Tales of Mysteries & Espionage - John Buchan Edition. Buchan John
you as a person of quite exceptional intelligence. There have been times when I considered you one of the two or three most intelligent people in the world… I confess that I am grievously disappointed.”
“No wonder,” said Sandy. “I have always been a bit of an ass.”
“I don’t complain that our aims differ. Your reputation was never that of a thinker. But you were reported to me as a practical man, uncommonly audacious, resourceful, and far-sighted. Now I find that you are audacious—but with the audacity of a crude boy. You have organised a childish little piece of banditry. You think you have fathomed my methods. Why, man, you have not learned the alphabet of them. I have my lines down deep in every country on the globe. The Gran Seco has purchase with every Government. As soon as the news of your doings has gone abroad, you will have the most potent forces set at work to defeat you. The prosperity of the Gran Seco is of vital importance to millions up and down the world. The credit of Governments, the interests of a thousand financial groups are involved. The very people who might otherwise sympathise with you will be forced to combine to break you.”
“True,” said Sandy. “But you realise that your name as our leader will cramp the style of your supporters.”
“Only for a moment. It will not be believed… “
“I am not so sure. Remember, you are a mystery man, Excellency, whom the world has heard of, but does not know. You have been playing a pretty game with the press, but we too have made our plans. The newspapers by this time will be full of character-studies of the Gobernador of the Gran Seco, arranged for by us. In spite of yourself, you are going to get the reputation of a high-souled humanitarian, a cross between Bolivar and Abraham Lincoln. I think we shall get in first with our picture, and—well, you know what the public is. It will be difficult to efface first impressions, and that, I say, will cramp the style of your people and give us time.”
“But what earthly good will time do you? That is my second charge against your intelligence. You have chosen to fight me with weapons so infantile that they will break in a week… What were you and Blenkiron thinking of to put your eggs in this preposterous basket? I have many vulnerable points. I know that, if you do not. You and your friends might have slowly organised the collective stupidity of the world against me. You had your fulcrum in America, and for lever you had all the crude sentimentality of mankind. I have always feared such a crusade. Why did you not attempt it?”
“I will tell you why,” was the answer. “It was because we respected you too sincerely. We knew that we couldn’t beat you at that game. To fight you in parliaments, and cabinet councils, and on the stock exchanges and in the press would have been to fight you on your own chosen ground. We preferred to fight you on our ground. We decided to transfer the whole contest to a sphere in which your genius was not at home. You are the last word in civilisation, Excellency, and you can only be beaten by getting you into the ancient and elementary world where civilisation does not apply.”
The other did not answer for a moment. Something in the words seemed to have started a new train of thought, and his eyes took on a profound abstraction. Then he leaned forward.
“There is method in that,” he said, “I do not quarrel with your policy. But, in the name of all that is rational, where are your weapons? A handful of children, a disloyal colleague who has no doubt worked upon the turbulent element among our white employees, my kidnapping, and the fact that my administration was a somewhat personal matter—these may give you control of the Gran Seco for a day or two. But what then? There are the wealth and the army of Olifa to crush you like a nut on an anvil.”
“Not quite so bad. You underestimate Blenkiron, I think. Remember he has been in the Gran Seco for some time, and he has not been idle. We have the Mines Police, and most of the Mines foremen and engineers. When I left yesterday, the place was as docile as a girls’ school, and there was a very stout heart in our troops.”
“Troops!” the other said. “You may have got your non-commissioned officers, but where can you get the rank-and-file for an army?”
“Where you got your labour, Excellency. Among the old masters of the country. You must have heard of the trouble that the Gran Seco Indians used to give to Olifa. They were never properly conquered till you came along. You policed them and dragooned them, but the dragoons are now on their side. A couple of years more and you would have drained the manhood from them and left then mere shells of men. But at present they are still a people and a fighting people, and they are going to fight for liberty and vengeance. Not against you—they regard you as their saviour, and are wearing your medals round their necks—but against the oppressors of Olifa… I think you lived too much of a sedentary life, Excellency. You took the word of your subordinates too much on trust. If you had lived as I have among the pueblas, you would have been a little afraid of what you found there… Perhaps a little shocked, too… Those rags and tatters of men, used up in the mines and flung on the dustheap! The remnant of manhood left in them is not a gentle thing.”
“But against the army of Olifa! I have made it my business to see that that army is the most efficient for its size in the world. What can your savages and your gunmen do against the last word of science from the laboratory and the factory?”
“Nothing if we fight them in their own way. A good deal, I think, if we fight them in ours. We refuse to meet you on your own ground, Excellency, and you may be certain that we don’t mean to meet the Olifa army on theirs.”
“I cannot follow your riddles.”
“Of course you can’t. This is a very academic discussion we’re having. If you’ll allow me, I’ll explain to you later he general layout. You’re entitled to have everything shown you. It will interest you, as a thinker, for, though you’ll scarcely believe it, we too have our philosophy of life. You are a very wise man, with a large experience of the world, but I believe we can show you something which you know nothing about.”
The other was listening intently. “This wonderful revelation?” he asked. “What is it?”
“The meaning of youth,” was the answer. “You have lived all your life in an elderly world, Excellency. Everything worked by rule, and even your lawlessness was nicely calculated. And all the old stagnant things were your puppets which you could move as you pleased. But there’s another side of which you know nothing at all. You have your science; well, it will be matched against hope and faith and the simplicity that takes chances. We may go down, but we’ll go down cheerfully, and, if we win, by God, we’ll make you a new man.”
A strange look came into the other’s face. He regarded Sandy with a bewilderment in his stern eyes which seemed not altogether unfriendly.
“I cannot quite understand,” he said, as he rose, “why you and your friends did not take the simple course. Since your quarrel is principally with me, a bullet in my head strikes me as the most satisfactory solution.”
Sandy stood before him, a head shorter, a stone or two lighter, looking at the moment half his age. There was a dancing light in his eyes which answered the flickering spark in the other’s. He laid a hand on the Gobernador’s sleeve, as if the great man were a coeval.
“Nonsense!” he said. “We leave murder to your Conquistadors. We think so highly of you that we’re going to have a try at saving your soul.”
II
The wireless station on the plateau received its punctual bulletins of news from the outer world, copies of which were posted up in the mess-hut. From them it appeared that the republic of Olifa was already in the throes of a campaign. War had begun when on the 14th day of June. The city of the Gran Seco had been seized by the rebels, and the whole province was in revolt. The whereabouts of Castor were not known; his lieutenants held the city, but he was reputed to be with the main force of the revolt, somewhere in the hinterland. Olifa had replied to the challenge. Her army was mobilised, and a Gran Seco Expeditionary