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Tag: French Panama Canal fraud

  • A.C. Gunter’s Baron Montez: 25. The Preferred Creditor

    A.C. Gunter’s Baron Montez: 25. The Preferred Creditor

    Welcome to the final dramatic chapter of Baron Montez of Panama and Paris. We witness the culmination of Louise and Harry’s romance and the end of Fernando Montez. Readers have been eagerly anticipating the final revenge against Montez, for every time they pick up the yellow-back novel to read, the cover screams of the lustful, violent crimes he committed.

    Be prepared to be confronted by how the romance of Louise and Harry is treated. For the purposes of securing the desired outcome, Louise must be transformed to meet current societal standards. First, she is coerced, softened by the presentation of three dresses, and as the evening progresses the reader will observe her become increasingly objectified. The narrator is literally lost for words in describing her appearance. Louise is for the most part quiet and acquiescent during the chapter though she strives to maintain her integrity and independence.

    Harry recalls the Roman writer, Livy’s depiction of the rape/abduction of the Sabine women by Romulus to satisfy Rome’s need for females, as if this is a historical precedent for his forceful behaviour towards Louise. Readers of today will be familiar with the scene, it having been re-enacted in various forms in films, for expressing a man’s power over a woman. Louise can’t get a word in, and so far as Harry’s ‘proposal’—he even has the hide to accept it on her behalf.

    The mention of ‘marriage settlements’ may recall from my introduction to Chapter 7 (“NO! BY ETERNAL JUSTICE!” ) the definition of ‘coverture’: the legal doctrine that treated a married woman’s possessions, wages, body and children as property of her husband, available for him to use as he pleased. Coverture gave husbands total control. The use of the word ‘guide’ by both Jessie and Louise is an attempt to mollify the true master/subordinate relationship. After their marriage, Louise asks Harry for permission to spend her money.

    However, though cast through a male point of view, there is an alternative reading mired in the eternal struggle of relations between men and women. Post proposal, Louise says: ‘I shall give you even more trouble than Jessie’, and prior to the evening’s events stated that she would ‘put her best foot forward’. It is not beyond imagination to suggest that Louise has done exactly that, and her show of independence, her steadfastness, is a deliberate move to force the dunderhead Harry to act.

    The pre-marriage arrangements and indeed the marriage itself are treated summarily and finish with a honeymoon in Italy.

    The second part of the chapter dealing with the last moments of Fernando Montez is done in retrospect, similar to the previous chapter, only with the return of Frank to the door of the apartments late at night, having previously escaped his bodyguards. Two other enemies of Montez are present in the final moments. It would be a shame to reveal too much detail—suffice to say that Gunter handles the last moments of our protagonist, at the hands of his former prey, in an imaginative and efficient way.

    The novel has used the French attempt at the construction of the Panama Canal as a background to the adventures within, but the timeline of the story, unfortunately, cannot contain the full extent of real events. Before his demise, Montez assumes that, with the Lottery Bill having passed the Senate, outstanding debts to him for contracts associated with the Canal will be paid. In truth though, this is unlikely. It will take two months of preparation before the Lottery shares are put to the public for sale. On the 11th December, a day before the last day of the sale, Ferdinand De Lesseps himself takes the stage in the hall of his company, which is packed full of desperate investors and declares:

    ‘My friends, the subscription is safe! Our adversaries are confounded! We have no need for the help of financiers! You have saved yourselves by your own exertion! The canal is made!’

    Ferdinand De Lesseps, qtd. in Parker, p183

    De Lesseps leaves the stage in tears and embraces the cheering crowd. The following day Charles De Lesseps, his son, fronted a similar crowd. He informed them that of the 800,000 bonds on offer only 180,000 had been sold, and this being under the minimum requirement, all deposits collected would be returned. This led to the eventual liquidation of the company (Parker, p. 184)

    At the close of the novel is a small epilogue, more an aspirational scene for readers, for the fulfilment of the American Dream. The three major characters stand on a hill looking towards an optimistic future. Louise now has the fortune she should have had all along, and this together with her marriage to man-about-town Harry, has placed her in the social position where she felt she always belonged. The last words are spoken by Frank, who in his derangement mistakes a naval parade on New York’s Hudson River for the opening of the French Panama Canal—of course, an event that in reality never occurs.

    Gunter’s career as a dramatist is reflected in the style of the novel. The previously mentioned objects, such as the enamelled box or the black pocketbook might be props, and Gunter is excellent at staging interactions between characters, and of course, his facility with dialogue is the mainstay of the novel. Consistent with this, perhaps because it would be right before the eyes of an audience watching it on stage, are minimal physical description and use of colour. Apart from descriptions of the flowers of Tabogo Island and the sunset over the rail of the SS Colon earlier in the novel, and Jesse’s blue eyes, the use of colour is limited. The reader may have noticed an absence of descriptions of interiors, the colours of dresses, how Louise wears her hair, what colour it is, or her eyes—all are missing. Also, there is little incidental interaction of characters with their environment. In a sense, Gunter’s work can be viewed as a precursor to film scriptwriting.

    In closing, I would like to thank all the readers who have joined me on this journey through this work of Archibald Clavering Gunter—through the time and world his characters inhabited a hundred and thirty years ago. I would also like to thank Michael Guest for giving me the opportunity to write for Furin Chime and for assisting me edit the text and select images.

    CHAPTER 25

    THE PREFERRED CREDITOR

    Then Mr. Larchmont looks at his watch. He has just time. He springs upstairs to the door of Louise’s room, raps on it, and would shout: “Victory!” but the girl knows his step, and is before him. His face tells its own tale.

    She cries: “You’ve won! Thank Heaven! I—I am so happy for you.”

    “Yes, we’ve won!” answers Harry—“won in full! But to nail our flag over his—I must go at once—I have just time to do it! Goodby—our interview this evening!” His voice grows very tender, and wringing her hand, he mutters: “God bless you! It was all you!”

    Vintage anonymous portrait (ack. Memory Lane)

    By this time he is down the stairs, but at the foot of them he turns and cries: “I’ll attend to your dress!” then opens the front door, springs down the steps, and gets into his brother’s carriage, which has been waiting for him for the last hour.

    In it he drives, with even more than Parisian recklessness, to his American lawyer, Mr. Evarts Barlow, and getting him into his carriage, the two post off to the Paris agents of the New York bankers who hold the American securities of Fernando Montez. At their suggestion, the agency cables their home house, that all the stocks, bonds, and investments of Baron Montez in their hands have been transferred and made over to Harry Sturgis Larchmont, by personal deed of their former owner, properly acknowledged and registered, which they (the agency) now hold; that all further dividends upon said securities, earned now or in future, are to be paid in to Mr. Larchmont’s account, at his bankers in New York.

    This being done, Harry remembers he has another errand, and telling it to his lawyer, the latter laughs: “What?—Parisian modiste, so soon!”

    “Certainly! She’s worn one dress three days running!” replies Harry. Then he says, in a voice that makes Barlow glance very sharply at him: “She’s like a dream in muslin! What will she be under the genius of a Worth or a Felix? You’ve a treat before you tonight!”

    So it comes to pass that, about four o’clock this afternoon, a forewoman of a great Parisian dressmaker calls upon Louise, and presents a note which reads:

    My Dear Miss Minturn:

    With this I send you some robes to choose from. You need not fear the expense. If you take them all, they are easily within your income. I’ll explain the financial part of it this evening. I’ve nailed everything—by your aid.

    “Yours most sincerely,

    HARRY LARCHMONT.

    P. S. Please, for my sake, put on the prettiest tonight. The great lawyer I told you of will call with me—upon your business.”

    This kind of a note dazes the girl. The dresses displayed to her delight but astound her. In her present state of mind, she would send the woman away and tell her: “Tomorrow—any other time!” But Harry’s note says: “For my sake!”

    So Louise looks over the robes, and now the legacy left her by Mother Eve comes into play. The dresses fight their own battle; for they are exquisite conglomerations of tulle and gauze—the tissues and webs of Lyons thrown together by a genius for such effects.

    Just at this moment Jessie adds her efforts to this scene. She comes in and chirps: “My! How lovely!” and looks over the gowns with exclamations of delight, but not of envy. For she cries: “How beautiful you will be this evening!”

    “This evening! Mr. Larchmont has written you?”

    “Yes—this unsatisfactory note, half an hour ago,” pouts Jessie. It only says: ‘Have a nice dinner for four this evening at eight sharp. I shall bring Mr. Evarts Barlow with me.’ Evarts Barlow?—he is one of the great lawyers of Manhattan. I saw him last season. He’s not so old, either,” goes on Jessie, contemplatively. “I think I’ll put my best foot forward. I’ve got some dresses of the Montez trousseau that are rather comme il faut, I imagine. I’ll go at that trousseau and wear it out quick, before I’m promised again. It shan’t do double duty!”

    She goes away, and Louise, thinking of Miss Severn’s remarks about putting her best foot forward, says to her self: “Why should not I do the same? My foot is also a pretty one, I believe!” Then she laughs, for there is something in all these remarks of Mr. Larchmont’s and Jessie’s, that brings a sudden spasm of doubt to an idea that had burned itself into her brain in those hot days on the Isthmus, when Harry had raved in the delirium of the fever.

    Then Mother Eve flying up in this lovely creature, with the assistance of the forewoman, who is very expert in such matters, Louise finds herself in such a toilette by dinnertime, that, looking on herself, she is amazed, per chance a little awed, by her own image; for she is a dream of fairy beauty.

    So Miss Minturn coming down into the great parlor of Franc̗ois Larchmont, with its wealth of bric-a-brac, statues, and paintings, Jessie runs to her and says: “Don’t we contrast just right!—only you overpower me—you have so much esprit!” for Jessie has a dear, generous heart, and there is a great soul in Louise’s eyes this night.

    As they stand together, two gentlemen in evening dress enter and gaze upon them amazed.

    “Great heavens, Larchmont!” whispers the lawyer to Harry. “Why didn’t you tell me I had such pretty clients? I would have worked for them as if inspired.”

    “I—I didn’t know she was quite so pretty, myself!” mutters Harry, who has eyes for only one of them.

    A moment after, the introductions are made, and Barlow and Jessie, followed by Louise and Larchmont, go in to one of those pretty little dinners, that are all the more pleasing because they are not quite banquets.

    As they sit down, Miss Minturn’s thoughts give a jump to the time she first saw the gentleman beside her in evening costume—to the night of the dinner party at Larchmont Delafield’s, when she was not guest, but stenographer. Then recollections bring blushes. It is her pretty shoulders Mr. Larchmont is now looking at, not Miss Severn’s.

    Into this reminiscence Jessie breaks: “Guardy Harry, have you got me into your clutches thoroughly? Are you legally my guardian now?”

    Vintage anonymous portrait (Ack. Memory Lane)

    “Yes!” replies Larchmont. Then he looks curiously but anxiously at Louise, and says: “I am also the guardian of another young lady!”

    “Another ward? You wholesale guardian; who is she?” laughs Jessie.

    “Miss Minturn!”

    “I!” gasps Louise, her eyes growing astonished and almost affrighted.

    “Why, certainly!” remarks Barlow. “I had the order of court made today. You’re only nineteen?”

    “Y-e-s!”

    “Then not of age in Paris, though you may be in America. It was necessary for the proper protection of your interests and property, that a guardian should be appointed. Heiresses must be looked after.”

    “Heiress!—I—?” stammers Louise.

    “Of course,” interjects Harry, “if you don’t like it, you can have someone else appointed tomorrow—Mr. Barlow, for instance—but for tonight,” he rises and bows profoundly to her, “I believe I have the honor of being your guardian and your trustee.”

    Here Jessie suddenly exclaims: “Both Harry’s wards! Delightful! Louise, we can do our lessons together and have the same governess. Half of the present one will be enough for me!”

    “Jessie!” cries Larchmont, sternly, for Louise’s eyes have looked rebellious at the mention of lessons and a governess. “Miss Minturn is a little older than you. This appointment is more form than otherwise.”

    “Oh!—Well, it don’t matter being Harry’s ward,” giggles Miss Severn. “He is a good, indulgent guardian. He lets you do as you like. But if it was Frank!—Whew!—Louise, he might decree that you were only eleven or twelve years old tomorrow morning!”

    “And if you were sullen, kodak you,” interjects Harry, grimly.

    But a scream from Jessie interrupts him. “Oh, goodness!” she ejaculates. “He didn’t get a picture of me!”

    “Yes—a very charming one. It is labelled, ‘L’enfant gâté’. You look as if you were springing at the camera.”

    “And so I was!” mutters poor Jessie. “I thought he had not snapped it in time. Did he really get one?” The tears come into her eyes, and she begs: “Please don’t show it—Please——.”

    “Not if you’re a good, obedient little girl!” says Harry, with great magnanimity.

    As for Louise, she has been silent during this. The word “heiress” has put her into a kind of coma; the term “guardian” has given her a fearful start, and sometimes her eyes look at Harry Larchmont in a half-bashful, half-frightened sort of way.

    Then the conversation runs pleasantly on, Harry telling Barlow of his Isthmus adventures; some of his stories making Miss Minturn, who has gradually been regaining her intellect, blush, though they make her more tender to the man relating them, for they bring back the days she had struggled for his life by his bedside in the room of young George Bovee.

    This talk of the Isthmus leads to talk of the Panama Canal, Barlow remarking: “The Senate will probably pass the Lottery Bill tonight.”

    “That will give the enterprise six months longer to exist, I imagine; but more empty pocketbooks and more bankrupt stockholders, when the inevitable crash comes,” rejoins Larchmont. “By the by, I wonder if the Baron is looking after it this evening! Eh, Jessie? What would you have said to journeying to Italy about now, with his chocolate face beside you?”

    At this Miss Severn shudders, grows pale, but says firmly: “He has kinks in his hair. I would have said, ‘No!’ right in his face, to both notary and priest.”

    With this, as the dinner is over, Miss Jessie rises, and going to the door, turns, and lifting her skirts a little, courtesies, after manner of dancing school children, and says: “I bid you adieu till après le cigar, my guardian!”

    And Louise, who has risen also, a kind of reckless mirth coming to her, follows Jessie’s example, and, courtesying to the floor, murmurs: “Your obedient ward, Monsieur Larchmont!”

    Then the two go off laughing towards the parlor, leaving the gentlemen to cigars and coffee. But they don’t take very long over these, for Barlow says: “We owe a little explanation to Miss Minturn about her affairs.”

    To this Harry replies: “Very well! Let’s get it over!” a curiously anxious look passing over his face.

    Then the two coming into the parlor, Mr. Larchmont takes Jessie aside, and whispers: “Would you mind running upstairs for a little? Mr. Barlow and I have some business with Louise—Miss Minturn.”

    “Shall I not come down again?” falters Jessie.

    “No, perhaps you had better not. Perhaps it would be well to bid Mr. Barlow good evening now! I imagine you have lessons to learn!”

    At which Miss Jessie astonishes him. She says: “Yes, and you have something to say to Louise. But—I’ll be down to congratulate!” and so with a bow to Barlow moves out of the room.

    Then Harry and Mr. Barlow go into a business conversation with Miss Minturn.

    Mr. Larchmont says: “I have received a number of millions of francs in trust for three creditors of Baron Montez. You, Miss Minturn, are the preferred creditor. Your dividend first!”

    “My dividend on what?”

    Here the lawyer remarks: “You are the sole heir to your mother, and she was the sole heir of her parents. They were robbed, I understand from Mr. Larchmont, of sixty thousand dollars on the Isthmus, in 1856. This at interest at six per cent., for thirty-two years, compounded yearly, amounts to nearly four hundred thousand dollars—two millions of francs.”

    “Oh, goodness!—So much?”

    “Certainly!” answers Harry, “I’ve computed it!” and he bows before her, and says: “Behold another American heiress!”

    Here Louise astounds the lawyer and stabs Harry to the heart. She says in broken voice: “You, Mr. Barlow, take it for me—you be my guardian. You can be appointed tomorrow!”

    “Good heavens!” cries Larchmont. “What have I done? Can’t you trust me?”

    “Trust you? Of course I can!” murmurs Louise; “but two wards will be too much for you to guide.” Then she says faintly: “Yes, let Mr. Barlow be my guardian—take care of my money—I’ll leave it to his judgment!”

    “Of course, if you ask it I can hardly refuse,” returns the lawyer; “but you had better think over it till tomorrow.”

    And noting that the girl is strangely agitated, Evarts Barlow remarks: “I will go now, and see you in the morning. Your interests this evening are thoroughly safe in the hands of Mr. Larchmont!”

    So this diplomat makes his bow, and taking Larchmont with him to the hall door, he whispers: “This . strain has been too much for your pretty ward. If you’re not careful, she’ll require the doctor, not the lawyer! I’m afraid she has wounded your feelings.”

    “My heart!” replies Harry, with a sigh. And Barlow bidding him adieu, Larchmont marches in to his fate, and goes into the great parlor where Miss Minturn stands, more beautiful than ever before this evening.

    It is the beauty of resolution.

    As he looks at her, the laces and tissues clinging about her exquisite figure are so still, she would seem a statue, were it not for the quick heaving of a maiden bosom that throbs up white and round and trembling beneath its laces, and a little nervous twitching of lips that should be red, but are now pale. There is a fear in her eye She uplifts a dainty hand almost in warning, for he has come up to her, pride upon his face, agony in his heart, and anguish in his eyes, and said sternly: “How dare you do it?”

    “Do what?”

    “Refuse to accept me as your guardian! Imply I was not worthy of the trust—I, who think more of it than any man upon earth!”

    “Oh,” says the girl, “I presume I can choose my mentor—I have arrived at years of discretion enough for that!” Then she falters: “Let me go away! I—I have saved your bride for you!”

    “Have you?” mutters Harry, surlily. “That’s some little blessing!”

    “Yes—let me go away.”

    “Not out of this house tonight!”

    “Why not?”

    “Because I forbid you! “answers Harry. “Tomorrow you may have Barlow—or anyone else you like—but today the courts of France made me your guardian—and tonight you obey me!”

    “You forget—tomorrow—you are not my guardian then! Let me go! May you be happy!” And, fearing for herself, Louise glides towards the door. But his hand is upon her white arm, and his voice whispers: “Not without me!”

    On this the girl pulls herself away, faces him with eyes that blaze like stars, and stabs him with these cutting words: “Do you want to compel me to run away from you as I did from Montez that awful night?”

    “Why won’t you have me for your guardian?”

    “One ward is enough!”

    “Ah! You are jealous of Jessie!”

    “Pish! Of that child?”

    “Yes—jealous of her!” answers Harry, who has discovered that the Roman way is the only true method of winning this Sabine virgin. Then he astounds and petrifies her, for he murmurs: “You love me!”

    “I? My Heaven! How dare you?” And the girl is before him with flaming eyes.

    But he smites her with: “Because I have your DIARY!”

    “Impossible!”

    “Yes, from Mrs. Winterburn in Panama!”

    “Ah! the traitress!” Louise’s hands fly to her affrighted face; she bows her drooping head, tell-tale blushes cover her face, her neck, and even her snowy shoulders, making what had been glistening white, gleaming pink. But she forces herself to again look at this man, and her eyes seem to be scornful, and disdain is on her lips, as she mutters: “And you dared to read it?”

    “No!”

    “Then how did you discover——?”

    “Ah! I have you—ah!”

    “O Heaven!”

    “A bunch of violets and a card dropped out of it—my tokens of the blizzard. They were mine before—they are mine now!” cries Harry, and pulls them out of his breast and kisses them. Then he says tenderly: “I stole your confession—I give you mine! I love you with my soul! good angel of my life—whose scorn kept me from making a fool of myself in Panama—whose kind nursing saved me from the fever! I love you! Without you for my wife, life has but little for me—what does the kind nurse—who saved it in faraway Panama:—say?”

    And Louise stands fluttering before him—loveliness personified—loveliness astounded—loveliness in doubt—loveliness blushing—loveliness that is about to be happy; for a sturdy arm that has played in many a football game is round her waist, and is giving her such a grip as never Princeton man received in college jouissance.

    Vintage postcard

    The girl gives no answer save a little sigh; she has almost fainted in his arms. But a moment after, her happy eyes seek his, and she falters: “Was it only to save your brother? Was it only to save your fortune you went to Panama?”

    “That at first,” answers Harry, stoutly. “But afterwards I fought to be rich enough to put you in the place in society that you will adorn!” Then he queries: “Shall I continue to be your guardian? Shall I tell Barlow he need not oust me in court tomorrow?”

    “Since you are going to be my permanent guide,” returns the young lady with a piquant moue, “I suppose you might as well get into practice as my guardian.”

    “Then may God treat me as I treat you!”

    There are tears in her beautiful eyes, there are kisses on her cherry lips, as Louise says playfully: “Dear Guardy! I shall give you even more trouble than Jessie!”

    “Then I will cut my guardianship very short!” cries Larchmont, a gleam of joy flying into his face as he walks up to the girl, who can’t now meet his eyes, as his arm goes around her waist again. For he says: “I, Harry Sturgis Larchmont of New York, demand of you, Harry Sturgis Larchmont, at present of Paris, the hand of your ward, Miss Louise Ripley Minturn, in marriage! And I, Harry Sturgis Larchmont, guardian of said young lady, accept your proposition, my worthy young man, for I have a deuced good opinion of you, and solemnly betroth her to you, and announce that the nuptials shall take place WITHIN THE MONTH.”

    “Within the month!” falters Louise. “But I have only known you four!”

    “Yes, but guardians must be obeyed!”

    Then there are more kisses, and Mr. Larchmont walks out, and mutters to himself: “By Jove! that was a harder battle than I had with the Baron this morning!”

    About half an hour afterward, meeting his friend Barlow at the Café de la Paix, he says: “You need not make any motion about that guardianship business! The young lady has had the good taste to accept me, after all!”

    “As a guardian?” asks Barlow, in tones of cross examination.

    “As a husband as well!” remarks Larchmont, “and the sooner you get to work at the wedding settlements, the better it will please both the guardian and ward.”

    The next morning Mr. Larchmont, coming from his apartments on the Boulevard Haussmann, takes Louise, and says to Jessie quite solemnly: “This young lady is to be my wife. As the wife of your guardian you will obey her, eh, rebellious one?”

    But Jessie gives a mocking bow, and laughs: “Oh, I know all about it! She told me last night! We have been talking about you most of the time since. I have promised to be obedient, if she asks me to do just what I want to!”

    “Ah!” replies Harry, “then I shall exhibit the kodak.”

    And Jessie cries: “No! no!”

    But he is in a merry mood, and shows the picture of l’enfant gâté’. to Louise, and they all laugh over it.

    But though Jessie giggles, she also begs; so piteously he gives it to her. Then she tears it into a hundred pieces, and tossing them over her head, dances on them, crying: “That’s how I leave my childhood behind me!” next says: “No more governesses! Eh, Guardy?” with a pleading look.

    “AFTER the wedding!” remarks Mr. Larchmont, for he has thought upon this subject, and he has concluded that a governess for Jessie will be very convenient during the honeymoon.

    But the next morning he is relieved to find Mrs. Dewitt has returned from Switzerland. He introduces her to his coming bride, and this lady is most happy to take charge of Miss Jessie during his wedding tour.

    In one of their numerous communings, within the next day or two, Louise says to Harry: “We are so happy! Can’t we do a little to make others happy?”

    “To whom do you refer?”

    “To a dear little friend of mine in New York, who is going to be married also, Miss Sally Broughton,” answers Louise. “Could I send her a thousand dollars?”

    “Of course! ten thousand if you like. It’s your money, dearest,” answers Harry, cheerfully.

    “Oh, thank you!” replies Louise. “A thousand is enough. It will mean a great deal to Mrs. Alfred Tompkins.”

    “So Sally is going to marry Tompkins!” remarks Larchmont, grimly. Then he suddenly continues: “Tompkins was the man who shook his fist at me when he saw me sail away on the Colon with you? Eh?” and his eyes ask awful questions.

    “Y-e-s!”

    “Ho-oh!” Then Larchmont smiles a little and says: “Any other gentleman you want to do a good turn?”

    “Yes, to George Bovee, who nursed you on the Isthmus so tenderly—who was such a good chum to you out there. He is growing pale also—someday he may have the fever, and there will be no one to nurse him. Could not you?—you need someone to manage your affairs—” For Harry had been complaining about the amount of business that had suddenly come upon him, from his brother’s incapacity.

    “Oh, I cabled George yesterday; he is now on his way to Paris!”

    “On his way already?”

    “Yes, so as to be my best man.”

    “Oh,” cries Louise, “you are always talking of the wedding!”

    “Of course! I am always thinking of it!”

    Probably Louise is too, for she and Jessie are driving about town, from milliner to dressmaker, and dressmaker to jeweller; and all the gorgeous paraphernalia of a mighty trousseau is being manufactured in this the town of trousseaux, as fast as nimble fingers of French working women can put together things worthy of the beauty of the bride.

    So one morning, at the American Legation, Louise Minturn is married to Harry Larchmont, and Evarts Barlow, who has stayed over for the ceremony, gives the bride away. George Bovee stands behind his old chum of the Isthmus, with Miss Jessie, the only bridesmaid, but with the concentrated beauty of six average ones in her pretty self.

    Then bride and bridegroom go to Italy—southern Italy and the isles of the Mediterranean—where they see palms and orange trees, and dream they are in Panama—but there is no fever! And coming back from this trip, they linger out the happy autumn time in Paris.

    But one evening Francois Leroy Larchmont, in a careless moment of his keepers, escapes from them, and is out all night. The next morning, he comes back with a sleepy look upon his face.

    But Harry Larchmont, reading the morning journals, gives an awful start! Two days after, the whole party are en route for America, taking the brother, whose mind is now permanently gone, with them.

    * * *

    Crushed, defeated, but not altogether subdued and dismayed, Baron Montez staggered down the steps of the Larchmont mansion.

    The next day he calls at the American embassy, and delivering up his order, receives, after identification, a sealed envelope, which he tears open, and finds his pocketbook—not one memorandum gone, and his eyes glisten.

    He thinks: “With this I have enough to feed upon the vitals of this republic. Some of their public men are in my power!” Besides, his fortune, outside of his American investments, is large, and the Lottery Bill almost immediately passes the Senate of France and becomes a law. He receives large sums of money, delinquent payments due from the Canal Company, and though he is forced, by the record of the ledgers Louise has taken, to make some restitution to Aguilla, still, as he does not make restitution to anyone else, his fortune is enormous.

    Though the shares of the Canal go down and down, he has no interest in them, and lives the life of a gay bachelor in Paris.

    In the course of time, the deluded investors will take no more lottery bonds, and in December an assignment is made to a receiver, and the work practically stops on the Canal Interoceanic.

    As this happens, Fernando Montez becomes possessed of a shadow. Though he does not know it, as he walks along the boulevards, a shabby creature slinks along behind him. When he goes to the opera or theatre, the creature is waiting for him as he comes out. This unfortunate one evening stands outside the gay Café de la Paix, with its flashing lights, and sees Montez eating the meal of Lucullus. As Fernando comes out, well fed, contented, even happy, this shabby creature mutters to himself: “Nom de Dieu! for his dinner he paid more money than I saved in my whole first year of deprivation!”

    Excelsior. Eden-Théâtre, c. 1890

    And Bastien Lefort, the miser, who has been sold out of his glove store on the Rue Rivoli, utterly ruined by his grand investment in the Canal Interoceanic, follows, shivering with cold, and brushing the snow off his rags, the steps of the well-dressed, debonnair, and happy Baron Montez.

    But there is another—a black man with snowy wool, and two great red gashes upon his cheeks, and a form bent by age, but strong with hate. He comes alongside Lefort and whispers: “How now, miser! Are you on the track of your enemy? I, Domingo of Porto Bello, have come a long way to see him, also!”

    And the two become bloodhounds, and follow the Baron Montez of Panama all that evening to the haunts of gay bachelors in Paris: to the Eden Theatre, where there is a ballet; to the Palais Royal, where he laughs at a suggestive farce. But whenever he comes to the streets—these two dog his footsteps.

    So it comes to pass, late that night, returning from a petit souper with some fair sirens of the gay world of Paris, who are very kind to rich men, Montez enters his apartments, to find his valet is not in them, and mutters to himself:

    “The worthless beast! I will discharge him tomorrow!”

    Then Fernando sits down to await the coming of Herr Wernig; for these two are hunting in couples again.

    So Montez meditates and is happy; but, chancing to think of his lost American securities, he utters a snort of savage remembrance, and taking the poker in his hands breaks up the coals burning in his porcelain ornamental stove—and as the blaze flickers up, thinks he sees a face. He starts and gazes round, and sees three faces—the faces of the wronged, the faces of the past—Domingo’s pirate head, the miser’s wistful face, and the pallid cheeks and big eyes of the lunatic, Franc̗ois Larchmont.

    Fernando thinks it a dream. The lunatic says with cunning chuckle: “I enticed your valet away, my dear Baron—ha, ha!—and let myself in with my old passkey—you forgot the passkey—ha, ha! I was coming in here to do your business myself—but these two gentlemen joined me—ho! ho! ho!”

    THEN MONTEZ’ DREAM BECOMES REAL!

    He springs up to cry out and defend himself—but the lunatic’s hands close round his throat, and the voice of a madman cries: “Oh, ho! my friend! Baron Montez of Panama and Paris!”

    And though Montez struggles he cannot say anything, and his eyes have despair in them, for three men have surrounded him. He sees, half in a dream, the form of Domingo, the ex-pirate, whom he has robbed, who whispers in hoarse voice: “Ah, ha!—the punishment of the buccaneer—who steals from his fellows!”

    Vintage anonymous mugshot

    And the miser cries: “For the gold of my ruined life!”

    Then a surging is in his ears; there is the report of a pistol, and three forms glide out into the darkness; and on the floor, his own revolver in his hand, lies the form that was once—Baron Montez of Panama and Paris!

    A few minutes after, his old chum, Alsatius Wernig, comes in with laughing voice and merry mood, crying: “Oh, ho! my dear Fernando! you leave your door open. You should be careful! You might be robbed!” then utters a horrified “Mein Gott!” and staggers from the prostrate form before him. Next he says slowly, with pale lips: “Murder! If they have stolen the pocketbook!” With this his hand, trembling, goes deep into the bosom of the dead man, and he gives a gasp of joy as it draws forth the black pocketbook of Montez.

    Then Wernig mutters: “In other hands, this would have been my ruin! But now!” and the German’s form becomes larger, and his eyes grow luminous with coming potency, as he jeers: “I own the secrets of many Deputies and some Ministers! I will bleed them till they die! I will be rich forever. I hold the politics—perhaps the destinies—of France!”

    Then he cautiously leaves the room, and none see him come down the stairs.

    The next morning it is reported that Montez of Panama must have committed suicide—though it is hinted to the police not to make too thorough an investigation of the affair—some of the powers that be seeming to fear Baron Montez, dead as he is, will rise up like Banquo’s ghost.

    But Herr Wernig lives on the fat of the land, and bleeds some of the potentates of France, right and left. He spares not Ministers nor Deputies who have been bribed, and would keep on so forever; but one day, years afterward, scandal comes, and investigation follows, and he flies from France, fearing that more than any other country upon earth—the country he has debauched and plundered. For the foreign adventurers who came to Paris, lured by the millions spent or squandered upon the Canal, were the greediest, the most devouring—the Swiss, the German, the man of all nations.

    * * *

    One afternoon in 1892, in the autumn, there is a great naval parade upon the Hudson River, and the flags of all nations are thrown into the air from vessels belonging to the great countries of the world.

    And from a private retreat, situated on the Palisades overlooking the river, kept by a doctor well known for his skill in treating diseases of the mind, a gentleman comes forth onto the lawn. He is very elaborately dressed in the latest fashion, and seems happy, as he should be, for a beautiful woman and handsome man walk by his side, and he calls them sister and brother. He looks over the great river, and jabbers, “Ha!” to the guns.

    Then, seeing the flag of France, he cries: “It is the opening of the Panama Canal! Montez was right! My dividends! My dividends!” And gazing over the beautiful Hudson he chuckles: “Mon Dieu! What a glorious canal this is at my feet! What dividends we’ll make! Hurrah for De Lesseps, Franc̗ois Leroy Larchmont, and Baron Montez of Panama and Paris!”

    Notes and References

    • modiste: a fashionable milliner or dressmaker
    • comme il faut: behaving or dressing in the right way in public according to formal rules of social behaviour
    • Lucullus: Lucius Licinius (ˈluːsɪəs lɪˈsɪnɪəs). 110–56 BC, Roman general and consul, famous for his luxurious banquets.
    • petit souper: French – a little supper
    • Banquo’s ghost: Shakespear’s Macbeth Act 3, Scene 4: During a banquet, Macbeth is horrified to see the ghost of Banquo sitting in his place at the table.

    Parker, M. Hell’s Gorge: The Battle to Build the Panama Canal (London: Arrow Books, 2008).

    This edition © 2021 Furin Chime, Brian Armour

  • A.C. Gunter’s Baron Montez: 23. The Honor of France

    A.C. Gunter’s Baron Montez: 23. The Honor of France

    The previous chapter closed dramatically with a frightened and frantic Louise at the door of Larchmont’s hotel clutching ‘THE BULKY, BIG POCKETBOOK OF BARON FERNANDO MONTEZ!’ Gunter’s decision to end the previous chapter like this, with Louise rejoining Harry, means that this coming chapter falls into retrospective: detailing how Louise came to have the object in question. Another writer might have ended Chapter 22 in an alternative way, promoting ongoing suspense—for example, a simple mysterious knock on the door—and preserving the concurrent narrative streams until the close of the new chapter, where Louise might return to Harry, triumphant in having secured evidence against Montez.

    However, Gunter has chosen otherwise. This action-filled chapter ends in a somewhat deflated manner, with the narrator editorializing on ‘The Honor of France’, though why Louise or any character, with the exception of Sebastien Lefort, should give two hoots about that is a mystery. Discussion of what might have been is pointless, yet it is worth considering, as Gunter, the writer, made the decision. Perhaps he thought that the previous chapter, dealing with the details of Frank Larchmont’s behaviour and mental illness, lacked dramatic intensity. Also, the reader will note, the narrator, as if unable to tolerate any suspense, attempts to elevate the melodrama mid-chapter with an outburst.

    We know Louise is smart and fluent in four languages, and now she proves herself to be something of a forensic accountant, as well as a stealthy and cunning thief. She remains resolute in her mission despite the dangers surrounding her.

    Herr Wernig, the Franco-German, now simply German, makes an appearance and in heated words with Montez, we discover his interest in bribing some French parliamentary Deputies. The physical action between the two is largely handled well, what might be expected of a tussle between two older men, while Louise plays the silent part of ghost in the shadows.

    Lillian Gish in The Wind (1928)

    Gunter’s portrayal of a central female character is laudable—possessed with the freedom to act independently, with purpose and will. Louise has done the hard yards. She discovered evidence to link Montez to the murder of her grandparents, took the confession of the terrible Domingo, and now acquires the one thing that will save the day, at great risk to her own personal safety. Yet above all, there appear to be impediments to an enhanced view of womankind—it is still a man’s world. At the height of the action Louise is reduced to being a `trembling girl’.

    These deprecating descriptors usually occur when the female character is under duress or in a tenuous position. Gunter is not averse to a touch of voyeurism, as we have seen previously with Jesse in children’s clothes, observed by a male through a camera viewfinder. At the close of this chapter, there is the morocco-bound black pocketbook ‘clasped to [Louise’s] fair, panting breast’. In comparison, we have Harry, our knight in shining armour, who in the course of the adventure has nearly died and, it could be argued, was indirectly the cause of Mademoiselle Bébé’s death. If it weren’t for Louise, he might not have survived at all, though she did owe him one for rescuing her from the snow. From the close of this chapter on, Louise takes the back seat, and it is Harry who has control.

    After reading, spare a thought for the condition of a character whom we shall see no more, the recently introduced, kind-hearted clerk, Gascoigne, who at the close of the chapter still lies on the floor of the offices of Montez, Aguilla et Cie. unconscious.

    CHAPTER 23

    THE HONOR OF FRANCE

    Miss Louise Minturn arrives in Paris on schedule time. The weather has been very pleasant—the sun bright. She has sailed over a summer sea; so it comes to pass, that early one morning, in the latter part of May, arriving by the Chemin de Fer de l’Quest she drives straight from the Rue Saint Lazare, and presents her letter of introduction from Aguilla, to Monsieur Jacques Pichoir, a shopkeeper, who has a jewelry store on the Boulevard des Italiens, and a comfortable home nearby on the Rue Laffite.

    By this gentleman she is most cordially received. Besides being an old friend, he is under considerable trade obligations to Aguilla, whose letter is a pressing one; therefore Louise shortly afterward finds herself very comfortably domiciled with the family of the jeweller. At noon that day, she stating that her business is pressing, he kindly takes her through the crowds congregating about that temple of Paris speculation, the Bourse, to the office of Montez, Aguilla et Cie., on the Rue Vivienne, just off the Boulevard Montmartre.

    Parisian Street Scene, Jean Béraud (1885) [View of Boulevard des Italiens from corner of Rue Laffitte]

    Here she presents her business letter from Aguilla in Panama, to the manager, one Achille Gascoigne, and is informed by him that Baron Montez sails this very day from New York on the Normandie. He has just received a cable to that effect.

    This news is received by Louise with a sigh of relief, though she succeeds in making it inaudible.

    Then Monsieur Gascoigne, begging her to be seated, examines her despatches from Panama, and looks a little troubled. They are direct orders from the junior partner, for the bearer of the letter, Mademoiselle Minturn, to make such copies of the ledgers as she has been directed; and, furthermore, for Monsieur Gascoigne himself to certify to their correctness. Still that gentleman hesitates.

    He would cable Baron Montez, if that were possible, but his chief is on the ocean.

    He comes in and suggests affably, for Achille Gascoigne is a man of compromises: “Mademoiselle Minturn, you had better wait until Baron Montez arrives.”

    “Impossible!” falters the girl, and her heart nearly stops beating at the suggestion.

    “Why not? You can have a pleasant time in gay Paris for a week. Your salary will, of course, go on!”

    “In a week I must be on my way back to Panama!” says Louise, determinedly, almost desperately. “You have your written orders from the junior partner of the firm. I have mine also. If I do not obey them—” here feminine artifice comes to her, and she mutters: “I shall lose my position!” tears in her lovely eyes—partly those of artifice, partly those of disappointment.

    This remark about losing her position impresses itself upon Gascoigne, for he has also a very good one. He is now between two millstones. He does not know what Montez will say to this; but he knows very well what Aguilla will say to disobedience of his orders.

    “I would cable——” he murmurs hesitatingly.

    “Cable!” answers Louise. “That’s right! Cable Panama quickly, if you have any doubt of my authority and my directions.”

    “I will do so,” murmurs Gascoigne. “You will excuse me—it is a matter of such importance!”

    He cables, and receives such an answer from Aguilla, that the next morning he throws open the old ledgers of the firm, in hurry and trepidation, to the young lady’s prying eyes and ready pen.

    These back ledgers are all kept in an office adjoining the private one of the firm; a door opens into it, so that ready access can be had to the books in case it should be necessary to refer to them. These ledgers are locked up in a large safe. This is opened, and they are placed at Miss Minturn’s disposal.

    Then the girl finds an enormous work before her. She has four months of very heavy and diverse transactions to take down from that great ledger. It must be done before Montez’ arrival.

    She works at this from early morning until they close the office; and, telling Gascoigne she must labor at night, this gentleman kindly unlocks the office and safe doors for her in the evening, as he goes to some place of amusement; and coming back, on his return from café chantant, or operetta, or some other nocturnal enjoyment, puts away the ledgers, lets the young lady out, and locks up. For her evening visits Louise hires a carriage. Promenading the streets of Paris alone at night would be very unpleasant for a lady, and Aguilla has told her to spare no expense.

    While looking over these accounts, the name of Franc̗ois Leroy Larchmont comes under her eyes, and in copying the ledger, the peculiarity of the entries astonishes her. Wonderment comes into her face—then, sudden hope.

    So in making memoranda of the general ledger for Aguilla, she takes a complete account, through all the back years, as the ledgers are at her hand, of the transactions in stocks of the Panama Canal and other securities, made for Francois Leroy Larchmont, and thinks: “Perhaps these are what Harry wants.”

    These accounts, she unites with the general accounts of the firm, and gets Monsieur Gascoigne’s signature to their correctness before a notary, day by day, ostensibly for the use of Aguilla in Panama.

    But time has flown! While she has been doing this work in Paris, the two steamers, one bearing Baron Fernando Montez from New York, and the other bringing Harry Sturgis Larchmont from Colon, are ploughing their way towards the shores of France.

    The S.S. La Touraine of the French Line at sea (1891), Antonio Nicolo Gasparo Jacobsen

    The days have passed rapidly. Louise has forgotten that Montez will shortly be due, and one evening, having been let in to do this work, she scribbles away until eleven o’clock, and looking up, with tired hands and pallid face, murmurs: “It is done, thank God, in time!”

    IS IT?

    Then she waits for Monsieur Gascoigne to come and lock up the place, and let her out.

    But in the silence of the night, voices come to her, and she hears two steps instead of one. Her cheeks grow suddenly ashen, she hurriedly turns out the light in her room; for one is the voice of Baron Fernando Montez of Panama, and the other that of Herr Alsatius Wernig of Paris. Both are angry and excited.

    The girl’s lips tremble; she wonders: “What will Montez do to me when he finds me here alone, at night, and unprotected—a spy upon him?”

    As she thinks, she thrusts her memoranda made this evening into her pocket. Suddenly there is a match struck; the gas blazes in the next room, the private office of the firm. Then the voices of the man of all nations, and the German, come to her; for the door is slightly open.

    She peeps in. The Baron is in travelling costume, a little grip-sack in his hand; the German, in the full evening dress of the Boulevards, with white vest, snowy shirt, diamond studs, and opera hat and coat.

    Montez says : ” My friend, if you will permit me, I will go and have a little dinner. I simply drove here direct from the Gare Saint Lazare to get my mail, and I find you waiting at the door of my office for me.”

    “Yes, I knew you would come here first,” answers the German, “and I made up my mind to see you before you saw anyone else. The Lottery Bill has passed the Chamber of Deputies.”

    “Of course—two weeks ago! But not the Senate,” remarks Montez. “That will come later.”

    “To be sure! And now I come to you for my dividend!”

    “Your dividend on what?”

    “My dividend on the money left from what you received to assist the passing of this bill. The money you did not give to press writers or deputies—the residue—the large residue!”

    Then he goes on, laughingly: “Ah, you are a deep one, Montez! You made this Franc̗ois Leroy Larchmont your tool. While bribery and corruption have been going on, you who directed it were not even in Paris—you were in Panama! Ah, you are safe forever! But I wish a little statement of your accounts! You know I was to have my share!”

    “Oh!” laughs Fernando, unlocking the safe in the private office and selecting his mail, which has been kept for him in an inner and stronger compartment. “Call tomorrow and get it. At present, I am going to my dinner!”

    He looks over the documents waiting for him carefully—among them are two long envelopes, very carefully sealed.

    “To dinner?” echoes Wernig, gazing curiously at the envelopes.

    “Yes, to dinner, of course—or supper—I don’t carewhat you call it. I’m hungry after my railroad journey from Havre. Will you join me in a petit souper at the Café de Paris? We cannot have the company of Mademoiselle Bébé. You have heard, I suppose, the sad news that she died in Panama?” rejoins Montez, producing a handkerchief and wiping his eyes as if affected. Then he opens the two envelopes, draws out his black pocketbook and deftly places their contents within its morocco binding; next, as it is now very full, secures it with a rubber guard.

    “What do I care about your Mademoiselle Bébés, or your suppers at the Paris?” says the German.

    “No?” and Montez throws the residue of his mail back into the safe and locks it; and gazing at the pocketbook, a curious triumph in his eye, is returning it to his pocket. He says affably, “If you are not going to supper, I am.”

    “Not yet,” growls the German.

    “Why?”

    “If you get away from me now, I know you will have accounts to show me that will prove you have spent all the money upon the journalists and the deputies,” answers Alsatius Wernig. Then he says slowly but doggedly: “My share I have now!”

    “Permit me to go to supper,” returns Fernando. Then facing the German, he says: “I have no accounts with me this evening!”

    “You have those accounts in that black pocketbook!” cries Wernig. Louise can see Montez’ delicate fingers tremble as they clutch the morocco thing he holds in his hands. “That contains everything I want!” snarls the German, his eye with the cast growing bright. “Let me look at them now! Give me a statement before you get away to prepare another!”

    “Impossible!” and Montez’ eyes flash fire. “You are a fool, Herr Wernig, to refuse my offer to supper!”

    “Why?”

    “Because”— here Fernando’s hand goes slowly behind him—”that is all you will get!”

    But, quick as a flash, Wernig has seized a ruler from an office desk, and struck the hand Montez has behind him, and his pistol drops to the floor.

    Then the German, who is stronger, seizes the little man by the throat, and clutches for the pocketbook; but Montez, struggling, holds it up, away from the German. So the two, fighting, one like a bear, and the other like a tiger cat, writhe and wrestle, each moment coming nearer the door that is ajar—the one leading to the room where a trembling girl stands gazing through the crevice, with dilated eyes of curious resolution, one dainty arm upraised, as if for action.

    And they struggle nearer, Montez holding his hand behind him—the right one that grips the pocketbook; and nearer still, until he is forced back, and his right hand is pushed through the opening door into the other room, and there is a quick rustle of feminine draperies, and a quick clutch upon his hand, and he shrieks: “Good God, Wernig! It’s gone!”

    The Fight (1896), print by James Ensor (cropped)

    “What’s gone? A ruse!”

    “No! Let me go! Someone has taken it! The black pocketbook that holds the safety of us both!”

    But the other cries out: “It is a ruse! You cannot fool Alsatius so!” and squeezes Montez all the closer.

    But the Baron tears himself loose, and throws open the door, and cries: “Where is it? There was some one here!” And the two cautiously grope about the floor and corners of the dark room.

    Then they start up with a cry, for there is a noise of closing doors of the office, and they rush to the door and shake it, and kick it, and throw their bodies against it; but it has been locked upon them from—the outside.

    On this they turn and gaze upon each other—these two conspirators; and both grow pale, as Montez gasps: “My God! If the secrets of that book come out, we will be torn in pieces by the Paris mob!”

    “We?”

    “Yes! It is the record of the bribed Deputies!” sighs Montez. Then he laughs ironically: “With your name as well as mine attached to it!”

    “Mein Gott!”

    And the two men imprisoned glare at each other, and drops of perspiration gather on their brows—as they whisper with trembling lips: “What is to be done?”

    But a moment later there is a step upon the stairs, and the door is unlocked and thrown open, and Monsieur Gascoigne enters the office, saying: “Mademoiselle Minturn, are you finished?”

    To him Montez screams: “Mademoiselle Minturn! Explain—what do you mean?”

    “Why, the girl from Panama!”

    “She has stolen my pocketbook!”

    “Yes, and taken record of your ledgers, also!” gasps Gascoigne.

    “Fool! Dolt! Idiot! Misérable!” shrieks the Baron, the blood of Morgan’s desperado coming into his eyes, and he and Wernig fall upon the astonished clerk, and beat him, and strike him insensible.

    Then Wernig whispers: “I go to notify the police of the stolen pocketbook!” and would run out.

    But Montez stays him, whispering: “No, no!” as if in fright.

    “Why not? It is a theft!”

    “But if France knows WHAT is stolen? Do you think the populace will spare us foreigners who have debauched their Deputies? If the tribunals of justice get that pocketbook in their hands, it is we who shall suffer. No, no! No notice! I have another way,” mutters Montez.

    So leaving Wernig, pale and unnerved, he calls a cab and goes fast as horse can carry him, and waking up one of the great Ministers of France, tells him of the pocket book, and to his affrighted exclamations whispers: “If it falls into wrong hands, your head also—HIGH AS IT IS!”

    And so it might be; for Louise Minturn, as she drives, not to her dwelling at the Rue Lafitte, for she guesses that may be searched, but towards the hotel on the Boulevard Malesherbes, the place where Harry Larchmont will be, if he is in Paris, carries, clasped to her fair, panting breast, not only the secrets of Baron Montez, but THE HONOR OF FRANCE!

    Notes

    morocco: a fine, pebble-grained leather, originally made in Morocco from goatskin tanned with sumac. Dictionary.com

    This edition © 2021 Furin Chime, Brian Armour

  • A.C. Gunter’s Baron Montez: 21. After Her!

    A.C. Gunter’s Baron Montez: 21. After Her!

    As the title suggests, this chapter, the last in Book Three has a sense of haste and urgency about it. Louise has to navigate a series of diverse interactions and does so skillfully and with a will, including another encounter with Domingo in which she deftly uses his own vernacular to deflect him from the truth. The previous night’s episode with a drunk Domingo has wrought a profound change in Louise. She appears now as self-realized, confident and independent in her thought and actions, acting some contemporary female readers might say, like a driven man.

    Harry is recovering and is well enough to read the cable he has received. The situation is becoming desperate for young Jessie as Harry’s brother has started wedding arrangements. We come to appreciate that Harry is thicker than we thought when it comes to Louise’s feelings toward him, and is only enlightened by his friend Bovee’s observations. Despite Louise’s explanations as to what has occurred and that she has to act immediately, Harry is still too ill to do anything and seeks her promise to wait until he is well. This is expressed in dialogue that is attributed, not to Harry, but to ‘the man’, the intimation being that this is ‘what a typical male might say’. Louise has other ideas. Louise has been put in an invidious situation but she responds well, with new adventurous vigor invested with her desire for vengeance. Louise has a mission.

    In an ‘impressive’ meeting with Aguilla, Louise is informed that Montez and himself sold their shares in the Canal Interoceanic in the first four months of 1881. This is when the shares would have been at their most inflated value. December 7th, the previous year having seen the first share offering of the company. The stock issue of 600,000 shares at 500 francs each had been heavily promoted—there were picnics and conferences hosted by De Lesseps, hot-air balloons streaming advertisements, handbills issued with grocery purchases, offers of a silver medal to those who were assigned five shares or more.

    The Panama Canal: having fled France to escape the results of his mismanagement of the canal’s financing, Dr Cornelius Herz escapes extradition on the ground that he has a terminal illness, and lives happily in Bournemouth for fifteen years. Satirical watercolour drawing by H.S. Robert, ca. 1897. See n. Chapter 18.

    In addition, the press had been bribed with a million and a half francs, so that all the leading journals lauded the project. The enterprise took hold in the hearts of the French people and 100,000 citizens subscribed for the 1,206,609 shares on offer, 80,000 of these being small investors. As the share issue was seriously oversubscribed, many people were left still hungry to be a part of the great French enterprise (Parker, p. 97-98). Such a person was Gunter’s character Sebastien LeFort, the Parisian glovemaker, who was desperate not to miss out on the once in a lifetime opportunity. This saw enormous speculation on the Bourse for shares, of which obviously, Montez has taken full advantage. Though it is difficult to determine what exactly the functions of Montez, Aguilla et Cie have been since that time, requiring an office in Panama and the employment of three clerks, Aguilla is seriously rattled at the prospect of Montez getting his hands on the company books.

    The chapter is designed to initialize action that will stimulate the reader to anticipate Book 4. With Louise’s departure, Gunter has spawned a parallel narrative stream, which he will utilize in a future chapter. This method permits the author to condense time, skip unnecessary description, and instill curiosity in the reader afresh as the story progresses. Gunter concentrates on only one long sea voyage, and return to Paris, aptly filled with Harry’s convalescence. Once more our narrator cannot contain his excitement and uses upper-case letters to entice readers onward with great expectations.

    CHAPTER 21

    AFTER HER!

    Some little time after this, the girl lying half swooning over her typewriter, by an effort, forces her mind to its work once more, and taking the awful dictation with her, goes tremblingly out of the building, and is happy to find herself in the streets, with people moving about.

    This terrible tale has affected her nerves, and she shudders, turning corners, even on the open streets of Panama, for she sees the Macagua snake in her imagination, and a woman crazy with despair holding it on high, pursuing the shrieking Montez in the hut, careless as to which one it gives death. But the very horror of the tragedy ultimately gives her strength. She thinks of the cruel fate of Alice Ripley, and determines to avenge it, and this nerves her to do things Louise Minturn could hardly have brought herself to do, until Domingo the ex-pirate had told his awful story to her shuddering ears.

    Young Fer-de-lance (Bothrops Asper), Photo by Hugo Brightling on Unsplash

    She is so excited, that she fears her agitation may communicate itself to the invalid. She knows this night she is no fit nurse for anyone.

    So she sends a message to the young American, Bovee, in whose room Harry Larchmont still lies; and, receiving word that the invalid is doing very well, remains at home and goes to bed herself.

    The next morning she awakes her usual self; for youth and hope give brightness to the eyes and elasticity to the step of this fair young maiden—even in this sickly town of Panama—now that Harry Larchmont is getting well.

    She comes into the sickroom quite cheerily this morning, and is very happy, for the patient is much better. A moment after, the doctor, who is present also, says to her inquiring glance: “Yes, you can give him the cablegram now.”

    This she does, and is sorry for it.

    Glancing at it, the sick man utters a faint cry, and tries to struggle up in his bed.

    “What’s the matter?” whispers the doctor, seizing him.

    “My brother!” shouts Larchmont, agitation giving him for a moment strength. “My heaven! He is wax in Montez’ hands! I must go to Paris at once, or he will marry her to that villain before I get there! It’s—it’s a cable from Jessie.”

    These words put a knife in Louise Minturn’s heart.

    After a little, when the doctor has quieted the patient, telling him he will soon be able to travel, she mutters: “I must go!” And despite Harry’s pleadings for more of her society, falters from the room to her office labors at Montez, Aguilla et Cie., murmuring to herself in broken voice: “How anxious he is to get back to theside of his love—the girl in Paris! All he fears is that he will lose her!”

    At the office she contrives to get through her work, which is very little just now, though Aguilla says : “In a few minutes I will have something to say to you!”

    She is at her typewriter. Suddenly she shudders; Domingo stands before her.

    The wine has left him now, and he says insinuatingly, a cunning gleam in his eyes: “What did I do last night? Did you see me? Did the old drunkard swear to any wild tale, eh, muchacha bonita?”

    The girl, steadying herself, replies: “No, though you might have—you had a letter to write, old Domingo—only you were a little overcome with wine—too much to speak it to the air. If you will tell it to me now, I will put it down for you.”

    “Oh, I told you nothing—that was well! Never believe the stories of the drunkard!” he chuckles. “But I have a letter to write to mi amigo, Baron Montez—one he will not bless you for sending.”

    And he dictates one to her, of a threatening kind, in case he shall lose his gold that he has saved during his many years, and be left in his old age without money to buy for him the pleasures of life. This finished, he snarls: “Send that to Montez with the compliments of Domingo of Porto Bello!” and goes off to the wine shop, for there is still some money in his pockets.

    Thinking over the matter, Louise is glad she has given him no hint of his revelation. Domingo drunk, and Domingo sober, are two different creatures. Domingo drunk will babble his awful tale into her pretty ears: Domingo sober will cut her white throat for telling it.

    A moment after, she hears something from Aguilla that expels for the moment all thought of the ex-pirate from her mind.

    He leads her cautiously into his private office, and says: “This that I tell you is a secret. I have been kind to you, while you have been here, have I not?” and pats her hand as if to beg a favor.

    “Yes,” answers Louise, “very kind and considerate, and I thank you for it.”

    “Then in my extremity, remember it! You are the only one I can trust to do this thing. My clerks here are either those who might betray me, or have not that certainty of character that is necessary in this delicate mission.”

    “What do you wish?” asks the girl, nervously; for his manner is impressive.

    “This! and remember—I am placing my fortune in your hands—the fortune of my family that I have worked all these years to gain! I want you to prevent my partner, Baron Montez”—here his voice grows very low—“from ruining me!”

    “Ruining you?”

    “Sh—sh! Not so loud! Yes. What he has done here, to those about him, makes me know I am not safe in his hands. I fear he will destroy the ledgers of our firm in Paris, because those ledgers show that I am rich—not as he is—but still enough. There is but one chance for me. You must go to Paris!”

    “To Paris!” gasps Louise, then thinking of the invalid still pale and weak and needing her nursing, she mutters, “Impossible!”

    “Imperative!” answers Aguilla. “You must leave tonight!”

    “But my patient?”

    “Leave him here. He is out of danger, I am not. My salvation depends on your acting for me—in time! I shall give you tickets for the fast steamer leaving Colon tomorrow morning, to connect at St. Thomas with the English line for Southampton. The British ship calls at Cherbourg. From there go to Paris, immediately! At the office of Montez, Aguilla et Cie., deliver to the gentleman in charge, Monsieur Gascoigne, my written order for you to examine the ledgers of the firm, and take off certain reports therefrom.”

    “But,” stammers Louise, “Montez is there. If he means to do what you fear, he will refuse!”

    “Montez is not in Paris! He did not go there direct. He will stop two weeks in New York—that is our chance! You will get there, probably, a week before him! In that time you must take a record of the ledgers for the first four months of 1881. That was the time when we sold out most of our stock and got clear of Canal Interoceanic. Have your excerpts attested by Monsieur Gascoigne before a notary. Then if Montez destroys the books or loses the books—or they fly away into the air, I am safe—I have the records!—he cannot rob me!”

    “But why not go yourself?”

    “At this moment it is impossible! My wife and child are sick—perhaps dying—I cannot leave them! There is no time but now! I must trust to you! Will you do it?”

    “Yes, if possible!” cries Louise, a sudden wild thought in her brain. “I will tell you in an hour!”

    “Very well! If you will not go, I must try and get someone else, though I know of none who would do as well!” murmurs Aguilla.

    Then the girl flies off to the bedside of Harry Larchmont.

    “What does the doctor say about your going to Paris?” she asks hurriedly.

    “Not for a week yet—at best!”

    “Then I will go to Paris for you!”

    “You? How will you prevent Baron Montez marrying Jessie Severn?” and the invalid stabs his nurse again.

    “Do you suppose you could control my brother?” he goes on reflectively, “who is now either fool or imbecile, in Paris?”

    “No, but I can do something else for you!” murmurs the girl, whose lips tremble at the mention of Miss Severn’s name. “You told me once, you wanted the secrets of Baron Montez. What secret do you want most?”

    “The most important to me,” murmurs Larchmont, “would be the real or true record of his transactions with my brother. The statements he has furnished Frank, I have looked over; they are incomprehensible, involved, vague. I do not believe them true!”

    “I will betray them to you!”

    “Impossible!”

    “I will betray Baron Montez to you! I will use my confidential position to destroy him!” cries Louise, her face excited.

    “Oh, no!” answers the man. “You told me your business honor would prevent your doing that!” Then he falters: “Not even to save me a fortune or my brother his honor, will I permit you to do what you may one day blush for!”

    “My business honor is to business men—not monsters, murderers, and bandits!” answers the girl, the light of passion coming into her eyes. “I will destroy this man as he has destroyed those of my blood—remorselessly as he did them!” and she tells him the story of Domingo, the ex-pirate, and the mission that Aguilla would give her in Paris.

    But he whispers: “No! no! Montez would kill you, if you brought danger upon him! For my sake, do not go!” and kisses his nurse’s hand, murmuring “Promise!”

    “I must go!”

    “Not till I go with you. Promise!”

    But she does not understand, and breaks away from him; but lingers at the door and kisses her hand to him, though her face says farewell.

    From Harry’s side she flies back to Aguilla and says: “I accept. I will do what you wish, faithfully and truly!”

    “Then I have hope!” answers the Frenchman, and chuckles in his bourgeois way “I knew you would! You are a true girl! I have had everything prepared! Here are your tickets to Paris, complete in every particular. Here is money for your expenses!” And he gives her more gold than she has ever had in one lump in her life before. “Spare no expense. This letter to the firm will give you the opportunities you want, if you get to Paris before Montez—that is the vital point!”

    Then she suddenly says: “Where shall I stay in Paris? A young lady alone, I am told, is very unpleasantly situated.”

    “I will give you a letter to a friend of mine, a man of family,” answers Aguilla. Writing this last and handing it to her, he gives her another thrill—for he says: “You must leave this afternoon!”

    “This afternoon?” ejaculates Louise.

    “In two hours! The steamer leaves Colon tomorrow morning, and time is vital!”

    “Then get a carriage for me,” answers Miss Minturn, who having once made decision carries it to the end. This being done she flies to the house of Martinez the notary, and astonishes them all. She says she is going away.

     “Next month?”

    “No, now!”

    “Now? Sanctus Dominus!” And the Spanish family, not accustomed to haste, jabber excitedly about her as she packs her trunk. Feeling she has not strength to say good-by to the man for whose sake she is really going, Louise scribbles a hasty note of farewell to Harry Larchmont; and even while writing it, Aguilla has come for her with a carriage—he is in such a hurry.

    The two drive down to the railroad, the Frenchman repeating his instructions as he puts her on the train.

    Then Louise Minturn, as the cars run out of Panama, the excitement of departure leaving her, falters: “Who would have thought it this morning? I am going to Paris to fight Harry’s battle—to win his love for him—to win her fortune back!”

    Her lovely eyes cannot see for the tears, and she murmurs: “God help me! The happier I make him, the more unhappy I make myself! I wonder if he will ever know?” Then determination coming to her, she cries: “I pray God not!”

    Vampire (orig. Love and Pain), 1893, Edvard Munch

    That evening a little note is brought to Harry Larchmont, as he lies in his cot, in the town of Panama, and he mutters: “Louise has broken her promise! She has left me! She has gone where danger and death may come upon her!”

    “Calm yourself, Harry!” says his friend Bovee; “she has only gone to Paris, and Paris is not fatal to all pretty women.”

    “But you don’t know—he may kill her!”

    “He—who?”

    “Baron Montez!”

    At this his friend looks curiously at him, and thinks he is raving again; so curiously that Harry says: “You need not fear. My head is as sane as yours, only—God help me! She has left me!”

    “Oh, you’re convalescent now—you can get along without your nurse!” laughs Bovee.

    “Not when I love her!” answers Larchmont. “Love her with my heart and my soul!”

    “Then,” says Bovee, after a pause of astonishment: “I can give you better medicine than the doctor—the best medicine in the world!”

    “What’s that?”

    “She loves you!”

    “My God! What makes you think?”

    “She’s awfully jealous of that little girl in Paris—and between ourselves you’ve given her very good reason in your delirium ravings.”

    “Jealous of Jessie? Ha! ha! Ho! ho! The darling!—jealous of my brother’s little ward! This is lovely; this is funny! This is delightful,” laughs the invalid.

    “You wouldn’t laugh if you’d seen her look at you when you were raving about the other girl,” mutters Bovee who is an observer.

    “I brought tears to her?” murmurs Harry.

    “Yes!”

    “Then as God’s above me, those tears shall be her last!”

    “All right! To keep your oath pull yourself together, get well, and we’ll ship you off to Paris after her!” answers his friend.

    Which Mr. Larchmont does, and a week after Miss Minturn has sailed from Colon, Harry reaches that place, to follow her to Paris. He is much stronger now, and the sea-breeze adds to his strength, day by day, as he sails to cooler climes.

    He carries with him something that keeps his mind occupied during the voyage.

    As he is leaving Panama, right at the depot, Mrs. Winterburn catches him. She cries eagerly, for the locomotive has already whistled: “Here’s something my husband says belongs to Louise;” and gives him the beautiful string of pearls found in the powder canister. “And here’s something Miss Minturn left in the hurry of bolting. It’s a book of writing: she had only an hour to pack, and forgot it.” With this Susie presses into Larchmont’s hand a large manuscript volume.

    “Great goodness! It’s her diary!” he gasps, gazing at the outside of it, and would give it back to Mrs. Winterburn, but the train is already moving, for a curiosity has come upon him of which he is afraid.

    But he locks the book up in his trunk, and fights with himself, saying: “No, no. I’ll not—read this—if I die of wanting.” But one day as he moves it, gazing at it with longing eyes, some things fall out of it.

    With a cry of love and joy he picks them up and look ing on them mutters: “These are mine—they were mine before they were hers.” And goes about happy but expectant. They are his bunch of violets and card of the blizzard.

    And so, coming into Paris, about six o’clock in the evening, of an early June day, Harry Larchmont is pretty much his old self again, though his face is still pale, and there is a very anxious expression in his eyes.

    Driving up to the hotel of his brother in the Boulevard Malesherbes, near the Park Monceau, he is let in by Robert the old-time servitor, with exclamations of delight and welcome, and finds something that astounds him—that something that often comes to us—the great—the UNEXPECTED!

    Notes and Reference

    • muchacha bonita: pretty girl

    Parker, M. Hell’s Gorge: The Battle to Build the Panama Canal (London: Arrow Books, 2007).

    This edition © 2021 Furin Chime, Brian Armour

  • A.C. Gunter’s Baron Montez: 20. Domingo of Porto Bello

    A.C. Gunter’s Baron Montez: 20. Domingo of Porto Bello

    In a gradual increase in intensity over the past chapters two relics have been revealed. First the tintype image of Alice Ripley, then the contents of the powder canister: a string of pearls and a note inscribed in blood on a cuff. These have only reinforced Louise’s belief, first raised by Harry, that Montez is responsible for her grandparents’ death. And now the oldest and living relic of the times will tell his tale. He, who was old and in retirement when Montez chanced to recruit him on the beach decades ago, with the promise of banditti work. His reply: ‘Si, Señor, mouches dinero, mouches sangui, mouches Domingo’.

    Calling Domingo, which means ‘Sunday’ in Spanish, an ex-pirate is a bit of a stretch as readers know he was only a cabin boy on one of Jean Laffite’s ships. Jean Laffite and his brother, Pierre were not called pirates, but smugglers, buccaneers and privateers, not of the same ilk as Henry Morgan and Blackbeard or other blood-thirsty swashbucklers from an earlier time. On the contrary, though described as ferocious against enemies, Jean Laffite was considered a gentleman, suave, fashionable and highly intelligent (Canwright). After relieving a ship of its loot, whether gold, silver, other goods or slaves, if he could not make use of the vessel, He was known to return a ship to the captain and his crew (Davis, pp. 44-95). Following the purchase of Louisiana by the United States an embargo on the importation goods was put in place in 1807. The Laffite brothers, long-term residents and well connected amongst the plantation owners and merchants of New Orleans, set up a smuggling operation on the island of Barataria. Barataria which lies to the north of New Orleans harbour is connected by a narrow passage navigable only by barge (Ramsay pp. 33,37-39). In due course, they purchased a schooner and outfitted it with guns, eventually commanding a fleet of seven ships. Laffite assisted during the War of Independence by blocking the entrance to the Mississippi River, and participating in the Battle of New Orleans in 1815. Andrew Jackson commended him for his ‘courage and fidelity’ (Ramsay pp. 2,14).

    Jean Laffite, Anon. portrait, early 19th c

    Domingo would make an interesting psychological study. Gunter introduced him as ‘a gentleman with a pirate countenance adorned by two fearful scars, with a stalwart black frame, and a stout black heart beating in his black body’. Likely an orphan, perhaps due to diseases such as Yellow Fever or Malaria, he may have fled from the Caribbean Islands to seek safety in Louisiana as many natives did. Left to wander the streets of Panama, eventually falling in with a crew of Laffite’s, perhaps acquiring in the process a father figure, at the very least an acceptable code of conduct: that of taking, rather than earning an existence, which later he would express in banditti work on the Cruces trail with Montez. A big boy, all his insecurities and childhood resentments contained in an intimidating brutal exterior. He now calls himself ‘Domingo of Porto Bello’ perhaps to distinguish himself from other `Domingos’—a last name as it were, or again maybe in Porto Bello he has found a sense of place in this world.

    It was Domingo who shot Louise’s grandfather through the temple while he was strangling Montez. In this chapter he appears twice to throw his weight around and make his formidable and terrible presence felt. Louise’s restraint is admirable, she has already sat by the two knowing they killed her grandparents—another might react over-emotionally in the circumstances, but not our Louise—no, she keeps her cool. In this chapter she is tested to the limit.

    The leading edge of the narrative stream is the swelling bow wave of the reader’s imagination. Having read the novel up to this point, knowing the characters, at times better than they know themselves, knowing also the issues involved—the plot thus far—knowing all this, in your mind you have formulated probable events to come. The reader is primed to be consoled in their correctness or surprised by a disruption of their speculations.

    Montez prepares to quit Panama forever and with an endowed prescience predicts the fall of the Panama Canal project and the effect it will have on France. He reveals that he has divested any interest in the Canal Interoceanic company, and dreams a little of a future in the United States.

    This reader had been contemplating a solution to the problem of regaining Jessie Severn and Francois Larchmont’s finances. To secure their wealth, which is in Montez’ hands and which he now has placed in US securities, the best thing might be for Jesse to marry Montez. Yet this seems unlikely given the strength of nineteenth-century values and sensibilities, and the fact that Harry, Francois and Jessie, though she has little choice in the matter, are opposed to it. The second part of the plan would involve Fernando’s timely demise, somehow…

    However, Gunter does draw special attention to a particular article belonging to Montez, which remarkably so far has escaped notice. In murder mysteries it is considered bad form, unfair to the reader, to introduce a decisive clue right at the end of a train of deductions. It remains to be seen, but given the descriptive treatment it receives, indications are this article may serve a crucial role in saving the day for Jesse and the brothers Larchmont.

    CHAPTER 20

    DOMINGO OF PORTO BELLO

    Now, this absence of the young lady from her office duties she has explained in person to Aguilla, who has said in his kindly way: “That’s right, my dear. If you can save a victim from the fever, do so. There are so many who are not saved,” and gives indefinite leave of absence.

    This being reported to Montez, he meditates: “Ah ha! The pretty Louise loves him yet—this Harry Larchmont—though he loves my fiancée in Paris!” Incidentally meeting, that day, the doctor who attends Larchmont, the Baron makes careful inquiries on the plea of being the intimate of Harry’s Parisian brother, and is informed that there is no hope of his recovery.

    So he laughs to himself:

    “Again I triumph! See how my enemies fall before me! I leave this place clear! Tomorrow I go away from Panama forever! To my wedding day—to enjoy the beauty of Jessie Severn—to be rich as a prince—to be one of the great ones of the earth. I have eaten up everyone; though they do not know it, they are in my jaws now!”

    And they are; for he has made such arrangements that none of them will ever see any of the gold of Panama. Domingo’s stock will be lost to him; he will receive his dividends no more. Aguilla, his partner, is ruined, or will be soon after Montez gets to Paris. Wernig, his chum, will have hardly a fighting chance, and Francois Leroy Larchmont no chance at all. Everyone has been eaten up by this Vadalia Cardinalis.

    Montez, with his astute mind, has looked over the field. He knows the Canal Company, lottery or no lottery bill, will not last out the year, and with this failure must come such an explosion from French investors, that will upheave even France itself.

    Investigation must show jobbery and fraud almost unequalled in the history of the world.

    ‘The Panama Canal: to determine whether he was fit to be extradited, two eminent physicians examine the stools of Dr Cornelius Herz, who had fled France to escape the results of his mismanagement of the canal’s financing.’ Satirical watercolour drawing by H.S. Robert, ca. 1897. See note, Chapter 18.

    So he has withdrawn himself from the storm, as far as possible. He has made large investments in American securities. These are in the hands of a New York banking house, solid as a rock—one that has little to do with France—one that has never in any way been interested in French securities, or the Canal Interoceanic.

    “I can live on that, a Fifth Avenue nabob, in America, if the worst comes to the worst,” he thinks, as he consults the black pocket-book he always carries with him, and which day by day, and night by night, is his own particular care.

    So he makes his preparations for departure in very happy mood.

    As he is bidding Aguilla goodby, that gentleman says to him nervously: “You are sure the Canal Lottery Bill will pass?”

    “Certain as that I stand here!” cries Montez.

    So Fernando goes away from Panama, receiving merry adieux, and passing over the railroad to Colon. At Matachim he looks up the Chagres River towards Cruces, and his eye says: “Adieu forever!”

    Taking steamer on the Atlantic side, Baron Fernando Montez goes to New York, where he will spend a fortnight, looking after his American investments, and seeing that they are as certain as securities can be.

    Within a week after he has gone away from Panama, there comes a commotion in the office. He has left certain letters written in his own hand, to be delivered. Bastien Lefort brings in one of these, and mutters in a broken voice: “Where is the Baron Montez? Mon Dieu! I am a ruined man!”

    Being informed that the senior partner has gone away, he wrings his hands and interviews the junior.

    After reading his letter, Aguilla himself turns pale, and his fat face becomes thinner, and he also gasps: “Mon Dieu!” Then he shuts himself up in his private office, and tears run down his fat face—the bourgeois tears for loss of money—for he moans to himself: “If what this letter tells me is true, Montez has destroyed me also. My God! my children! How can I stop him? What hope is there?”

    But into this scene comes a happier face. Louise Minturn, radiant as the sun, though her young face bears lines of care, from ceaseless watching and careful nursing, comes in half crying, half laughing: “Thank God! he is saved! The doctor says he will live! You understand me? I am back for work, Monsieur Aguilla! The doctor says Harry—Mr. Larchmont will live.”

    But before Aguilla can answer, there is a harsh voice outside, and a terrible thump on the door, and in strides the black man with the two great red scars and the white wool.

    He cries hoarsely: “Where is this ladron—this Montez? I have had his letter read to me. It says my gold is gone. I, Domingo of Porto Bello, will wring his slippery neck!”

    “Montez has gone—to—to France!” stammers Aguilla, for the appearance of the ex-pirate frightens him.

    “To France!—Thousands of miles from me!—But you his partner are here—in my grasp!” howls Domingo, and seizes poor Aguilla by the throat, growling: “Tell me, liar! Tell me, dog! Tell me, where are my dividends, or I will strangle you!”

    Old as Domingo is, Aguilla cannot get away from his grasp, though he contrives to gasp out: “You want—your month’s dividends?”

    “Yes! This letter says I shall have none!”

    “You shall have them!”

    “Now or your life!”

    “Certainly! The—the fifty dollars!” stutters Aguilla, and pays it agitatedly out of his pocket; forgetting even receipt for same, though this is not natural to his bourgeois nature.

    “Ah, Diablo!” cries Domingo, chinking the silver and gold. “Now for the pirate’s delight—the rumshop!” and goes off, leaving Louise and Aguilla gazing at each other astonished and dismayed.

    Then Aguilla says suddenly: “Thank Heaven none of the clerks heard!” and looks into the outer office, which is quiet—the employees are all at their lunch. At this Louise, turning to the Frenchman, queries: “What does this mean?”

    “I cannot tell you at present,” he answers. “Come tomorrow!” then looking at her he says consideringly: “I may have a curious mission for you. It will be very important. Come tomorrow for instructions.”

    “You do not want me today?”

    “No, go back and nurse your sick friend. My little daughter is sick also. I must go to Toboga!”

    So Louise, happy to get to the bedside where she has fought death and won, goes back to her vigil beside the couch of Harry Larchmont the American, and beside his bed is a telegram; but the doctor says, “Not yet; he is not strong enough.”

    The next day she blesses God again, for he is better, and his brain is clear, but he is weak—so weak; though there is a look in his eyes that indicates he is happy, as she ministers to him with the tender hand of loving woman: the tender hand that comes to men in sickness: the tender hand that men should remember, but which they ofttimes forget when health makes them strong.

    And the doctor coming, she whispers to him: “It is a cable—shall I?—dare I?”

    “Not yet,” says the man of science. “But tomorrow, perhaps, if all goes well. He is improving fast—thanks to his good nurse!”

    “Thanks to his good doctor,” answers Louise with happy blushes, and goes back to her labors at Montez, Aguilla et Cie., very happy, to find on her desk plenty of work.

    It is mostly routine labor that she can answer without dictation, for a note has been made on every letter. She goes to work at these, for Aguilla, who comes in once, says: “I am cabling to Paris. I shall have nothing to say to you of what I spoke of last night, until I receive answer,” and keeps away from the office, apparently very anxious as to his return despatches.

    So the girl, stealing one hour from her work, to spend at the bedside of Harry Larchmont, comes back late in the afternoon, to finish up her letters, and sits writing at the typewriter, till all the other clerks have gone away and left her, and the rapid night of the Isthmus is growing near.

    There is no one in the building.

    She has finished her last letter, and is rising to go home, when the door opens with a bang, and a hoarse voice speaks to her. The voice of a man half-drunk with aquardiente—half wild with rage. She gives a gasp, and her heart beats wildly, for she, Louise Minturn, is standing alone, face to face with Domingo, the murderer of Alice Ripley and her husband.

    His eyes have a pirate gleam in them, and his black heart is throbbing with deep pants beneath his black bosom, that is partly bare, for he has torn away the shirt in rage, or drunkenness.

    Mug shot, 1906

    She would fly to the door, but he closes it and locks it. The key goes into his pocket as he cries: “Lefort, the miser who is weeping for his gold, says mine is gone also! The miser sobs! The pirate kills!”

    Next a cunning gleam comes into his eyes that are red, and he whispers: “You are the one who writes in the magic box. You take down the words in the air?”

    And the girl gasps, “Yes!”

    “Then put it down, that I, Domingo of Porto Bello, may swear to it, and hang this villain Montez—who has robbed me of my gold, and hang myself, Domingo!”

    And the girl, with pale face and trembling hands, stands looking at him, and he with half-drunken voice, cries: “Put it down! Put it down, or I will kill you! Put down the story of the white lady with the pearls!”

    Then Louise, sinking into her chair, with trembling hands, does as she is bidden, and takes down the story of the ex-pirate, crazed with drink and rage, told with the florid gestures of the tropics; delivered with the intensity of the savage.

    “You know me, Domingo of Porto Bello?”

    “Y—e—s,” falters Louise.

    “Put it down! You know Fernando Gomez Montez, mule boy of Cruces, who calls himself Baron?”

    “Yes!”

    “Put it down! You know the night in’56, when we killed ‘em here—women and children—we killed ‘em?”

    “My Heaven!”

    “Put it down! You know the Californian—you know the Señor Georgio Ripley—the white lady—the lady with the pearls?”

    “Yes!”

    “Tell how we killed the man, and stole the gold and the woman! That Montez gave me little gold, and kept much! Put it down, how that night we tossed the dead man to the sharks!”

    “My God!” cries the girl.

    “PUT IT DOWN! Put it down how we bore the beautiful woman into the mountains, along the Gargona trail, up through the hills into the Cordilleras, over the old Porto Bello trail, grown up with weeds over which the mule stumbled, but I strode on. How the monkeys howled and the jaguar screamed as we passed through the tree vistas in the dark night; how the moonlight shone on us through the boughs and hanging vines and palm leaves. How the day came on—above us the birds and sunshine, around us things that love darkness—the crawling snake, the timid tapir, the crouching tiger. And the lady—the white lady—regaining her senses, cried to us, and we took her to the hut by the river, where she struggled, and cried to God for her husband. Mia madre! how she cried! Cried as the women cried on pirate ships, when their husbands were cut down by cutlasses, or pistolled before their eyes. I, Domingo, tell you so. Put it down!”

    “Put it down how Montez told her he loved her. How the beautiful eyes shone with hate upon him! Tell of the lovely form drawn up erect! How she turned upon him in the hut, and swore to kill herself, by the God of Gods, rather than love him! How he, to see if we were pursued, left her imprisoned in the hut, giving her one day to decide whether she would love him willingly or unwillingly. How I, Domingo, watched her, that I might steal the pearls from her. I could have torn them from her, but she might have told Montez, and I feared Montez. And I fear Montez yet, for he is stronger—cunning little Montez! Montez el diablo muchacho!

    “Put it down how she looked out of the little hut—out of the window, and saw the Indian snake charmer—the snake catcher. Tell how she watched across the river bank! How the birds fluttered frightened—how that awful snake—the one I have seen kill a comrade in Saint Lucia, when I was a boy on Laffite’s ship—the one they call the yellow snake—the lancehead—the Labarri of Guiana, and Macagua of the Caribs. How the Macagua, eight feet of living death, with black forked tongue that moves unceasingly, and lurid eyes that never quail, crawled over the bank of the river, in pursuit of the bird; how the snake charmer, with long branch, pinned his head to the ground, and seized him, and laughed in his very fangs, as I watched—I, Domingo, watched! Tell how the woman, crazy with despair, beckoned to the snake charmer, for she knew not his lingo, while he held it—the death spirit—the great long serpent with the bands of black upon his back, that tapered down and left all scales of yellow on his belly—the living coil with death at its head, and long, sharp fangs, from which the venom dropped—how he put it in a water gourd, and bound over it deerskin, and held imprisoned the living death, that would affright even a man like me—put it down!

    American actress Belle Archer (1859-1900)

    “And the lady—the white lady—looking with desperate eyes—with eyes that were growing crazy—beckoned the Carib, and he plunged into the rapids, and waded across, for she held up one white pearl of the string to allure him to her—one glistening pearl, worth money anywhere. Put it down! And the man coming to her with his vase of living death, she seized from him the gourd that held the Macagua snake, and dropped into his hand the pearl. And the snake charmer laughed, and I, Domingo, knew a desperate woman meant death to one or both of us, if we entered into her hut, or death unto herself. How I chuckled: ‘Here is an unknown joy for Montez who will be coming soon, for Montez loves this woman with the sunny hair and the blue eyes, and skin white as the Santo Espiritu flower!’

    “Then, as night comes on, Montez is back and says: ‘There is no pursuit!’ And I said: ‘Ha, ha! there may be?’ That was to myself, for I had seen her write something, but I knew not what she did with it.

    “And Montez said to me: ‘Is she there?’

    “And I said: ‘She is—go in!’

    “I laughed—I, Domingo, laughed. And as he entered, I saw this woman rise up as a spirit of the sea! Her white limbs and bare bosom, the garments torn from them by the brambles of the forest, gleaming in the last sun rays; her eyes—blue as the waves and flashing like those of women who walk the plank.

    “Upon this loveliness Montez one moment gloated, then he cried to her: ‘I love you! I will be your husband! I will take the place of him who is lost to you!’

    “And she cried: ‘Never!’

    “And as she cried out, Montez sprang towards her, and then, between them both, I saw her hold the living snake, and laugh: ‘Come now! I love this better than I love you!’

    “And the Macagua snake, not knowing which to bite, waved his head, and hissed a sharp hiss, with his fangs uplifted, as she chased Montez with the living death around the hut, and then again around! And he with awful screams sprang through the door.

    “And the snake bit her, and the woman cried: ‘I love him best!’

    “And so she died! Put it down! Behold the story that will hang this Baron Montez, who robs me of my dividends of gold! Put it down! PUT IT DOWN! that I may swear to it—I, Domingo of Porto Bello—the last living pirate.”

    But there is a swooning woman, who can put down no more, as Domingo, ex-villain, ex-murderer, and last of the pirates of the Gulf, staggers out, and says to the Frenchman, Bastien Lefort, who is walking moodily outside:

    “I have put it down—what will hang the villain Montez, who has robbed both you and me, my Frenchman of the heavy heart! I have put it down!”

    Notes and References

    • ladron: robber (Spanish)
    • aquardiente:  liqueur made from sugar cane

    Davis, William C. (2005).The Pirates Laffite: The Treacherous World of the Corsairs of the Gulf. Orlando: Harcourt.

    Ramsay, Jack. C. (1922). Jean Laffite: Prince of Pirates. Austin Texas: Eakin Press. Jump to book.

    This edition © 2021 Furin Chime, Brian Armour

  • A.C. Gunter’s Baron Montez: 19. Whispers of the Dying

    A.C. Gunter’s Baron Montez: 19. Whispers of the Dying

    On a tour of Silas Winterburn’s museum, Louise set her eyes on a powder canister embedded in a tree branch (Ch. 15). At the time it seemed rather odd Silas had not opened it, sufficiently so for Louise to question his lack of curiosity. Yet he puts off opening it immediately, in order to continue the tour of his collection, suggesting Susie investigate while he is away working up the Chagres River. Most readers may believe they know the contents—but there is something else—horrifying in its nature.

    At this stage in the novel, for Gunter, all the groundwork has been done. One can imagine him rising each morning eager to get the story flowing, all the pieces falling into place, aware that he is only six chapters to the finale. To a degree, the pronounced narrator presence, anticipatory statements and disclosures, are evidence of Gunter’s involvement and enjoyment of the story.

    Looking Down on the City and Bay of Panama (1909). See note.

    The conventions of civilization refined over centuries allow us, for the most part, to move through our everyday lives seamlessly. Conventions of behaviour, of language, of nearly all facets of life become autonomous functional guides, much like walking without thinking about it. There are conventions of the home, the public space, the workplace, of dress, of eating, of drinking, of furniture, of everything in our lives, designed for human comfort, clarity and the elimination of disruption. There are also conventions of language which a writer readily knows, of speech, of behaviour—both female and male multiplied by the situation/place and time. As in life, so in the written word: conventions are the story-teller’s invisible structure, allowing him to create a verisimilitude of real life without addressing every detail.

    Art breaks conventions, and so it is with storytelling, which plays with a reader’s expectations and assumptions, strongly tied to conventions iterated deep into their consciousness by simply living. Necessarily, readers of today need to be mindful that conventions were very different in the eighteen eighties. Louise is aspirational for Gunter’s contemporary readers—outside unaccompanied, walking about alone, enjoying the tropical warm air, in, one supposes, less restrictive clothing and less make-up, talking back to her boss, every day breaking conventions that bind and restrict.

    Domingo, the old ex-pirate of long ago makes a brief re-appearance, which Montez cuts short, as his brutal comrade makes what might be considered indiscreet comments, depending upon who is listening.

    Louise comes to the aid of poor Harry, who is suffering from malaria. According to the World Health Organization, 400,000 people still die of this disease every year. Injected by mosquitos, in humans the parasites grow and multiply first in the liver cells and then in the red cells of the blood. In the blood, successive broods of parasites grow inside the red cells and destroy them, releasing daughter parasites (merozoites) that continue the cycle by invading other red cells. There are five types of parasites that cause malaria: Plasmodium ovale, P. malariae, P. knowlesi, P. vivax and P. falciparum.

    Hopefully, Harry’s delirium is due to his fever and the effect of quinine, which his doctor would have administered to prevent him being infected with plasmodium falciparum, the malaria parasite, which causes cognitive disfunction and usually results in death. Folklore has it that a Peruvian, Pedro Leiva, while in the jungle and running a high fever, drank at a small pond. The water had a bitter taste, and he noticed that the bark of a cinchona (quina-quina) tree had fallen into the pond. Soon after drinking his fever subsided.

    Cinchona officinalis, Curtis’s Botanical Magazine (1863)

    Cinchona, ground to a powder has a long history of use in the treatment of fever. Reputedly in 1638 it was introduced to Europe—successfully treating Countess of Chinchón, wife of the Viceroy of Peru, of extreme fever. In 1742 the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus assigned the name Cinchona in her honour to the genus that includes the quina-quina tree. In 1820, two French pharmacists, Pierre Pelletier and Joseph Caventou isolated and extracted a substance they called ‘quinine’. Quinine interferes with the parasite’s ability to digest haemoglobin. Quinine (and quinidine) also inhibit the spontaneous formation of beta-haematin (haemozoin or malaria pigment) which is a toxic product of the digestion of haemoglobin by parasites. At the time it was the only effective treatment available, but there still was no guarantee of surviving the disease.

    When nursing someone with Malaria, during the fever it is recommended that a warm compress be applied to the forehead, and to keep the patent warm, and remove any wet clothes and sheets regularly to prevent the patient catching a chill. Undoubtedly, Louise will be casting aside more conventions in her efforts to pull Harry through.

    Warning: Text contains racist term which may offend some readers.

    CHAPTER 19

    WHISPERS OF THE DYING

    Miss Minturn does not hear of Larchmont’s mishap so soon as Montez. Her labors at the office are not great; but outside of it, sensation has come to her.

    On the very day of the Baron’s interview with her, she returns to the house of Martinez for her afternoon siesta, but instead of rest receives excitement.

    She is met almost at the door by Mrs. Winterburn. That lady, as is her wont, has been killing the long hot day by rummaging through the articles in her husband’s museum. She now says affrightedly: “I’ve been waiting for you! Come in with me—there is something in that powder canister!”

    “What powder canister?”

    “The one imbedded in the growing branch my husband took from the Chagres River. You remember what he told us about it that evening?”

    “Yes,” answers Louise carelessly, “but I am tired. Why not tell your story to the Señoritas Martinez, and keep it for me in the evening?”

    “The Martinez are all asleep. Come in with me—I want you to see what there is in it. I think they are valuable. Besides that, there is a writing that I have not read. I fear it is a will—that the pearls will not be mine honestly,” says the woman.

    “After that you will let me take myself to my darling hammock?” pouts Louise, anxious for beauty sleep.

    “Yes.”

    Quaint Balcony-Hung Avenue B, Panama (1909), reminiscent of Louise’s balcony

    A minute after, they are in the old lumber-room, and coming to the branch with its powder canister, Susie Winterburn unscrews the lead stopper that has made it watertight, opens it, and reveals something that for a moment makes Louise give a cry of delighted astonishment; then afterwards a gasp of horror.

    She takes out therefrom a long string of beautiful white pearls that glisten even in the subdued light of the room. These are wrapped in a woman’s cuff.

    The pearls are fresh and glistening as when first plucked from ocean’s bed; the cuff is a little soiled and yellow by age, but has on it some hasty writing in red, that has been scribbled with a piece of pointed wood, or something of the kind. It reads, though disjointedly, with horrible intelligence, as follows:

    “Come to my aid—these pearls will pay you. The place is called Caperiha—I am in a hut imprisoned by the little river.

    “My husband was killed in the Pacific Hotel, Panama, by Montez and Domingo.

    “Domingo watches me, and is my jailer.

    “Come quick! Tonight he comes to me—tonight the snake will kill me!

    “ALICE RIPLEY”

    These letters appear to be in red ink, but as the girl examines them, she shudders, for she guesses they are in the blood of the woman who wrote them.

    She has read this aloud in her agitation, and it has produced a great effect upon Mrs. Winterburn. That lady says: “When do you think it was written? We must alarm the authorities!”

    “What? To rescue a woman who wrote this thirty years ago?”

    “How do you know it was so long?”

    “Because the time she speaks of is the massacre of 1856—April 15th—I have read accounts of it in the Panama Star. I know all about it.”

    “How did you come to know that?”

    “How? Because the handwriting of this woman is the handwriting of my murdered relative, Alice Ripley, the beautiful woman whose picture you saw at the villa of Fernando Montez—the duplicate of which I brought with me from New York.”

    “Oh, sakes of mercy! What are you going to do?”

    “Avenge her!” answers Louise in strident voice. Then she mutters dejectedly: “But first I must find out more about the matter.”

    “Then why not ask my husband? He knows most everything about the Isthmus in them days.”

    “Yes, I’ll telegraph him at once! His address is Bohio Soldado!” cries Louise, and turns to go about her errand, but pausing, whispers: “Not a word of this to anybody! It may bring danger upon me!”

    “Danger upon you?”

    “Yes. Do you suppose a man who would murder in 1856, would hesitate to murder now, though he is a Baron, and rich?” mutters the girl, and would fly from the room.

    But Mrs. Winterburn says suddenly, running after her: “Take these—these are yours!” and presses the pearls into her hands.

    And Louise says: “We can settle that afterwards. But not a word to anyone—and remember where these came from. You may have to make oath to the same!”

    So leaving Mrs. Winterburn in a half-comatose state from surprise and agitation, Louise Minturn hastily goes to the telegraph office, and sends such a despatch to Silas Winterburn, that he makes his appearance in Panama the next morning.

    Meantime Miss Minturn contrives somehow to get through her work this afternoon.

    Before she is out of her hammock the next morning, she is gratified by a rap upon the door, and Silas’ jovial voice saying: “What do you mean by scaring a man to death with telegrams? I thought my wife or baby was dead!”

    Grand Cathedral at Panama (c. 1860+)

    “Why,” cries Louise through the door, “I said nothing about them.”

    “That’s what’s the matter. You merely telegraphed me to come for God’s sake! Ain’t that kind of a telegram enough to scare a man who has lost three families?”

    “Very well! Now that your mind is relieved, I would like to speak to you for a few minutes: I will be out in five.”

    As tropical toilets do not take long, Miss Louise trips out within the time specified, an agitated but beautiful picture. Together they go to the museum. There turning to him, she says: “Your wife has told you?”

    “No, she hinted at somethin’ about this ‘ere canister,” replies Silas, laying his hand on the object; “but Susie was too agitated to be quite intelligible.”

    “Very well then, I will tell you the story,” answers Louise.

    And she does, giving him the full details of everything, showing him Alice Ripley’s letters, the duplicate tintypes, then puts before him the contents of the powder canister, the glistening string of pearls, and the letter on the cuff, which she reads to him, though her voice trembles. His voice trembles also, as he answers her: for she is questioning him rapidly: “You know the place this was written from?”

    “What, Caperija? I should think I did—though she’s spelled it wrong, just as it is pronounced, poor critter! It’s about four hours by canoe, when there is water enough to get there, from Cruces, up the Piqueni, one of the headwaters of the Chagres. It’s a miserable hole, on the old deserted road to Porto Bello. She threw that powder canister into the Piqueni, and it floated down into the Chagres, washed up against some tree growing on the banks, and lingered there till the tree grew round it. Then it was washed away by some flood, and so it came into my hands, thirty years afterwards!”

    “You believe, then?”

    “Certainly! People don’t throw away pearls like these for fun. This was a woman’s last despairin’ effort.”

    “You believe that Montez and Domingo killed her husband, George Ripley, in 1856?”

    “Why, Holy Virgin! I was there!” cries Silas.

    “You were there?” gasps the girl.

    “Yes! That night was impressed upon me, for I had to git for my life on to the steamer. I remember like yesterday, before the muss commenced, seein’ a big Californian stand off the crowd, till the police came and shot down the women and children. Just as I fled, I saw that black Domingo run into the Pacific House, followin’ the big Californian; and, durn me, if Montez wasn’t with him!”

    “You think I can prove their crime?”

    “It will be pretty difficult against Montez! Thirty years has passed. He is rich and powerful, and a Baron—though that don’t count here—but riches do, everywhere!”

    “Then, how to get evidence?”

    “You are in Baron Montez’ office. You have seen that worthy gentleman—young lady, do you think you will obtain it from him!”

    “No,” mutters the girl, “never from him personally.”

    “Then, as to Domingo, the black nigger; he’s probably dead! I ain’t seen him round here, or on the railroad, for years. He must be nearly eighty.”

    “I know him! I have written to him! He is alive!” cries the girl, remembering the letter to Porto Bello.

    “Great Scott! Por Dios! Muchos diablos! Beg pardon!” ejaculates Silas, astounded. “Alive! Well,” he goes on, reflectively, “I don’t think you will be able to get anything from him, if Domingo’s got his senses left. I’ll make some inquiries around town, and see what I can pick up; but I reckon you won’t be able to put any salt on either of those two old gray birds’ tails.”

    So he goes away, while Miss Minturn proceeds to Montez, Aguilla et Cie., to get another sensation. About twelve o’clock in the day she sees a tall black man, dressed in Spanish style, with long sash and wide sombrero, with two terrible scars upon his face, and wool white as the driven snow, come into the office. Though his eyes are bright, and his step seems elastic, there is the gray of old age upon his face that mates his scars seem red.

    This creature steps in, and walking up to the great Baron Montez, who is writing at his desk, slaps him upon the back, and cries: “Ah, ha! diablo muchacho!”

    To this Montez, springing up, falters: “Parbleu, Domingo, my—my old comrade!” and tries to greet him quite effusively, though he does not look overpleased to see him.

    Domingo’s eyes are still sharp, and he jeers: “What! not happy to see your old friend and compañero, Domingo of Porto Bello?” Then he snarls: “You need not be frightened! I have not come for my dividends on the stock of this big ditch they are digging and digging, and will dig forever. Those are paid regularly by old man Aguilla, your partner.”

    “Of course, the dividends come regularly,” murmurs Montez.

    “I should think so. If they did not, you would hear from Domingo of Porto Bello!” Then he goes on: “But how do they make money digging the ditch? Do they get paid for digging it?”

    Miss Minturn is trying to hide her agitation by playing on the keys of the Remington, for she has heard this conversation through the door, that is always left open on account of draught, and knows that she is sitting almost in the presence of the two murderers of Alice Ripley.

    Domingo of Porto Bello cries: “What’s that?”

    “What?”

    “The noise like the clicking of a thousand pistol locks!”

    “A typewriter.”

    “What’s that?”

    “A little thing,” remarks Montez, “that takes down what is said to it. Would you like to see it?”

    So he brings in Domingo to look upon this wonder of the nineteenth century. And the girl can hardly keep her hands upon the keys, though she gazes eagerly and takes in the face of Domingo to her memory, never to forget it.

    The ex-pirate says: “She takes what you say, down?”

    “Yes.”

    “And puts it on paper? Ah, ho! This is wonderful! She must be a smart girl. Why does she sit there forever? Is she a slave? Of course she’s a slave. No one but a slave would work like that!”

    Then he suddenly cries, for at his words, Louise has looked up again with blazing eyes:

    “Maldito! The same eye as the white lady—the blonde lady! You remember her, Montez? you remember the good old days! You remember?”

    But Montez suddenly interrupts. “Nonsense! I remember too many!”

    “Ah, but no white ladies with snakes, eh?”

    “Sh—sh! what is the matter with you?” cries Fernando. “Come to lunch. You ramble, old man, you ramble!”

    After Domingo has gone out, Montez comes in to Louise and says: “This is an old dependent, who is now in his dotage. I presume he was a wicked boy in his day. I think, between you and me, he must have been a pirate.”

    “Oh,” cries the young lady, “did they ever have pirates here?”

    “Yes, but long before you were born. You should go down and see the old town that Morgan destroyed!” suggests Montez, going out.

    Pondering on this, Louise thinks her employer curiously evasive, and guesses quite shrewdly that it is to cover up some agitation produced by the remarks of his old dependent Domingo of Porto Bello.

    New Municipal Building, Cathedral Plaza, Panama City (c. 1860+)

    As soon as possible she flies off with this story to Silas Winterburn, who remarks: “Well, they’re both here, and I guess that’s about all the good it will do you! I reckon you’d better take the pearls and be contented to let the matter rest, my dear young lady!”

    “Never!” cries the girl. “I’ll have the truth from one of them in some way!”

    “Well, seems to me you’re takin’ about as long a job as buildin’ a cathedral!” mutters Winterburn, “but I don’t think I’ll be able to do you any good further than to give my evidence about the powder canister, if you ever should get them into court.”

    Suddenly his voice becomes solemn, and he whispers: “For the love of heaven and Santa Maria, my dear young lady, don’t let either of these gentlemen know what you’re drivin’ at, or that you’re a relative of the robbed and murdered Californians. They didn’t stop at murder then, and I don’t think either of them have improved by age. Promise me to be very careful!”

    “I will,” replies Louise, “very careful, for that is the only way to succeed.”

    She would go on devoting her mind to this business, but Winterburn, as he goes away, gives her a little further information.

    “By the by,” he says, “I was in Kophcke’s drug store half an hour ago, getting some liniment to take with me for bruises on the dredger, when that young Californian, Bovee, came in to get some medicine, and told me about poor Larchmont.”

    “Poor Larchmont!”

    “Yes, the nice young fellow that gave my wife the letter of introduction to you. He spent a day on my Chagres dredger—the day before I got your telegram.”

    “Well, what of him? Poor Larchmont?” gasps the girl, growing white.

    “Oh, it ain’t as bad as that,” cries Silas. “He ain’t dead yet!”

    “Not yet? O heavens! What do you mean?”

    “Why, he’s got the fever.”

    “The fever! The yellow fever?”

    “Not the yellow fever!”

    “Thank God!”

    “But the Panama fever—the malarial fever, though sometimes it’s most as deadly, but they get over it quicker.”

    “Where is he?”

    “In the rooms of George Bovee, one of the clerks of the Pacific Mail.”

    “Do you know where the house is?”

    “Yes!”

    “Then take me to him, quick! And I will bless you for this kindness!”

    “What are you going to do?”

    “Nurse him!” whispers Louise. “Nurse him till he lives, or”

    “What?”

    “Till I die!”

    And led by the kind-hearted engineer, she goes to the quarters of the young American, which are three open rooms, with plenty of sea-breeze.

    They are received at the door by a gentleman who looks in astonishment at the beautiful young lady, as she says: “You are Mr. Bovee? You are a friend of Mr. Larchmont’s?”

    “I hope so. And you?”

    “I am Miss Minturn of New York. Mr. Larchmont saved my life in the New York blizzard. I have come to nurse him!”

    And the young American, taking off his hat, says:

    “Thank God! We have got a nurse—a woman nurse—a tender-hearted nurse! God bless you, Miss Minturn, for coming! We need one! He is very low!” Then noting how pale Louise is, he thinks it is from fear, and whispers: “Do not be alarmed. His disease is neither contagious, infectious, nor epidemic.”

    “Were it all three,” answers the girl very solemnly, “I’d nurse him!”

    Then Bovee leads the way into a room, where on a little cot-bed, his face sometimes as white as the sheets, with awful chills, and red with the fever at others, lies Harry Larchmont, and she whispers to him: “Do you know me?”

    The eyes, opening, smile at her, and the teeth chattering with malarial chill, gasp: “Louise!” and a hand, hot as the sands of the desert, clasps hers, as he mutters: “God bless you!”

    But suddenly he utters an awful cry: “Angels have come!” Then moans, “My God! too late! too late!” and the delirium is on him.

    In it he mutters things that almost break his nurse’s heart, for he babbles of the girl in Paris, and shrieks:

    “She shall not marry Montez.”

    But Louise sits in martyrdom by his bedside, and they nurse him day and night, and they fight death for him, and she fights strongest of them all—stronger than his friend—stronger than the doctor—catching words of delirium that sometimes wound her heart, for she misconstrues them.

    Once during his delirium, he gives her unutterable joy, for he shrieks: “No more! No more attempts to lure the secrets of Montez from the lips of the horrible French woman!” Next he sobs the tears of delirium, and cries out: “But it was to save, my brother’s name without destroying myself. To save that poor girl from that villain Montez!”

    And his nurse goes out from the room, and clasps her hands together, and looks over the hot sunny water of the Bay of Panama, from the veranda, and murmurs: “Thank God! The man I love is worthy! but his heart is given to another! The whispers of the dying are always true! It was not to gain the smiles of the French woman, but to win Montez’ secret, that my Harry seemed what he was not—a villain!”

    And the tears come into her eyes and run down her pale hopeless face, as she smites her hands together and links them in despair, muttering: “I can call him my Harry now, because—because he is dying!”

    For the doctor this morning has given her no hope that the patient may live.

    Notes

    This edition © 2021 Furin Chime, Brian Armour