第31章

"'My Captain--/compadre mio/!' shouted Carlos, while yet my boat was being lowered.'You should see them in the drill by /companies/--in the column wheel--in the march by fours--they are superb! Also in the manual of arms--but, alas! performed only with sticks of bamboo.The guns, /capitan/--say that you have brought the guns!'

"'A thousand Winchesters, Carlos,' I called to him.'And two Gatlings.'

"'/Valgame Dios/!' he cried, throwing his cap in the air.'We shall sweep the world!'

"At that moment Kearny tumbled from the steamer's side into the river.

He could not swim, so the crew threw him a rope and drew him back aboard.I caught his eye and his look of pathetic but still bright and undaunted consciousness of his guilty luck.I told myself that although he might be a man to shun, he was also one to be admired.

"I gave orders to the sailing-master that the arms, ammunition, and provisions were to be landed at once.That was easy in the steamer's boats, except for the two Gatling guns.For their transportation ashore we carried a stout flatboat, brought for the purpose in the steamer's hold.

"In the meantime I walked with Carlos to the camp and made the soldiers a little speech in Spanish, which they received with enthusiasm; and then I had some wine and a cigarette in Carlos's tent.

Later we walked back to the river to see how the unloading was being conducted.

"The small arms and provisions were already ashore, and the petty officers and squads of men conveying them to camp.One Gatling had been safely landed; the other was just being hoisted over the side of the vessel as we arrived.I noticed Kearny darting about on board, seeming to have the ambition of ten men, and doing the work of five.I think his zeal bubbled over when he saw Carlos and me.A rope's end was swinging loose from some part of the tackle.Kearny leaped impetuously and caught it.There was a crackle and a hiss and a smoke of scorching hemp, and the Gatling dropped straight as a plummet through the bottom of the flatboat and buried itself in twenty feet of water and five feet of river mud.

"I turned my back on the scene.I heard Carlos's loud cries as if from some extreme grief too poignant for words.I heard the complaining murmur of the crew and the maledictions of Torres, the sailing master --I could not bear to look.

"By night some degree of order had been restored in camp.Military rules were not drawn strictly, and the men were grouped about the fires of their several messes, playing games of chance, singing their native songs, or discussing with voluble animation the contingencies of our march upon the capital.

"To my tent, which had been pitched for me close to that of my chief lieutenant, came Kearny, indomitable, smiling, bright-eyed, bearing no traces of the buffets of his evil star.Rather was his aspect that of a heroic martyr whose tribulations were so high-sourced and glorious that he even took a splendour and a prestige from them.

"'Well, Captain,' said he, 'I guess you realize that Bad-Luck Kearny is still on deck.It was a shame, now, about that gun.She only needed to be slewed two inches to clear the rail; and that's why I grabbed that rope's end.Who'd have thought that a sailor--even a Sicilian lubber on a banana coaster--would have fastened a line in a bow-knot?

Don't think I'm trying to dodge the responsibility, Captain.It's my luck.'

"'There are men, Kearny,' said I gravely, 'who pass through life blaming upon luck and chance the mistakes that result from their own faults and incompetency.I do not say that you are such a man.But if all your mishaps are traceable to that tiny star, the sooner we endow our colleges with chairs of moral astronomy, the better.'

"'It isn't the size of the star that counts,' said Kearny; 'it's the quality.Just the way it is with women.That's why they give the biggest planets masculine names, and the little stars feminine ones--to even things up when it comes to getting their work in.Suppose they had called my star Agamemnon or Bill McCarty or something like that instead of Phoebe.Every time one of those old boys touched their calamity button and sent me down one of their wireless pieces of bad luck, I could talk back and tell 'em what I thought of 'em in suitable terms.But you can't address such remarks to a Phoebe.'

"'It pleases you to make a joke of it, Kearny,' said I, without smiling.'But it is no joke to me to think of my Gatling mired in the river ooze.'

"'As to that,' said Kearny, abandoning his light mood at once, 'I have already done what I could.I have had some experience in hoisting stone in quarries.Torres and I have already spliced three hawsers and stretched them from the steamer's stern to a tree on shore.We will rig a tackle and have the gun on terra firma before noon to-morrow.'

"One could not remain long at outs with Bad-Luck Kearny.

"'Once more,' said I to him, 'we will waive this question of luck.

Have you ever had experience in drilling raw troops?'

"'I was first sergeant and drill-master,' said Kearny, 'in the Chilean army for one year.And captain of artillery for another.'

"'What became of your command?' I asked.

"'Shot down to a man,' said Kearny, 'during the revolutions against Balmaceda.'

"Somehow the misfortunes of the evil-starred one seemed to turn to me their comedy side.I lay back upon my goat's-hide cot and laughed until the woods echoed.Kearny grinned.'I told you how it was,' he said.

"'To-morrow,' I said, 'I shall detail one hundred men under your command for manual-of-arms drill and company evolutions.You rank as lieutenant.Now, for God's sake, Kearny,' I urged him, 'try to combat this superstition if it is one.Bad luck may be like any other visitor --preferring to stop where it is expected.Get your mind off stars.

Look upon Esperando as your planet of good fortune.'

"'I thank you, Captain,' said Kearny quietly.'I will try to make it the best handicap I ever ran.'