make Rome howl ! I
think," he grinned, "you'll find it pretty clear of
your enemies when you 'shy your castor into the
ring.' "
Mrs. Mary Atwater led the young soldier aside.
"Sidney!" she whispered, laying her kindly
white hand upon his arm. "Come back to us!
JACOPO MASPERO'S CONFESSION. 321
You know the only disturbing element soon leaves
us! God help poor Colonel Prindle! He is a
good, blunt old soldier! He has borne the cross
of a bitter-tongued wife for years! You will be
righted! Poor 'Black Bill,' the men are going
to give him a testimonial to show that they hold
him guiltless. Dora was worn into a social mad-
ness by envy and their long-delayed promotion."
"Poor old Prindle;' sighed Landon. "But
nothing can restore me these blackened years —
or undo the work of that cruel woman's hand."
But, cheery Miles Atwater crushed Landon's
sword hand in his mighty grasp.
"You are under orders to report within six
months at the headquarters of the Grays, — we
regard you as the 'Knight of the Golden Armor,'
now!
"We cavalrymen do not know much, but we
know a good thing when we see it, and we pro-
pose to keep it!
"Drop the Pasha, and come home and have a
race with the Cheyenne dog soldiers, and the
Sioux braves! They all know you, — 'Young
Chief who rides ahead of his Troop.' '
It was only a half promise which Sidney Lan-
21
322 CAPTAIN LANDON.
don gave as the half crazy Italian conductor blew
his little bird pipe, and waved him in to the car
with much wild gesticulation.
Landon passed a telegram over to Jack Had-
don at Terracoria.
"You seem to have made a good choice/' he
remarked. It was from Charley Hollingsworth,
and read:
"Have secured apartments, selected by your
valet, in Villa Piccolomini, — best in Frascati.
Morgan and I will meet you there, noon to-mor-
row."
Sidney Landon's heart was gay, as he left the
Naples railway carriage next morning, at Ciani-
pino, and caught the local to Frascati.
As the little train climbed the hill, towards old
Tusculum, Sidney Landon gazed back at Rome,
where his banded enemies were now agitated over
the rumored coming of "the worm that had
turned."
The soldier's face hardened as he thought of
Rawdon Clark's precipitate departure for Paris,
for this news of moment was brought back by the
ferret-eyed Haddon!
He was also furnished with Forrest Grimes'
JACOPO MASPERO'S CONFESSION. 323
Paris address, and the local habitat of the pros-
perous Frank Hatton, who was stationed for the
summer at the Grand Hotel Hungaria, Buda
Pesth, doing the Danube.
"I'll write to Forrest Grimes to keep a keen
eye on Mr. Rawdon Clark. If I mistake not, he
is the party who has the longest account to settle.
"And, by Jove, I'll send Haddon up to Florence
to mail all my letters there, so that the Roman
light-fingered gentry can not touch them. I'll
send them all through the French Consul, 'recom-
mande' to Freycinet Freres. That will do the
business."
He had pondered for hours upon Agnes Haw-
thorn's strange remarks on the Aguila d' Oro!
In sweeping through the long tunnel he could
again see the vaulted rocky dome of the Blue
Grotto, with its ghastly infiltrated bluish light,
its silvery breaking gleams under the plashing
oar.
"Strange, strange," he mused, "that of the
whole wide world — this fairy basin, with its
forty-foot ceiling, its oval of two hundred by one
hundred feet should have locked me in a life and
324 CAPTAIN LANDON.
death grapple with fate for the one fair woman
of all the world!"
He could see that dear pale face resting on his
shoulder — the silver crystal flood breaking
around her beloved form, and the mirrored bot-
tom, eight fathoms deep, where the fairy coral
hides glittering starfish and the delicate sea
anemone.
"It was as if Lurline and the naiads had given
her back to me, in their fantastic sport with the
mortals who intrude upon the water maiden's one
Imperial bower."
He was dreaming of stern Tiberius, crowned
with blood-red gold, watching his star-eyed fa-
vorites sporting in those silvery blue depths when
the train halted under Monte Porzio.
In half an hour, — he was gazing out of the
windows of his new abode upon the huge dome
of St. Peter's, lifted high in air over the Leonine
city.
Jack Haddon bestirred himself to arrange a
breakfast of due delicacy for the "envoys from
Rome," while Landon, after a shaking down of
his effects, drove back to the station for his
guests !
JACOPO MASPERO'S CONFESSION. 325
The dilettante tourists stood aghast as Hol-
lingsworth and Morgan fell upon the returned
Abyssinian warrior, with shouts of joy.
Merrily the wheels rattled along, as the three
friends were driven around the foliage-shaded
winding road to the Villa Piccolomini.
Charley Hollingsworth's brow was big with
mystery, but he rattled out a piece of information
which brought peals of laughter from the ex-
Pasha.
"I don't know what you've done to Robert
Brandon, but that braying jackass seems be-
witched. He is rushing around Rome, carrying
in commission the very latest rumors in your
case!
"I found him at the American Club telling a
circle of a score of the 'old stand-bys' that your
leaving the Consular service was purely volun-
tary, after all, — that you had been offered a high
appointment in the Regular Army by the Presi-
dent,— and, that you only declined it to accept
a secret Military Mission to Egypt of the gravest
character.
"And," continued Hollingsworth, "the strang-
est thing of all is, that he has actually got from
326 CAPTAIN LANDON.
Stilwell Meacham official copies of your appli-
cation for leave of absence, — your resignation, —
and the State Department's most complimentary
dispatch to you, begging you to recall your tele-
graphed resignation, and offering you six months'
leave of absence."
Landon laughed heartily as he escorted his
guests to the quaint old reception hall of his
mediaeval apartment. He recalled the Egyptian
boy's prescription for his donkey: "Plenty of
stick!"
"Any further 'stir in Rome?' " gaily demanded
Landon, as they sat down to Haddon's splendidly
thrown together breakfast!
"Oh! yes!" gravely replied Charley Hollings-
worth, who had been chattering of Landon's
faithful ally, Elaine, and the two "cherubs," now
the terror of young Rome, with their ingrained
American devilment.
"All this hubbub of Brandon's was a day after
the fair, for Minister Van Buren Hartford gave
a formal dinner at the Legation, at which the
Melvilles and all the leading Americans were
present, as well as the English, French and Ger-
man Ambassadors.
JACOPO MASPERO'S CONFESSION. 327
"I saw both Montaverde and Pallavinci on
hand, too, spangled with decorations.
"Hartford publicly drank your health and
spoke of your remarkable bravery at Gura, — and
of your Pashaship, as well as the Grand Cross of
the Medjidjie!
"He took occasion to nail both lies, the one that
you had gone out of the service under any pres-
sure, and, the other base rumor that he had asked,
you to resign."
Landon's face hardened to stone! He might
have been an Indian on the war path waiting to
bound out, tomahawk in hand!
Hollingsworth quietly added, "Hartford is a
great political trimmer! He drew me aside and
told me that he had been most damnably misin-
formed about you.
"I'll give him a chance to say that, in person,
soon," grimly rejoined the cavalryman.
The trio passed a jolly couple of hours, until
Edwin Morgan drew Landon aside and slipped
a letter into his hand.
"I was told to give you this, in private" he
murmured, "and I've loads to tell you of Mas-
pero. I think that he is getting ready for flight !"
328 CAPTAIN LANDON.
"We must stop that. I need that scoundrel in
the 'round-up,' " quickly said Landon.
Charley Hollingsworth, sauntering up, an-
nounced his intention of driving over alone to
dine with the Princess Branciforte.
"She's one of my earliest Roman flames," the
gay fellow said, "and she always claims me, when
she can, for a dinner of memory, — a sort of
'funeral baked meats,' — of our Platonic fascin-
ation. You men have loads to say to each other."
Morgan wandered out into the garden to locate
the "points de mire" — of the superb panorama,
with Landon's signal glasses, — while the agitated
soldier eagerly broke the seal of Gertrude Mel-
ville's letter. His hands trembled as he read the
fateful lines:
"Agnes is here with me, and insists that I shall
convoy her on to London, where she has taken
a house for the season with Mrs. De Peyster
Van Cortlandt.
"All has been one series of strange surprises
since we returned. Mrs. Brandon has locked her-
self from the world since her husband's disgrace.
Stories of the fracas have been wafted up from
JACOPO MASPERO'S CONFESSION. 329
Naples by the hotel porters and returning tour-
ists.
'The facts are generally known now, — though
the causes are as yet faintly hidden.
"But I have learned from Agnes that it was
Mrs. Brandon who showed her the letters from
America, blackening your name. They are now
in Mrs. Brandon's possession. Agnes has dis-
charged her companion, Mrs. Agatha Waring,
and I have prevailed upon Arthur to escort us
to London together. Elaine Hollingsworth will
take Elsie, and I shall put Mr. Morgan in charge
of our home!
"There are two terrible things to tell, and I
hesitate for very shame.
"Rawdon Clark forced himself upon Agnes at
the Hotel Costanzi, and, after receiving a definite
dismissal, — then broke out into a foul tirade of
abuse.
"He assailed her, with all the bitterness of a
madman: 'You met this sleek adventurer, Lan-
don, at the tomb of Cecilia Metella, — your half-
blind old duenna Montgomery was bribed to play
propriety — and, when surprised in your love-
330 CAPTAIN LANDON.
making, — he shot the poor, unarmed peasant who
stumbled upon you!
" 'Only by threats of the police did the un-
masked rascal clear out, at last!'
"And, shame upon shame, — that very night, —
the night he left for Paris, a messenger placed in
my husband's own hands an anonymous letter :
" 'Your wife could not let her secret lover,
Landon, go away without meeting him once
more at the Fontana di Trevi ! You have been a
hoodwinked fool! Ask her if she went to the
Princess* ball! And, — ask her who was with
her, — who covered her daring intrigue ! Perhaps
your own waiting women can tell you! If you
want the name of the coachman, — the number of
the carriage, — you shall have it! Fool! Drop
the scales from your eyes ! Leave your painting
garret and watch over your home! And, — this
fellow, Landon, laughs over these intrigues! He
left a wide swath in Rome! A military Don
Juan!'
"Now, Arthur Melville is the soul of honor, —
the mirror of manliness, — though often led into
an easy, self-forgetfulness by his artistic nature,
"I have seen the nobility of my husband's na-
JACOPO MASPERO'S CONFESSION. 331
ture in his one remark: "Gertrude, — a grievous
wrong has been done to Landon!'
"As to the letter, he placed it in my hand with-
out a word ! I think it better you should not see
Agnes until you have wrenched the truth from
all these hidden enemies.
"The letter in Mrs. Brandon's hands she will
riot dare to destroy.
"She will keep it to hold it over the one who
hired her to betray her own relative! I think
that you can guess the name !
"But, wait at Frascati till we return! You
and I, and Morgan and the Hollingsworths, will
trap these villains! Send any answer you wish,
by Morgan !"
"I'll have that letter, if I give up my last drop
of heart's blood," sternly said Landon, as he hid
Gertrude Melville's communication in his bosom.
And, then, dismissing all his own cares, — he
joined Morgan and learned the whole story of
Jacopo Maspero's movements.
"I've had him most carefully watched," con-
cluded Edwin Morgan, when he had unveiled all
the doings of the year!
"He has been a secret lover of Emilia, Mrs.
332 CAPTAIN LANDON.
Melville's confidential attendant ! You know what
a beautiful and resolute looking devil she is !
"Of course, he spied upon his master through
her! But, of late, he has been lavishing money
upon 'la Graziana,' — a handsome actress of the
Teatro Apollo! — and, now, Emilia is glooming
alone around the Palazzo Vecchio.
"The other girl, Lucia, often joins the Grazi-
ana and Maspero in their little suppers.
"If you wish to bring this scoundrel Maspero
up with a round turn, now is the time, — for, the
Graziana goes to Paris, and, the office boy, Paolo,
whom I have won over by using money as you
directed, tells me that Maspero's luggage is all
packed !
"He may be mad enough to follow her to Paris
— and, — Clark is there! Paolo tells me that
Clark and Maspero met often at the Hotel
Quirinale."
Sidney Landon bounded to his feet! He
clenched his fists in a sudden rage !
"When do the Melvilles leave for London?"
he demanded.
"To-morrow night!" said the astonished Mor-
gan!
JACOPO MASPERO'S CONFESSION. 333
"Then, Edwin," slowly said the soldier, "I will
come down to Rome to-morrow evening. I will
go to the Hotel Cavour, — near the railway sta-
tion on the Via del Viminale.
"Meet me there at midnight. The Melvilles will
be gone then, and you can bring any letter that
Mrs. Melville may give you.
"Say nothing of my movements to any one.
"I will telegraph now to Colonel and Mrs.
Atwater to come up to Rome, instantly.
"Now, I will go and write my letter to Mrs.
Melville. When do you go down with Hollings-
worth?"
"That depends upon the Princess Branciforte"
laughed Morgan. "Eleven o'clock was the time
agreed upon."
"Good," said Sidney Landon. "One last re-
quest: If Maspero shows any signs of flitting
to-morrow, beg Arthur Melville to have him ar-
rested as an embezzler at once! Watch his
rooms! If the baggage goes out, — tell Melville
that I have the proofs of the rascal's deeds!
And, then, telegraph to me, — I will take the next
train !"
And the two friends beguiled the hours until
334 CAPTAIN LANDON.
dinner in wandering over the mundane paradise
of Prince Torlonia.
They sat in the cool evening hours, under the
watchful stars, awaiting the return of the gay
troubadour, Hollingsworth, when a messenger
dashed up on horseback, with a telegram for "II
Signore Sidney Landon, Villa Piccolomini."
The alert soldier tore open the blue folded strip
and then yelled for Haddon, as he grasped his
top coat and hat!
"Read that, Morgan," he huskily cried!
"Haddon! Catch the nearest carriage! We
take the next train! You will wait here! See
Mr. Hollingsworth off! Tell him he'll find me
at the American Consulate, and to get there at
once! Tell him that something grave has hap-
pened!"
Edwin Morgan was at Landon's side as the
soldier sharply cried to his valet :
"Lock up all here! Bring my luggage and
come down on the first morning train to the
Consulate!"
In five minutes, the two men were dashing
along to the station, repeating to each other the
fateful words of Arthur Melville :
JACOPO MASPERO'S CONFESSION. 335
"Maspero fatally stabbed, by a woman, in the
office, this evening. Come at once. He is lying
here. He asks for you. Hasten. He will only
last a few hours!"
"It is the beginning of the end," hoarsely cried
Landon, as they leaped aboard the train.
Neither of the friends spoke while the little
train rattled off its twelve miles.
But, once at the station in Rome, they leaped
into a carriage, and that Roman Jehu well earned
the golden twenty lire which dazzled his eyes.
As the two friends sprang out at the Palazzo
Vecchio, they brushed aside a half dozen gens-
d'armes who were guarding the lower entrance.
Up the stairway they hastened, to see the gleam
of lights in the main Consular office, and, two
armed men on guard at the door!
At a sign from Consul General Melville, — the
gensd'armes dropped their crossed swords.
There were no words of welcome spoken as
Sidney Landon hastened to the corner, where, ex-
tended upon a mattress, the wounded Italian lay
upon the floor.
Doctor Cesare Corvini was on his knees beside
the sufferer, watching there, with a glass of cor-
dial in his hand.
336 CAPTAIN LANDON.
And, at the other side of the dying man, — a
priest knelt in prayer, while the crucifix and
candles upon Maspero's desk told of the last
solemn rites of the church.
As Landon bent over his secret enemy, — the
Italian turned his dark, glittering eyes upon him
with a hopelessly imploring gaze.
"It is too late," he murmured. "You will not
believe me! I intended to have told you all!
Once at Paris with la Graziana, — I would have
been safe.
"For this pitiful brute, Clark, denied me
money, after I have slaved for him a year !
"I offered to tell him who was with la Sig-
norina Melville, on that night at the Fontana di
Trevi!"
Sidney Landon started back as the wounded
man gasped:
"/ was the beggar whom you drove azvay."
"And why did you hate me?" quietly asked
Landon, holding up a warning finger to Melville,
as Doctor Corvini felt the weakening pulse.
"I knew that you had detected my robberies of
the government funds. The boy Paolo told me
AT THE OTHER SIDE OF THE DYING MAN, A PRIEST
KNELT IN PRAYER.—
JACOPO MASPERO'S CONFESSION. 337
of you and Morgan secretly working over the
books !
"And then, I thought if I could help Clark to
blacken your name, — the one with the golden
hair, up there at the Costanzio, — would throw
you over, and, — you would leave Rome!
"Clark has worked day and night to crush you !
He paid for your blackballing at the club. Mont-
aver de knows all!
"Revenge me upon him, the miserly scoundrel,
and — upon Brandon and his wife, — they were all
in it! Clark promised to make them rich!
Basta! Tutto e finito!
"In my desk," he gasped, "you will find a copy
of your letter to the Signora Hawthorn, — I gave
Clark one!
"I stole all your letters that I could! I paid
for this at the Postoffice with Clark's money."
Landon's face betrayed his horror and disgust.
"Don't curse me! I am dying!" faltered Mas-
pero. "/ was afraid of you! I was led on at
first by gambling to take a little, and, — the
Padrone was so easy, — he never even looked at
a paper! The one theft pushed the other on!
And, too late, when I fell in Clark's hands, I saw
22
338 CAPTAIN LANDON.
that he could always ruin me, — even from a dis-
tance— and,—/ could not strike back! But one
good deed I will leave behind! She loves yon!
The golden hair! There is her letter to you,
when you wrote from Nice for her answer ! She
says:
" 'Come, come to me, at once! I am waiting
for you, — with a loving heart!'
"I would not give the letter to Clark, but, he
had a copy, and — he paid well for it!"
"How did you get that letter?" solemnly de-
manded Landon.
"Emilia stole it, the damned witch, when she
was sent to post it by the Signorina Melville, for
the golden hair was in the house!
"I had to make love to Emilia to get her secrets
for that scoundrel Clark — and, — it is her knife
that has finished me!"
Melville had already opened Maspero's desk —
and he silently handed a pocketbook to Landon.
"All the other papers are gone!" the dying man
whispered. "I was going to run away as soon as
the Consul left, for I could not live without the
Graziana, and I intended to catch Clark in Paris
and frighten him!
JACOPO MASPERO'S CONFESSION. 339
"Dio mio! For ten minutes, alone in a room
with him, with a knife! And, now "
His head fell back in a fit of violent coughing !
They raised him up!
"There is fifteen hundred lire, sewed in my
waistcoat," he muttered. "Give them to Lucia!
She was my poor dupe. Poor girl! She loved
me, and / deceived her! She was true to her
mistress, until love made her — like me — a fool!
Emilia, — may she burn in hell "
His head fell back helplessly, and, with one
long shuddering groan, the spirit passed!
When all the windows were opened, the crowd
below knew that the Angel of Death had entered
the great hall above them !
In half an hour, only the priest, on his knees,
was guarding the body, lying there, with its
arms folded over the breast, now stiffening in
death.
Two gendarmes nodded, in their chairs, at the
door, and a sentinel faced the long hall below !
A dozen squares away, Emilia Cataldo was
wringing her hands and tearing her long, dis-
hevelled hair in agony, for the jailer had put a
death-watch in her cell.
340 CAPTAIN LANDON.
"Your lover is dead," roughly said the brute,
"and, you — go to the piombi for life."
It was long after midnight when Sidney Lan-
don grasped the hands of Doctor Corvini and
Arthur Melville!
"Pledge me" he said, "upon your honor that
you will never repeat this poor wretch's dis-
closures. Morgan has heard nothing! Melville,
let nothing keep you from hastening your wife
and Miss Hawthorn over to London ! Let Mor-
gan guard your home ! / will stay in Rome until
your return!
"Vice Consul General Meacham will attend
to the authorities. I will see this poor devil
buried. Colonel Atwater will be here to-morrow,
and we will see the Minister ! The silence of the
grave is all I ask! My honor, alone, is con-
cerned!"
And when Charley Hollingsworth came dash-
ing in, Morgan and the new comer could only
escort Sidney Landon to the Hotel de Russie.
"Back to Rome, by a strange path," murmured
Landon, when, with a bounding heart, he read the
sweet avowal of Agnes Hawthorn, now a year
old, — "Shall we ever meet at the fountain?"
THE DAY OF RECKONING. 341
CHAPTER XIV.
THE DAY OF RECKONING.
Before noon, the next day, all Rome was ring-
ing with the echoes of the sinister tragedy at the
American Consulate General.
Gertrude Melville and her Rose in Bloom Elsie,
with Miss Agnes Hawthorn, under the escort
of Mr. Stillwell Meacham, — took the noon train
for Florence in order to escape the horror of the
proximity of the dead Deputy Vice Consul
General.
There were the wildest rumors in the banking
and trading fraternity, and a dozen familiar faces
were suddenly missing from money mart and the
"business parlors."
A hurried note of "good-bye" from Gertrude
Melville found Sidney Landon at the Hotel de
Russie, in close conference with Colonel Atwater,
Edwin Morgan and Charley Hollingsworth.
The ex-Pasha trembled and turned pale when
he opened the note sent by the Consul General's
wife.
It read:
342 CAPTAIN LANDON.
"Dear Sidney, — When this horror is over, come
over to Paris and London and see me! You
must!
"There is a duty laid upon me which I will
not shirk! All must be made clear! Send me
a note by Arthur, who follows us to-night !"
Out of that dainty pacquet fell a tiny golden
ring, with the tell-tale inscription, "Agnes," and
there was a folden silken paper, in which was
enwrapped the lace handkerchief of the Queen
of the Night at the Fontana de Trevi. And the
gallant soldier's eyes were dim as he kissed the
little golden ring.
It had been a stern and brief Council of War
up there at the Hotel de Russie.
Morgan had brought along the frightened
young wretch, Paolo, the office boy, who now
confessed all of Maspero's ill deeds. Consular
Clerk Morgan had the whole official proofs of
Maspero's moneyed rascalities, and, too late,
Arthur Melville cursed himself for taking over
"a confidential man" from his easy-going prede-
cessor.
Maspero's crimes varied from extorting double
fees, — levying tribute on sales to tourists, — to
false vouchers for increased office expenses, — and
THE DAY OF RECKONING. 343
thefts of hundreds of dollars monthly from the
postal accounts of the huge office mail.
The postage stamps, regularly purchased, were
duly returned and cashed through Paolo, less a
ten per cent "rake off" to the cash clerk at the
General Italian post office.
A number of special deposits of funds in the
Consulate General had been vainly demanded of
the bankers by the alert Morgan, who learned
that these had been artfully withdrawn by the
dead swindler. Maspero's perfect knowledge of
all local formalities had enabled his frauds to be
adroitly covered up.
"We must see the United States Minister, at
once," exclaimed Sidney Landon. "Melville, you
and I, and Colonel Atwater (as my witness), will
go to him at once.
"Morgan must bring the lad, who seems to
have been terrorized by Maspero, and, under
threats of losing his daily bread, been used as
the cat's paw in all the dirty villainy!"
"And I," — exclaimed Charley Hollingsworth,
"will go to the jail and see the poor devil Emilia
Cataldo. I have known her for years! She will
tell me the whole story of Maspero's villainies.
344 CAPTAIN LANDON.
Then, I have to attend an extraordinary meeting
of the Cercle de Rome ! There is a whirlpool of
excitement in the Italian jeunesse doree, for
Pallavinci desperately wounded Montaverde in
a duel last night!
"It seems that Montaverde made a personal
canvass of the members of the Cercle de Rome,
and then — upon Clark and Brandon's authority,
spread the vile reports which led to the insult
to Captain Landon!"
It was a decidedly mauvais quart d'heure for
the Honorable Van Buren Hartford, when the
Consul General ushered in the visiting party.
The awkwardness of the situation was accent-
uated by Lieutenant Colonel Landon, ex-Pasha,
declining to take the Minister's offered hand, or
to seat himself in the Legation.
"/ am only following Your Excellency's lead"
he grimly remarked. "I have brought Colonel
Miles Atwater here, as my witness, to have you
publicly state that you know nothing derogatory
to my official character. As to your personal
opinion, sir, — it is valueless!"
Colonel Atwater engaged the embarrassed
THE DAY OF RECKONING. 345
Minister in conversation, until Landon again
took up the pas de charge.
"I am leaving Rome, sir. I leave to you — Mr.
Edwin Morgan, with this wretched boy in charge.
"Paolo's evidence, and Mr. Morgan's papers,
will prove to you that this Consulate General has
been robbed for years ! I began to ferret out the
villain's scoundrelism, but was called away before
I had the final proofs!
"Mr. Morgan was ready to denounce and arrest
him, in case of attempted flight, but, the Italian
woman's knife has cut the Gordian knot.
"The local helplessness of this man's superiors
in face of his craft, local affiliations and the help
of all the meaner subordinates, as well as pecu-
lating petty bankers and thieving tradesmen
only proves our need of a trained and intelligent
Consular system.
"I did not wish to officially report this or in-
volve Mr. Melville's administration until I had
absolute proofs ! Mr. Morgan has just completed
them!"
Consul General Melville, with a grave face,
then demanded to be officially relieved until such
time as an Inspector of Consulates had been sent
346 CAPTAIN LANDON.
by the Department to go over the whole matter.
The Minister was glad to be rid of his disturb-
ing visitors. For very shame he dared not face
Sidney Landon, whose cold scorn cut him to the
quick! He dreaded the naming of his secret
adviser and political backer, the Honorable Raw-
don Clark, of the Elkhorn mine.
But Sidney Landon, standing like a duelist at
the mark, only bowed formally, as the Minister
announced the promotion of Edwin Morgan to
Deputy Vice Consul General, and added to Mel-
ville: "I shall put my third attache, Larue Liv-
ingston, in the Consulate General, to watch over
your personal interests, until you return from
London. I authorize you to take a fortnight's
leave! I will personally see that justice is done."
The frightened Paolo was left in the charge
of the Legation Interpreter, subject to the call of
the Police, and the three gentlemen returned to
the Hotel de Russie for their dejeuner.
With a broken voice, Melville faltered his
apologies to Sidney Landon for the outrages of
the past.
"Say no more, dear Melville," cried Landon,
with a glance at Atwater ! "There are only two
THE DAY OF RECKONING. 347
to reckon with, the active villains. You were
hoodwinked and wrought upon ! But, my candid
advice to you is either to personally superintend
your office in future or — else to throw it up! You
will be made the victim of some great black-
guardism, unless you watch the Consulate!"
Both Atwater and Landon were relieved when
Arthur Melville departed, having made a rendez-
vous at the Hotel Metirice in Paris and the Grand
Hotel, London, with the two army friends!
"We have a little bit of business over there,"
grimly said Landon, "and so, we will bring you
the news from Rome."
The comrades were enjoying the after-break-
fast cigar when Morgan broke in upon them !
"Here are letters marked 'Important,' " said
the game fellow, "and I brought them up my-
self!"
"The Police officials have seized and sealed
all Maspero's effects, and, — to-morrow, I begin
a careful examination, with the officers of justice,
of all the dead rascal's papers and belongings !
His peculations show up a hundred thousand lire !
Where did it all go to?
"La Graziana," suggested Sidney Landon.
"Right," mused the new Deputy Vice Consul
348 CAPTAIN LANDON.
General. "She cleared out at daylight, leaving
her maid to bring on her luggage. And, — the
Police tell me that Emilia Cataldo is hopelessly
insane! Poor wretch! She only raves of the
Graziana, and screams her threats to murder her
rival!"
When the faithful Morgan had departed, Lan-
don said:
"Colonel Miles, now get ready for one serious
stroke of business ! All depends upon your stay-
ing power and ability to frighten the one who has
been behind all this mischief."
While the good Colonel made himself ready —
Landon glanced at his letters. He started up in
surprise, as he read Forrest Grimes' brief note,
and ran his eye over a heavily displayed news-
paper slip sent on by the unwearying Hatton from
Buda Pesth ! Both letter and slip told of an im-
pending controversy over the ownership of that
inexhaustible treasure mine known as the "Elk-
horn."
The allegation of a criminally changed survey,
in the interest of Rawdon Clark and associates,
—was lucidly set forth, with the final dictum,
that a verdict against them in the U. S. Circuit
THE DAY OF RECKONING. 319
Court at Denver, would leave the alleged con-
spirators liable for the return of all the millions
heretofore taken from the "Elkhorn."
"It is easy to see," wrote the sardonic Grimes,
"why Clark wished to make sure of the orphaned
millionairess! Agnes Hawthorn's future and
social position would be a safe anchor to help
him ride out this storm !
"I'm told by a Colorado newspaper man here
that the Surveyor and land office officials have
been heavily subsidized by Clark and his gang in
the past!
"If they break on the trial, and let the cat out
of the bag, then, Clark is not only a bankrupt
but may have to take to his heels, as he has done
all the heavy swearing himself. He is now in
Paris at the Hotel Athenee, waiting for the ver-
dict, and, I'm told, that he has taken to drink-
ing heavily, — and now abuses Miss Hawthorn,
openly.
"He claims to have trapped her in some assig-
nation! Q. E. D. — that she has given the dirty
brute the conge ! If I were near enough, I would
wring his neck, on general principles!"
The last spark of mercy faded out of Sidney
350 CAPTAIN LANDON.
Landon's chivalric heart, as he leaped into the
carriage with Colonel Atwater!
The old veteran was got up in a heavy Prince
Albert outfit of sombre magnificence, and his
good gray head sported a glossy "tile."
"If she will not see us?" said the doubting
Atwater.
"She must!" sternly said Landon, as they
rolled along to the Great Emporium of Assisted
Art
It did not escape Landon's quick eye that all
the curtains were dropped and the "persiennes"
closed, — as their equipage rolled into the court-
yard of Brandon's pretentious abode.
Robert Brandon had his weather eye out for
squalls.
A half an hour was spent in "pourparlers"
with the skillfully instructed servants at the door !
The innate grace of Italian lying is an unattain-
able perfection to your raw Anglo-Saxon!
"II Signore Brandon — ah, yes! He- was away
at Venice, — making his sketch of the Grand
Canal for il Signore Clark's great picture, and
would not return for a month !
THE DAY OF RECKONING. 351
"La Signora ill, — very ill, — absolutely unable
to see anyone!"
"Very good!" finally rasped out Landon. "We
will then stay here, in the carriage, — all night!
It is a matter of life and death."
Another half an hour was spent in vainly
fencing with the artful woman spy whom Myra
Brandon had set on to delude the unsuspicious
heiress. Mrs. Agatha Waring tried in vain to
shield her artful "confederate."
At last, Colonel Atwater's temper gave way!
"Madame!" said he. "I dislike to use harsh
measures with a woman! Mrs. Brandon knows
very well what we have come here for, and, now,
I tell you candidly, that we will not leave the
house without it. A frank giving up of what we
seek will prevent Lieutenant Colonel Landon and
myself laying the whole matter, with our proofs,
before the United States Minister here!
"Both Mrs. Melville and Mrs. Hollingsworth
have seen the documents, which we know to be
in Mrs. Brandon's possession !
"Now, Madame, the Melvilles and Miss Haw-
thorn are en route to Paris!
"A telegram will reach them at Meurice's to-
352 CAPTAIN LANDON.
morrow, and, — if that telegram is sent, the further
residence of Mr. and Mrs. Brandon in Rome will
be an impossibility.
"I am an old man, — I will see Mrs. Brandon
alone. She need not be humiliated with Lieu-
tenant Colonel Landon's presence.
"But," his eyes flashed, "by the gods of War,
I'll give her just five minutes to see me, and, to
hand over those papers! She has the last chance
to save herself, and her husband!"
He drew out his watch!
"// she does not yield, I will go up to the
American Club and post Brandon publicly! It's
a case of touch and go!"
While the adroit spy was absent, the two men
studied the artistic misfits upon the walls!
Their agony was mitigated by the return of the
frightened woman, who had been Agnes Haw-
thorn's treacherous guide.
One last imploring demand that the Brandons
should be held scathless was granted, and, then,
Sidney Landon, sternly sad, at this humiliation
of womanhood, went apart with Mrs. Brandon's
woman adjutant when the defeated schemer
loitered into the room.
THE DAY OF RECKONING. 353
For five minutes, there was the sound of sobs
and imploring demands. At last, Colonel At-
water entered the waiting room.
"/ have all the Dora Prindle letters," he gravely
said ; "both of them, — the unsigned one, and the
one addressed directly to Miss Hawthorn! I
recognize Mrs. Prindle's handwriting."
Colonel Landon stood at attention.
"I also want the letters signed by Barker
Bolton, and Burton Wilmot! Mrs. Melville has
told me of them! They were used to disgrace
me with the Minister, and also with Miss Haw-
thorn.
"I also want a signed letter stating that Raw-
don Clark gave Mrs. Brandon these letters, as
a relative of Miss Hawthorn's, to read to her,
so as to terminate our social acquaintance!"
After an hour of hysterics and stormy sorrow,
the foolishly wicked woman, cornered at last,
signed the paper, and tottered out of the room!
In a grave silence, the victors filed down stairs !
"God help poor old 'Black Bill!' This last
disgrace will half kill him!" muttered the loyal
old Colonel. "Prindle has been a good soldier!
And, — my God! what a cross he has carried!"
23
354 CAPTAIN LANDON.
"He shall be held harmless!" cried Landon,
into whose eyes a cruel gleam had stolen. "Give
me the letters!"
And, then, Landon's wrath broke loose as he
gazed upon the artful slanders which had driven
Agnes Hawthorn to scorn him !
"See here! Atwater," he grimly said. "I
want you to leave your wife with the Hollings-
worths! We will slip away from there, and
catch the midnight train for Paris! Rawdon
Clark shall not escape me, this time! He must
not be warned by these lickspittles!"
Colonel Atwater nodded, and they only listened
to the patter of the horses' feet as they raced back
to the Hotel de Russie.
In the garden, Charley Hollingsworth awaited
them!
"I've just returned from the Club meeting!
You have been unanimously elected, Landon, —
and Montaverde has been expelled for dishonor-
able practices against you !
"You and Atwater must now drive around and
leave a card upon the officers and members. The
whole town is ringing with the Maspero tragedy !
"His body has been removed by the Police
THE DAY OF RECKONING. 355
authorities! It's all in vain! The Cataldo is
demented! Poor devil! Italian jealousy is a
raging flood!"
In ten minutes, Hollingsworth understood the
wishes of the avengers.
"Let me handle all," he said. "Mrs. Hollings-
worth will come down here and take Mrs. At-
water up to dinner! I'll post Morgan! He will
be of our party! Keep your rooms here! I'll
send my man, Giuseppe, down here after dark
for your sacs de voyage !
"While I go and post Morgan, — arrange your
little affairs. Mrs. Hollingsworth will come
down daily to Mrs. Atwater in your absence!
"You must keep your rooms, Landon, and I'll
put you on the midnight train, in my carriage!
I'll go and get you through tickets and coupe lits
for Paris !"
In an hour, all was ready, and the three friends
drove around to the Cercle de Rome.
Colonel Atwater's name was duly put up as a
visitor, and Lieutenant Colonel Landon gravely
paid his initiation fees and a year's dues.
A half an hour was spent with the triumphant
Marquis di Pallavinci.
356 CAPTAIN LANDON.
"Poor devil!" he sighed. "Montaverde will
recover, but he is out of the pale, now ! I've no
doubt that Clark paid hard for his dirty work,
for, I learned to-day from the proprietor, that
Clark — the dead Maspero, — and this poor fool
Montaverde, used to have frequent nightly con-
claves at the Quirinale!"
The most startled woman in Rome was Mrs.
Mary Atwater when, after an evening of tri-
umphal celebration, her husband called her aside.
"Landon and I are going to run over to Paris
for four days!
"You are impounded in the care of Mrs. Hol-
lingsworth, and, no one is to know of our
absence! Charley Hollingsworth will be your
cicerone, and, so — leave all to him!"
Mary Atwater's eyes filled with tears as she
threw her arms around her husband.
"Dear little woman!" he fondly said, as he
gave her a bear's hug. "Don't fret! This trip
gives Landon back to his regiment ! I shall tele-
graph to Hatcher to have the President appoint
him, at once!"
And, so, Mary Atwater smiled through her
tears as Colonel Atwater and Landon stole awav
THE DAY OF RECKONING. 357
at half past eleven with Hollingsworth and
Morgan.
"I'll send you all the news to Meurice's," said
Morgan.
"The sensation is growing hourly, and Min-
ister Hartford has been all afternoon at the Con-
sulate General, directing the inquisition into
Maspero's misdeeds!
"He has transferred all the Legation and Con-
sular deposits, 'and will have every governmental
account experted. I find that all the special de-
posits were made in Consul General Melville's
name, and these sly Italians must make good
everything withdrawn by Maspero.
"And, so, — we are getting on famously. I am
getting from Lucia and Paolo the whole details
of Clark's villainy in using Maspero as a tool
to ruin Captain Landon as Vice Consul General."
Colonel Atwater gazed anxiously at Landon's
stern set face as the train rushed along to Mont
Cenis. The young soldier seemed to urge the
carriage forward with every movement of his
lithe, impatient body.
It was on the evening of the second day that
the two men stepped out of the fiacre at Meurice's
358 CAPTAIN LANDON.
Hotel, and then, for the first time, — Sidney Lan-
don spoke of their quest!
He personally dropped a letter into the official
box at the Hotel, addressed to Mrs. Gertrude
Melville, Grand Hotel, London, and, then sent
a carefully registered pacquet to the same address.
The two men gazed expectantly at each other
in the silence of Landon's room !
"Let us lose no time," hoarsely said the young
lover. "He may get away! I would follow him
to Khamschatka rather than lose him now ! Here
is my will, and a few directions !
"Just go down and put these in the Hotel safe,
and have Haddon call a covered carriage."
The old Colonel's face was as grim as when
he led his men into the hell of Spottsylvania, in
the bitter years when all the leaves of the Wilder-
ness were red with hearts' blood.
Landon started up at his return!
"What's your plan, Sidney?" asked the reso-
lute old veteran.
"Haddon will find, if he is in the Hotel
Athenee ! If he is, we will see him at once.
"If not, we can await his return in the court-
yard ; no one knows us there !
THE DAY OF RECKONING. 359
"I've given Jack Haddon, Clark's picture. I
got it at the photographer's in Rome! He will
mark our man down."
"And then?" queried Atwater.
"I want you to let him know who you are! /
will do the rest! I only wish you as a witness !"
"For God's sake! Sidney! Do nothing
rashly!" murmured the old Colonel. "Is this
fellow worth it?"
"Let us go!" wearily replied Landon. "I can-
not wait another moment!"
There was a silence in the carriage as the two
friends drove down into the Rue Scribe, and, at
the Grand Hotel corner, the carriage awaited the
return of Jack Haddon, who was an ordinary
tourist in appearance, in plain clothes.
It seemed an age, that fifteen minutes, till the
agile Briton returned.
" 'E's in the private card room, a-talkin' with
a couple of fellows ! 'E can't get away. It opens
out of the billiard room!"
"Very good" sternly said the master. "You
take the carriage up to the entrance of the court !
You are to show us the billiard room quietly, and,
then wait in the carriage, in the court !"
360 CAPTAIN LANDON.
Five minutes later, the flaneurs in the billiard
hall of the Grand Hotel de 1'Athenee languidly
raised their heads as Colonel Atwater marched
stolidly along to the card room, followed by
Landon, stepping with a panther's springy tread.
His eyes were fixed and staring as he walked
along to meet his mortal enemy.
There were three men sitting in the little room
at a card table, whereon the glasses told of a con-
vivial function.
Rawdon Clark, haggard and fierce-eyed, —
sprang up as Landon quietly closed the door.
Atwater started at the icy coldness of Sidney
Landon's voice.
'7 have come a thousand miles to see you,"
he said, fixing his blazing eyes upon his enemy.
"This is Colonel Atwater, Commander of the
Grays ! You knoiv the Regiment well! We have
some business with you !
"If you wish one of your friends to remain
as a witness, all right."
"We don't propose to move," cried the two
raffish looking fellows, in a truculent chorus.
"All the same, then" coolly replied Landon.
"First, let me tell you," he sharply said to Clark,
STIR XOT, OX YOUR LIVES !"— Page 362.
THE DAY OF RECKONING. 361
"your tool, spy and mail thief — Signore Jacopo
Maspero, lies in the police dead house, at Rome,
killed by the woman you paid to betray Mel-
ville!"
Clark sprang back and made a motion!
"Don't drop that hand, sir!" harshly cried
Colonel Atwater, whose left hand was in his coat
pocket !
There was an ominous silence as the watchful
Atwater moved closer up to Clark.
"You shall listen, sir!" he thundered. "I want
you to know," said Landon, with increasing
scorn, "that Maspero has confessed all, and
turned over to me the proofs of your unutterable
villainy!"
Clark glared around the circle!
"Northam and Witherspoon," he cried, "I want
you to bear witness to this pack of damned lies !"
Ignoring the millionaire's retort, Landon piti-
lessly resumed:
"I recovered from him the letters which you
paid him to steal, — the originals, — which you
could not buy!"
Clark grew white with rage, as Atwater's deep
voice broke in:
362 CAPTAIN LANDON.
"And I forced from Mrs. Myra Brandon your
dirty farrago of lies, — obtained through Wilmot
and Bolton! There's one letter that will make
'Black Bill' hunt you over the world ! / have all
these originals!"
Clark was cornered like a rat! His livid eyes
roved from Atwater to Landon.
He caught a gleam of encouragement from
his raffish guests, who were deceived by At-
water's grave sobriety of dress, and Landon's
still restrained patience.
"And so, you've come all the way here to bully
me about the girl you disgraced, — and, Melville's
light-heeled wife."
There was the sound of a crash as Clark went
down before Sidney Landon's impetuous on-
slaught! But, accustomed to bar-room brawls,
the defeated scoundrel had leaped back!
He rose with a bound, — his murderous eyes
showing the glee of taking the last trick ! There
was the lightning flash of the one idea possessing
him!
To cheat Fate by robbing Agnes Hawthorn
of the man whom she loved !
His hand shot out, — there was the gleam of
THE DAY OF RECKONING. 363
silver steel and the triple click of a pistol lock, —
but only a howl of pain succeeded that ominous
warning.
Miles Atwater had grasped the right hand of
the detected villain!
With one mighty effort, he bent the wrist back,
till the bones snapped, and Rawdon Clark, un-
masked and defeated, dropped into a chair!
"Stir not, on your lives!" cried Landon, as he
covered Witherspoon and Northam with his
pistol.
"Hear me, you lying dog!" mercilessly added
the young soldier. "You abused the woman
whom you pretended to love, with the foulest
suggestions! You wrote that anonymous letter
to Melville, for which he will cut your back to
tatters! You are helpless now, — but, for the
wrong you have done, — I will shoot you like a
rat if you ever cross my path again. Remember
this, you murderous brute! The letter you
tricked out of a foolish woman, goes to her hus-
band ! He will dog you do^vn like a wolf!"
"Take notice from me," broke in Atwater's
growling bass voice. "Prindle is out of the regi-
364 CAPTAIN LANDON.
ment! I shall certify to every one in Rome the
impossibility of your dirty lies about Landon!
"And, by God, your life will pay the penalty
if you abuse my regiment or an officer in it!
Find some corner of the world to hide yourself!
I have prevented Landon from killing you like
a coyote!"
The two men strode out without a glance at
the crestfallen schemer! But, the philosophic
Atwater had coolly picked up Clark's pistol and
quietly pocketed it!
The next day — the Honorable Rawdon Clark
had vanished from Paris, and Colonel Atwater
was homeward bound to Rome.
Over in dingy London, a loving woman was
hiding in her snowy bosom a letter which said :
"I send her letter. Give it to her. Tell her
that I never received it! It was given over by
the dying thief who stole it! I only wait now
for the voice of the past !
"Then, when Agnes Hawthorn has listened to
it, she will know why I could only speak to
her alone ! For, of all women on earth, she done
has the right to know!"
CALLED BACK. 365
CHAPTER XV.
CALLED BACK.
While Sidney Landon recovered his shaken
composure at the Hotel Meurice, Colonel Miles
Atwater stole away and sent an imperative cable-
gram to Major General Rufus Hatcher, Army
and Navy Club, Washington, D. C.
He, then, having dispatched the agile Haddon
to take his through place to Rome, via Mont
Cenis, spent the most of his leisure before train
time in the inditing of a carefully written dis-
patch to General Hatcher:
"We've got the boy sure, now, Rufus," he
gladly wrote, "and, — / think, also, — a valuable
recruit for the Grays. Go ahead and get the ap-
pointment. Cable me, care Consulate General,
Rome ! I am going to stay here and see the thing
through !"
The two army friends passed a solemn half
hour before Haddon reported the carriage ready.
The brisk valet had found time to dart over to
the Athenee.
"This 'ere millionaire chap has cut his stick!
366 CAPTAIN LANDON.
That's flat," was the report which quieted At-
water's apprehensions !
"He is done for," quietly said Landon. "Your
character and presence as Commander of the
Grays kills his dirty gossip, and, — he believes me.
— I think, — in my liberal proposition, to shoot
him at sight!
"But, Miles, he will have no chance! I beg
you to say nothing of my whereabouts. I shall
just have time to catch the steamer at Ches-
bourg! I'll run direct over to St. Louis. I'll
execute the necessary legal papers, see to the dis-
position of the estate, and, then, — notify my law-
yers that I shall send Edwin Morgan over there
to take charge as my agent !"
"And, then?" anxiously demanded Miles At-
water.
"I shall come back to Rome, give Morgan
his instructions, definitely resign the Egyptian
service, and, — probably buy a yacht, and, — sail
around the world!"
"That's some of Wainwright's binnacle non-
sense, my boy," cried the old Colonel, affection-
ately putting his hand on Landon's shoulder.
"Don't you know you're the only son I have!
CALLED BACK. 367
Promise me that you'll do nothing till you see
me!"
"How could I, you dear old grizzly bear?"
fondly replied the younger soldier. "There's
my hand on it! I promise! Don't you see that
I've got to come back for Morgan?"
"Morgan be — blowed!" roared Miles, with an
effort at restraint.
"You'll come back to thank Mary Atwater for
patching you up when the Sioux left their little
marks upon your anatomy, for riding too far
ahead of your squadron!"
"Anyway" laughed Landon. "Love to them
that are at Rome, also !"
But, there was no dissembling when the train
pulled out!
" 'E's a regular out-an'-outer, is Colonel At-
water!" ventured Haddon. "Salt of the earth,
sir ! D'ye know, 'e went himself an' got Colonel
Stanton to telegraph to London to the Horse
Guards for my full pardon, — an', it's on the way,
so I needn't hide now from Her Brittanic
Majesty's stray Sergeant Majors!"
Landon spent his last three hours in Paris in
"literary exercises." They were vain attempts to
368 CAPTAIN LANDON.
produce a satisfactory letter to be read by Miss
Agnes Hawthorn, Grand Hotel, London.
After tearing up some twenty, — the young
cavalryman at last dispatched the briefest one.
Its announcement that he was going upon a
secret business visit of a month to America was
followed by the simple statement that he would
return to Rome to close up his affairs.
"I shall come back to Europe, if only to see
you. Think all the past over, and remember that
I have only asked for your faith in my honor!
You will receive from me, on my return, the story
of which even the Atwaters have been ignorant!
1 can say to you that there will be no one in Rome
to annoy you, — for the one who insulted you and
maligned me, has disappeared, never to return.
"Colonel Atwater can explain to you why!
Suffice it to say, that he has been detected and
betrayed by his spy Maspero on his wretched
deathbed." '
Sidney Landon had reached New York on the
fleet "Ville de Paris," before Colonel Miles At-
water's letter from Rome fully enlightened
Arthur Melville as to the occurrences in Paris.
It was only after perusing Mrs. Mary At-
water's private epistle, that the heiress and her
"other soul" felt free to return to the banks of
CALLED BACK. 369
the Seine, — for the completion of that magnifi-
cent wardrobe, in which dazzling war paint, Miss
Hawthorn was to be presented at Her Majesty's
First Drawing Room.
A fortnight in Paris exhausted Arthur Mel-
ville's leave, and Miss Hawthorn, under escort of
the wife of the First Secretary of our English
Legation, departed again for London, with that
serene self consciousness which Worth and Pin-
gat, alone, can give!
"Far above rubies" is woman's confidence in
correct gowns, — and, — Agnes Hawthorn, now
subject to certain varying palpitations of tfoe
heart, was, all in all, a fond and loving woman.
In all her letters from the Atwaters, — in all
her daily life with the Melvilles, the name of Sid-
ney Landon was artfully tabooed, — it was avoid-
ed as gracefully as the ocean greyhound swerves
away from the ominous iceberg.
And, yet, withal, a cheerful patience seemed
to possess even Forrest Grimes, who had chival-
rously acted as "Big Brother" and Emeritus valet
de place, — both in London and Paris.
He had taken a run over to Paris to say "Good-
bye" to honest Frank Hatton, who had been sum-
24
370 CAPTAIN LANDON.
moned home to Philadelphia to take the responsi-
ble promotion of Assistant Editor-in-Chief of the
Philadelphia Mail.
It was only after telegraphing Colonel Atwater,
in urgent terms, that Hatton received Sidney
Landon's American address.
And, Grimes, as well as Atwater, now knew
that Rawdon Clark had suddenly sold, to an un-
known buyer, — his overshadowing interest in the
Philadelphia Mail.
"Flail no longer, — thank God," said Frank
Hatton, as the two men conferred over Colonel
Atwater's letter, telling them of Rawdon Clark's
miserable villainy, and the open disgrace of the
Paris fracas!
"He's off for Timbuctoo or Kalamazoo!"
cheerfully remarked Grimes.
"I fancy the dog has had his day !"
And, when Grimes put Hatton on the "Pom-
erania," at Havre, he knew that Sidney Landon,
on his way back, had agreed to meet Hatton for
one day in Philadelphia.
"It looks as if the clouds had rolled around at
last, — Frank," mused the overjoyed Grimes.
"And, — the silver lining begins to flash out! I
CALLED BACK. 371
wonder if we shall ever meet again in the Eve-
less Paradise! Who knows!"
"Not as we were," sighed Hatton. "We will
find Sidney Landon a deserter, for I believe in
his next Paradise, — Mademoiselle Eve will be
very much 'en evidence.' '
"And, as for me," he demurely confessed, "I
have a little woman in Philadelphia who has
already written to me that five thousand a year
is enough 'for two!''
"Go to! Go to!" gaily cried Grimes. "They
go, the festive cusses go! Remember! I'm not
chary of my silverware!
"And — so, I will be left to dance in the silk
stockings and play Pontifex Maximus to the
light-headed and light-hearted boys of the Eve-
less Paradise."
As the great steamer swung around, Frank
Hatton, going home to a richer life and a waiting
love, never thought, as he waved his farewells,
that the stern self reliant man, left alone on the
cheerless granite quay, was breathing a prayer
for the loved and lost in fond memories "of one
remembered sunny head," which had so long been
372 CAPTAIN LANDON.
lying low, pillowed in death under the whispering
grasses of the Golden State!
It was seven weeks from the day of Colonel
Atwater's farewell to Sidney Landon, when the
Melvilles, the Hollingsworths and Mrs. Miles At-
water were gathered at the railway station in
Rome, in answer to an adroitly prearranged tele-
gram of the alert Jack Haddon.
Sidney Landon's face flushed as he stepped
from the train, and was enfolded in the vigorous
bear hug of the delighted old veteran!
"You rascal" cried Landon, as his man darted
out, to rescue the luggage from the uniformed
Italian banditti of the railway!
"This is your work!"
"Never mind whose work it is !" cried Colonel
Atwater! "You will see all my guests at the
Hotel de Russie!"
And, much stir was there in Rome over the
triumphal procession of three carriages, while
valet Haddon hid his diminished head, and yet
was overjoyed at the envelope which Colonel At-
water thrust into his hand !
Her Majesty's formal pardon was accentuated
by a crisp £10 note!
CALLED BACK. 373
A bit of moisture dimmed the merry scape-
grace's eyes as he murmured:
"God bless the dear old buffer ! An' he hasn't
got such a lot of them there engravings to throw
away!"
Mrs. Mary Atwater, for once in her life, proved
herself a true daughter of Eve as she triumphantly
sat alone with the returning wanderer!
With artful carelessness, Landon listened, in
the long drive, — to news of every one, including
the wretched aftermath of Maspero's crimes and
the crucial official examination of the Consulate
General's affairs !
One person only was forgotten, and, — that
charming person, strangely, was Miss Agnes
Hawthorn !
Landon was nervously restless, while his gen-
tle tormentor mused :
"My dear wayward boy, you would ride un-
answered to the Alps with me! No information
shall be volunteered as to the golden-haired god-
dess ! Love must find out its own way !"
And, Landon gazed out upon dingy Rome and
held his peace, k>r he could hear the tell-tale beat-
ing of his heart.
374 CAPTAIN LANDON.
The sudden ushering of Landon into a banquet
hall, decorated with the beloved colors of his
country, and graced with the gallant guidons of
the "Grays," in which, "K" troop's battle-stained
silken banner held the proudest place, unmanned
the young soldier.
He sat at the right of the steadfast Mary At-
water, when the old Colonel called the guests to
order !
"This is a strictly military assemblage," the vet-
eran said, "and, so, I claim obedience from all!
I am both the oldest and the ugliest!"
With a ringing voice, he read an official order
of the War Department, reciting the appointment
of Sidney Landon, late Captain — U. S. Cavalry,
to be Major in a certain distinguished staff corps.
The surprised young visitor sprang to his feet,
in astonishment, only to drop, overcome, in his
chair, when Mrs. Atwater handed him a sealed
official envelope.
It contained his transfer as Major from the
staff — to his old Regiment.
"March up, now, sir," whispered the army
wife, through her happy tears, "and, salute your
Colonel!"
CALLED BACK. 375
Landon mused as in a dream, until he faced the
grizzled old warrior, who muttered :
"It was the only way we could find to rake you
in, my boy, and, so — prevent you becoming a
nautical globe trotter, — if that's not an Irish
bull!
"See that you swear in to-morrow, and cable
your acceptance to the War Department ! You've
got two months' leave, and, we will take you
along with us !"
Somebody's eyes were very dim as a hidden
orchestra broke out in the old Regimental march,
which had been Landon's lullaby as he laid long
years before, maimed with the Sioux bullets!
The dinner was positively a riotous one, and,
yet, neither Gertrude Melville nor Elaine Hol-
lingsworth could catch the newly made Major's
wandering eye!
The man who feared nothing, — had become
strangely timid.
It was only when Edwin Morgan entered, as
if by chance, with a huge packet of mail, that
Landon became alert and uneasy!
Rapidly scanning the accumulated pile, he grew
376 CAPTAIN LANDON.
pale as he noted one, which, covered with stamps,
bore the postmarks of California's metropolis.
The ladies had retired under the artful
guidance of Mrs. Atwater, when the Colonel led
Landon aside into a little alcove!
''Sidney, my boy," he said, as his voice trem-
bled. ''Read this cable from General Hatcher,
— and, bless God for such a friend ! Now, in all
your triumphs of the hour, I ask but one favor.
I wish you to give me those two letters of poor
Dora Prindle's.
"Here's a letter from 'Black Bill.' He writes
me from his modest country home, for, he is now
retired for life on two-thirds pay. I'll read it, —
all that you should know." The words touched
Landon's heart:
"Atwater, — I have tried for four years to find
out who was hounding down Captain Landon,
with the anonymous letters and accusations which
have been the regimental mystery ! I always ad-
mired Landon as a soldier ! He will tell you so,
and — you know it! I was always kind to him,
since the days when he joined us, a rosy gradu-
ated cadet ! And, by God, poor as I am, if I can
serve him, or clear his honor, I'll come over the
ocean to tell any one living, — that Landon's
whole life with the Regiment was vuithout a stain!
"The Grays had twenty years of the best of my
CALLED BACK. 377
life, — they're sadly changed now,— our dead lie
scattered in five new states. Landon has been
worried out of the army, — poor Murray Raynor
is the last to fall under the Indian rifle, and, —
my day is done!
"I'll never jump at the sound of 'Boots and
Saddles' again! But, tell Landon that I'll cross
the sea to unearth the liars who vilified him, and
that's all old 'Black Bill' can do !"
Landon's head was bowed upon his hands.
"It has been the sacrifice of a life! Poor old
man! Colonel! I have all the proofs here !" He
tapped his breast! "And, when one person has
seen them, I'll then give you Dora Prindle's let-
ters to destroy! Poor, brave old 'Black Bill/
must never know of his wife's disgrace."
The Colonel, with "one person" in his mind,
raised a joyous shout!
When all the rest came trooping in, the veteran
filled Landon's glass to overflowing.
"Let us drink to the absent," he cried, and
Major Sidney Landon's glass trembled as the
hidden orchestra played softly, "Some day, you'll
call me back again!"
There was no danger of a sentimental revul-
sion, for, for the first time since his graduation.
Colonel Miles Atwater deliberately began to sing,
378 CAPTAIN LANDON.
"Benny Havens, oh !" a performance of such un-
usual musical merit that the sweet-voiced women
all joined in and drowned the old soldier's leonine
roar in a flood of soaring melody.
It was Morgan who handed Colonel Atwater
a cablegram just brought up by the host, in pro-
pria personal
This voluble Boniface had mentally decided
that all the Americans were crazy, — but, — good
paymasters, and, so — unsuspecting sheep to be
closely sheared.
"There you are, — vale Rawdon Clark!" mut-
tered Atwater, as he handed Major Landon the
telegram.
It brought the blood leaping, flame-like, into
Landon's cheeks. It was from Frank Hatton at
Philadelphia.
"United States Court has decided against
Clark. Elkhorn Mine found to be on opposing
company's ground. Order out for Clark's arrest.
The surveyors have all turned State's evidence
and confessed. Clark is a bankrupt and fugitive.
He sailed for South America a week ago, with
the woman who was his go-between in the crime.
Full particulars in Associated Press."
Major Landon drew Morgan aside.
CALLED BACK. 379
"I shall need you all day to-morrow," he said.
"I will borrow you from Melville."
And then he timidly drew near to Gertrude
Melville.
He led that radiant young matron aside, and
explained to her his desire to convey "a certain
letter of great importance" to a certain person in
London!
"I wish your advice," he said. "I could not
risk losing it ! My honor depends upon it! And
— you know, — you can guess why that I can not
go and deliver it, myself!"
The gentle dissembler at his side dropped her
eyes in a sudden confusion.
"Don't go, — Sidney — don't send!" she shame-
facedly said.
"That person will arrive here, as my guest in
three days! You know that all roads lead to
Rome!"
Major Landon raised her two little white
hands and kissed them fondly.
"You are not an angel," he said, "only the next
thing to one, — the dearest woman in the world!"
"Except one" remarked Gertrude Melville, as
she evaded further colloquy. "Come to me to-
380 CAPTAIN LANDON.
morrow at eleven! Give it to me then. And —
she shall receive it at my hands."
When the happy party broke up, Major Lan-
don had learned of the sudden departure of the
Brandons for Venice !
The social atmosphere had been murky around
the Art Exchange, and the greens, reds and yel-
lows now glared upon the walls of an old palazzo
on the Canal Grande !
Some invisible spirit led the excited Landon
out of the hotel in the silence of the night to com-
mune with himself! He wandered on and on,
until, with a start, he paused, as the plashing
waters of the Fountain of Trevi recalled him !
The great, white, silent stars were gleaming
down on the shimmering pool as the lonely man
tossed a coin into the darkening waters!
It flashed yellow in the moonlight !
"/ wonder if gold will break the charm," he
murmured ; "for, I have gold now !
"The unearned increment, — the concrete force
of the world, — the lever of power, — the minister
of pleasure !"
And many old dreams he dreamed over as he
slowly retraced his steps.
CALLED BACK. 381
There was a sensation at the Consulate Gen-
eral the next day, when it was vaguely noised
about that Mr. Edwin Morgan, Deputy Vice Con-
sul General, had abruptly resigned his post and
would leave at once for America.
"A result of the office scandals," cried all the
loungers at the American Club, but, only Atwater,
— Melville — and the suddenly enriched Major,
knew that, to use the vernacular — Edwin Morgan
had "dropped into a good thing."
Major Landon deliberately "sported the oak"
for three long days, — though his table was deeply
covered with cards and invitations!
The pendulum of social favor had swung once
more, and the most romantic tales of his adven-
tures en Pasha floated from club to drawing-room
and all over Rome!
He did not even approach the Palazzo Vecchio,
where he certainly had a free field, for Arthur
Melville, was now an extremist in the official
supervision of his office!
The "painting light" allured him in vain !
But, Major Landon was seen on the Corso, —
in the Borghese Gardens, — on the Pincian, — at
the opera and theater — under the gracefully in-
382 CAPTAIN LANDON.
nocuous escort of Mrs. Atwater and that dashing
matron, — Mrs. Elaine Hollingsworth.
When besieged by the gossips, Charley Hol-
lingsworth only "winked the other eye," and said
nothing.
The Princess Branci forte was in town — and, —
moreover, — he was the escort of Mrs. Melville,
and that returned Queen of Beauty, Miss Agnes
Hawthorn, who was, however, a mere "bird of
passage," en route for her beloved Vienna.
But, behind the flimsy drapery of this social
masking, there was an undercurrent like the
solemn Greek chorus of old.
Agnes Hawthorn, alone, in Gertrude Melville's
shaded boudior, feared to look at her own blush-
ing face in the great pier glass, as she read the
letter addressed to her by the widowed mother
of Ethel Raynor.
The very address, "My dear child," had
touched her heart ! General Hartwell's relict had
neither kith nor kin, since her only daughter,
Ethel Raynor, had laid down her tired head to
rest under the violets of San Rafael.
"I can tell you, — my dear child," she wrote,
"of the cruel work a wicked woman's bitter-
CALLED BACK. 383
hearted gossip. It was this heartless meddling
which darkened two lives.
"General Hartwell took me to visit West Paint,
after the war, when my only child, Ethel, was
seventeen.
"Young Landon was a gallant boy, the Cadet
Adjutant, — the pride of his class, and soon, — in
the chivalric way of the dear old Alma Mater,
he became romantically attached to Ethel!
"Graduating hop, parades, and flirtation walks
found them together! I little dreamed of the
growing devotion of the young soldier, — and the
awakening of a girlish love in my dear child's
heart, then, unfolding like a flower !
"But, General Hartwell was both keen-eyed
and sternly ambitious!
"He whisked us away over to Europe! In
three years, Ethel grew into womanhood. She
had forgotten the impulsive young cadet sweet-
heart, save only to remember him as a graceful
friend of those girlish days.
"Landon was graduated and, away, winning his
spurs on the frontier!
"My husband was a masterful man! It was
in accordance with his ambition and love of pros-
384 CAPTAIN LANDON.
pective rank that Ethel married Major Murray
Raynor, — who was rich, gallant and respected.
"He was congenial, of a fine family, and, with
an especially fortunate future as to promotion.
"Alas ! After the marriage, that promotion to
the Major carried him into the Grays !
"And, — then, some fiend in human form, who
knew of Landon's cadet life, found a means of
mean revenge.
"Gossip, bitter stories, anonymous letters,
tales, and every veiled method of at-
tack drove Murray Raynor nearly crazy.
"My child withered under the brutal persecu-
tion.
"I feared even a collision between the men, for
Captain Landon's grave, distant courtesy was
held to be a covert means of hiding an intrigue
disgraceful to the regiment.
"Major Raynor sent his wife home to me to
escape these slanders. The old cadet-time was
painted in lurid colors. No one could prove who
the author was, — though many suspected some
regimental rivalry to be the cause.
"Alas! Captain Landon was ordered out here
on recruiting duty, and — in the Major's absence.
CALLED BACK. 385
"The anonymous letters and army gossip be-
came even more bitter! It was only after my
husband's death! I brought the two men to-
gether in my presence.
"They, God bless them, understood all the hon-
orable memories of the past !
"With a manly gallantry, Captain Landon
transferred to another regiment ! It was too late!
My darling Ethel sickened under the vulgar abuse
which continued. Her name was soiled — her
gentle heart broken.
"Landon's transfer was now held up as a flight,
— forced by fear of discovery and of Murray
Raynor's revenge !
"When my poor darling died, Major Raynor
was away on the Terry campaign in the Yellow-
stone.
"And, — sad at heart, — I learned from a friend
on the Rio Grande that Captain Landon abruptly
left the army, shocked by the needless tragedy
of my dear child's death!
"Had Major Raynor been with us, when we
laid the light of my life away, he would have led
Landon to his wife's grave as a brother, mourn-
ing with him!
25
386 CAPTAIN LANDON.
"And, then, after Landon's abrupt resignation,
— the stories still pursued him!
"They made Major Raynor a heart-broken
misanthrope! He madly threw his lonely life
away in desperate foolhardy valor, in the Nez
Perce fight!
"And, now, when you read this, know what
woman's inhumanity to woman can be! God
alone knows whose wicked heart pursued these
three unhappy people. I never visited the regi-
ment, and — so am ignorant of any cause.
"I go soon to my darling. I shall pray God
to bless Landon for the delicate manliness which
led him to give up his own cherished Regiment
to remove even the suspicion of nearness to the
dear woman for whom he had cherished only the
ardent school-boy fancy of a West Point cadet!
The blow was directed at him, I know, for
the lies and scandal have followed him out of the
army, and — long after Ethel Raynor had been
wrapped in God's own rest and peace ! And, when
I know that Captain Landon has been hounded
into other lands by this undying malignity, — that
these merciless lies have shaded your fair young
life, — this knowledge, alone, makes me write you,
CALLED BACK. 387
— that your young heart be troubled not! May
God grant that I meet you, together, before I
leave this weary world, and to know that, over
my daughter's grave, I can proudly tell you Sid-
ney Landon has been a mirror of chivalry, — a
pilgrim of honor and a silent sufferer, rather than
shade a woman's name by openly revenging
wrongs that could be traced to no man's hand.
"I fear that I do know whose hand dealt the
blow, — in sheer envy of Ethel, and, may God
forgive her!"
Gertrude Melville wondered not, when the or-
phaned heiress threw her arms around her, and
cried :
"/ must see him! And, I owe my life to him !
I have made him so wretched! Listen, Gert-
rude!"
She read one sentence.
"Here is what Ethel Raynor s mother writes to
me:
"The dead Ethel Raynor's widowed mother
shall make clear Sidney Landon's honor to you,
— for the sake of the beloved child, now taken
away from me, — who only knew him in the gen-
tle glamour of a girlish fancy, — the woman whom
388 CAPTAIN LANDON.
he chivalrously protected, — with a useless devo-
tion, which has cast him out of the army !"
"I have ruined Sidney Landon's happiness,"
cried the golden-haired orphan.
"Do the best you can to repair the wrong!"
demurely answered the lovely matron.
"Will you trust to me ! I know now, from Mrs.
Atwater, that he fears your wealth no more !"
And, then, Agnes Hawthorn, in crimson
blushes, bowed her head, and fled away to read,
once more, — Sidney Landon's letter:
"You, alone, of all women in the world have
the right to know the whole truth."
It was on the following evening that Gertrude
Melville enticed her pensive guest into her car-
riage for a drive under the silvery light of the
pale moon, looking down upon the stern old hills
where countless human tragedies have hallowed
the still enchanted ground.
Agnes Hawthorn was silent! She cared not
whither her hostess was leading her, and, neither
spoke until the carriage halted before the gate-
way of the church of San Sebastian.
There was a tall form waiting there, and,
silently, the trembling girl took the stranger's
CALLED BACK. 389
arm, for a voice which had been echoing in her
heart for months softly said:
"Let us listen, once more, to the song of the
tvaters!"
They stood alone, there together, by the brim-
ming basin, filled with its floating stars, for Mrs.
Gertrude Melville had strangely vanished!
Sidney Landon, turning his head, fancied that
he saw the martial figure of his beloved Colonel,
hidden there in the somber shade of the wall's
deepest angle.
Major Landon took the hand of the silent
woman, and kissed it with a fervor which belied
his calmness.
" 'Agnes," he softly said. "I carried your vio-
lets on my heart, in all the mad rush of that wild
massacre of Gura!
"I sent back to you the letter which never
reached me, the letter which the dying thief re-
turned to me, — through Melville, — only when the
terrors of the Church assailed him, upon his
death bed!
"I have not yet read the letter which you des-
tined as an answer to my heart's one prayer!
And,, here, — now, — beside the faithful fountain
390 CAPTAIN LANDON.
dear to lovers, I ask you to tell me of that letter !"
The beautiful woman smiled up at him, through
her happy tears !
"You alone, of all the world, Sidney," she said,
in a voice soft as the falling dews of night, —
"you alone — had the right to that knowledge ! I
told you, Sidney, — to come,' — to come to me,
here, — at Rome, — that I would believe your sim-
ple word against the whole world" — her voice
faltered, as she placed both her slender hands in
his ardent grasp, — "and, — now, I bid you, stay!"
"There was but one barrier built by pride, my
own darling," the soldier whispered ; "but a jug-
gling Fate has sent me riches unasked! And,
now, as I go back under the silken banners to
bear the honorable burden of a soldier's life, — I
ask you, will you be my wife?"
The noble beauty of the orphan's face thrilled
him, as she proudly said:
"Wherever the road leads, we will walk, please
God, — side by side — and — bear the burden of life
together. / demand the right to atone!"
In some strange way, they found themselves,
with Colonel Atwater and Mrs. Gertrude Mel-
CALLED BACK. 391
ville gazing upon the two, who seemed glorified
in that mystic fairy moonlight !
"// / mistake not" tenderly said the veteran,
as he laid his fatherly hand upon the fair woman's
stately head, "the Grays have gained a new re-
cruit,— and — one who needs a world of Regi-
mental training!"
And, the old Colonel opened his arms, for
Agnes laid her head upon his bosom.
"It is time to go down and report at Head
Quarters" the Colonel dryly remarked.
"And, I give you my first and only order ! See
that it be not long until you are sworn into
'Ours!'"
And, the spirit of the singing waters blessed
them as they went away.
THE END.
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