and shirts at inspection so they can give me a good mark for being a clean and tidy soldier? No! I’ll not enlist. If I’m not good enough to carry a sword I’m not good enough to carry a gun, and the United States Army can struggle along without me.”
Beatrice shook her head.
“Don’t say anything you’ll be sorry for, Royal,” she warned me.
“You don’t understand,” I interrupted. “I’m not saying anything against my own country or our army—how can I? I’ve proved clearly enough that I’m not fit for it. I’m only too grateful, I’ve had three years in the best military school in the world, at my country’s expense, and I’m grateful. Yes, and I’m miserable, too, that I have failed to deserve it.”
I stood up and straightened my shoulders. “But perhaps there are other countries less difficult to please,” I said, “where I can lose myself and be forgotten, and where I can see service. After all, a soldier’s business is to fight, not to sit at a post all day or to do a clerk’s work at Washington.”
Even as I spoke these chance words I seemed to feel the cloud of failure and disgrace passing from me. I saw vaguely a way to redeem myself, and, though I had spoken with bravado and at random, the words stuck in my mind, and my despondency fell from me like a heavy knapsack.
“Come,” I said, cheerfully, “there can be no talk of a holiday for me until I have earned it. You know I would love to stay here now with you and Aunt in the old house, but I have no time to mope and be petted. If you fall down, you must not lie in the road and cry over your bruised shins; you must pick yourself up and go on again, even if you are a bit sore and dirty.”
We said nothing more, but my mind was made up, and when we reached the house I went at once to my room and repacked my trunk for a long journey. It was a leather trunk in which my grandfather used to carry his sword and uniform, and in it I now proudly placed the presentation sword he had bequeathed to me in his will, and my scanty wardrobe and $500 of the money he had left to me. All the rest of his fortune, with the exception of the $2,000 a year he had settled upon me, he had, I am glad to say, bequeathed with the house to Aunt Mary and Beatrice. When I had finished my packing I joined them at supper, and such was my elation at the prospect of at once setting forth to redeem myself, and to seek my fortune, that to me the meal passed most cheerfully. When it was finished, I found the paper of that morning, and spreading it out upon the table began a careful search in the foreign news for what tidings there might be of war.
I told Beatrice what I was doing, and without a word she brought out my old school atlas, and together under the light of the student-lamp we sought out the places mentioned in the foreign despatches, and discussed them, and the chances they might offer me.
There were, I remember, at the time that paper was printed, strained relations existing between France and China over the copper mines in Tonkin; there was a tribal war in Upper Burmah with native troops; there was a threat of complications in the Balkans, but the Balkans, as I have since learned, are always with us and always threatening. Nothing in the paper seemed to offer me the chance I sought, and apparently peace smiled on every other portion of the globe.
“There is always the mounted police in Canada,” I said, tentatively.
“No,” Beatrice answered, quietly, and without asking her reasons I accepted her decision and turned again to the paper. And then my eyes fell on a paragraph which at first I had overlooked—a modest, brief despatch tucked away in a corner, and unremarkable, except for its strange date-line. It was headed, “The Revolt in Honduras.” I pointed to it with my finger, and Beatrice leaned forward with her head close to mine, and we read it together. “Tegucigalpa, June 17th,” it read. “The revolution here has assumed serious proportions. President Alvarez has proclaimed martial law over all provinces, and leaves tomorrow for Santa Barbara, where the Liberal forces under the rebel leader, ex-President Louis Garcia, were last in camp. General Laguerre is coming from Nicaragua to assist Garcia with his foreign legion of 200 men. He has seized the Nancy Miller, belonging to the Isthmian Line, and has fitted her with two Gatling guns. He is reported to be bombarding the towns on his way along the coast, and a detachment of Government troops is marching to Porto Cortez to prevent his landing. His force is chiefly composed of American and other aliens, who believe the overthrow of the present government will be beneficial to foreign residents.”
“General Laguerre!” I cried, eagerly, “that is not a Spanish name. General Laguerre must be a Frenchman. And it says that the men with him are Americans, and that the present government is against all foreigners.”
I drew back from the table with a laugh, and stood smiling at Beatrice, but she shook her head, even though she smiled, too.
“Oh, not that,” she said.
“My dear Beatrice,” I expostulated, “it certainly isn’t right that American interests in—what’s the name of the place—in Honduras, should be jeopardized, is it? And by an ignorant half-breed like this President What’s-his-name? Certainly not. It must be stopped, even if we have to requisition every steamer the Isthmian Line has afloat.”
“Oh, Royal,” Beatrice cried, “you are not serious. No, you wouldn’t, you couldn’t be so foolish. That’s no affair of yours. That’s not your country. Besides, that is not war; it is speculation. You are a gentleman, not a pirate and a filibuster.”
“William Walker was a filibuster,” I answered. “He took Nicaragua with 200 men and held it for two years against 20,000. I must begin somewhere,” I cried, “why not there? A girl can’t understand these things—at least, some girls can’t—but I would have thought you would. What does it matter what I do or where I go?” I broke out, bitterly. “I have made a failure of my life at the very start. I am sick and sore and desperate. I don’t care where I go or what—”
I would have ranted on for some time, no doubt, but that a look from Beatrice stopped me in mid-air, and I stood silent, feeling somewhat foolish.
“I can understand this much,” she said, “that you are a foolish boy. How dare you talk of having made a failure of your life? Your life has not yet begun. You have yet to make it, and to show yourself something more than a boy.” She paused, and then her manner changed, and she came toward me, looking up at me with eyes that were moist and softened with a sweet and troubled tenderness, and she took my hand and held it close in both of hers.
I had never seen her look more beautiful than she did at that moment. If it had been any other woman in the world but her, I would have caught her in my arms and kissed her again and again, but because it was she I could not touch her, but drew back and looked down into her eyes with the sudden great feeling I had for her. And so we stood for a moment, seeing each other as we had never seen each other before. And then she caught her breath quickly and drew away. But she turned her face toward me at once, and looked up at me steadily.
“I am so fond of you, Royal,” she said, bravely, “you know, that—that I cannot bear to think of you doing anything in this world that is not fine and for the best. But if you will be a knight errant, and seek out dangers and fight windmills, promise me to be a true knight and that you will fight only when you must and only on the side that is just, and then you will come back bringing your sheaves with you.”
I did not dare to look at her, but I raised her hand and held the tips of her fingers against my lips, and I promised, but I would have promised anything at that moment.
“If I am to be a knight,” I said, and my voice sounded very hoarse and boyish, so that I hardly recognized it as my own, “you must give me your colors to wear on my lance, and if any other knight thinks his colors fairer, or the lady who gave them more lovely than you, I shall kill him.”
She laughed softly and moved away.
“Of course,” she said, “of course, you must kill him.” She stepped a few feet from me, and, raising her hands to her throat, unfastened a little gold chain which she wore around her neck. She took it off and held it toward me. “Would you like this?” she said. I did not answer, nor did she wait