A wild scamper of horses" hoofs was heard and in a moment there came tearing down the road a whole troop of mounted Mexicans, evidently in flight, for they turned and fired from their saddles as they rode. The horses that carried them were wild with excitement and flecked with foam.
The Mexican cavalry men shouted and yelled, brandishing their machetes and firing their revolvers. Here and there a horse and rider fell to the ground in a great whirl of sand and dust. In the thick of the press, a leader of ferocious aspect, mounted upon a gigantic black horse, waved his sombrero about his head.
"Villa--it is Villa!" cried Raymon, tense with excitement.
"Is he not _magnifico?_ But look! Look--the _Americanos!_ They are coming!"
It was a glorious sight to see them as they rode madly on the heels of the Mexicans--a whole company of American cavalry, their horses shoulder to shoulder, the men bent low in their saddles, their carbines gripped in their hands. They rode in squadrons and in line, not like the shouting, confused ma.s.s of the Mexicans--but steady, disciplined, irresistible.
On the right flank in front a grey-haired officer steadied the charging line. The excitement of it was maddening.
"Go to it," I shouted in uncontrollable emotion. "Your Mexicans are licked, Raymon, they"re no good!"
"But look!" said Raymon. "See--the ambush, the ambuscada!"
For as they reached the centre of the gorge in front of us the Mexicans suddenly checked their horses, bringing them plunging on their haunches in the dust, and then swung round upon their pursuers, while from every crag and bush at the side of the gorge the concealed riflemen sprang into view--and the sputtering of the machine guns swept the advancing column with a volley.
We could see the American line checked as with the buffet of a great wave, men and horses rolling in the road.
Through the smoke one saw the grey-haired leader --dismounted, his uniform torn, his hat gone, but still brandishing his sword and calling his orders to his men, his face as one caught in a flash of sunlight, steady and fearless. His words I could not hear, but one saw the American cavalry, still unbroken, dismount, throw themselves behind their horses, and fire with steady aim into the ma.s.s of the Mexicans. We could see the Mexicans in front of where we stood falling thick and fast, in little huddled bundles of colour, kicking the sand. The man Pete had gone down right in the foreground and was breathing out his soul before our eyes.
"Well done," I shouted. "Go to it, boys! You can lick "em yet! Hurrah for the United States. Look, Raymon, look! They"ve shot down the crew of the machine guns.
See, see, the Mexicans are turning to run. At "em, boys!
They"re waving the American flag! There it is in all the thick of the smoke! Hark! There"s the bugle call to mount again! They"re going to charge again! Here they come!"
As the American cavalry came tearing forward, the Mexicans leaped from their places with gestures of mingled rage and terror as if about to break and run.
The battle, had it continued, could have but one end.
But at this moment we heard from the town behind us the long sustained note of a steam whistle blowing the hour of noon.
In an instant the firing ceased.
The battle stopped. The Mexicans picked themselves up off the ground and began brushing off the dust from their black velvet jackets. The American cavalry reined in their horses. Dead Pete came to life. General Villa and the American leader and a number of others strolled over towards the boss, who stood beside the fence vociferating his comments.
"That won"t do!" he was shouting. "That won"t do! Where in blazes was that infernal Sister of Mercy? Miss Jenkinson!" and he called to a tall girl, whom I now noticed for the first time among the crowd, wearing a sort of khaki costume and a short skirt and carrying a water bottle in a strap. "You never got into the picture at all. I want you right in there among the horses, under their feet."
"Land sakes!" said the Sister of Mercy. "You ain"t no right to ask me to go in there among them horses and be trampled."
"Ain"t you _paid_ to be trampled?" said the manager angrily. Then as he caught sight of Villa he broke off and said: "Frank, you boys done fine. It"s going to be a good act, all right. But it ain"t just got the right amount of ginger in it yet. We"ll try her over _once_ again, anyway."
"Now, boys," he continued, calling out to the crowd with a voice like a megaphone, "this afternoon at three-thirty --Hospital scene. I only want the wounded, the doctors and the Sisters of Mercy. All the rest of youse is free till ten to-morrow--for the Indian Ma.s.sacre. Everybody up for that."
It was an hour or two later that I had my interview with Villa in a back room of the little _posada_, or inn, of the town. The General had removed his ferocious wig of straight black hair, and subst.i.tuted a check suit for his warlike costume. He had washed the darker part of the paint off his face--in fact, he looked once again the same Frank Villa that I used to know when he kept his Mexican cigar store in Buffalo.
"Well, Frank," I said, "I"m afraid I came down here under a misunderstanding."
"Looks like it," said the General, as he rolled a cigarette.
"And you wouldn"t care to go back even for the offer that I am commissioned to make--your old job back again, and half the profits on a new cigar to be called the Francesco Villa?"
The General shook his head.
"It sounds good, all right," he said, "but this moving-picture business is better."
"I see," I said, "I hadn"t understood. I thought there really was a revolution here in Mexico."
"No," said Villa, shaking his head, "been no revolution down here for years--not since Diaz. The picture companies came in and took the whole thing over; they made us a fair offer--so much a reel straight out, and a royalty, and let us divide up the territory as we liked. The first film we done was the bombardment of Vera Cruz. Say, that was a dandy; did you see it?"
"No," I said.
"They had us all in that," he continued. "I done an American Marine. Lots of people think it all real when they see it."
"Why," I said, "nearly everybody does. Even the President--"
"Oh, I guess he knows," said Villa, "but, you see, there"s tons of money in it and it"s good for business, and he"s too decent a man to give It away. Say, I heard the boy saying there"s a war in Europe. I wonder what company got that up, eh? But I don"t believe it"ll draw. There ain"t the scenery for it that we have in Mexico."
"Alas!" murmured Raymon. "Our beautiful Mexico. To what is she fallen! Needing only water, air, light and soil to make her--"
"Come on, Raymon," I said, "let"s go home."
XIV. Over the Grape Juice; or, The Peacemakers
Characters
MR. W. JENNINGS BRYAN.
DR. DAVID STARR JORDAN.
A PHILANTHROPIST.
MR. NORMAN ANGELL.
A LADY PACIFIST.
A NEGRO PRESIDENT.
AN EMINENT DIVINE.
THE MAN ON THE STREET.
THE GENERAL PUBLIC.
And many others.
"War," said the Negro President of Haiti, "is a sad spectacle. It shames our polite civilisation."
As he spoke, he looked about him at the a.s.sembled company around the huge dinner table, glittering with cut gla.s.s and white linen, and brilliant with hot-house flowers.
"A sad spectacle," he repeated, rolling his big eyes in his black and yellow face that was melancholy with the broken pathos of the African race.
The occasion was a notable one. It was the banquet of the Peacemakers" Conference of 1917 and the company gathered about the board was as notable as it was numerous.
At the head of the table the genial Mr. Jennings Bryan presided as host, his broad countenance beaming with amiability, and a tall flagon of grape juice standing beside his hand. A little further down the table one saw the benevolent head and placid physiognomy of Mr. Norman Angell, bowed forward as if in deep calculation. Within earshot of Mr. Bryan, but not listening to him, one recognised without the slightest difficulty Dr. David Starr Jordan, the distinguished ichthyologist and director in chief of the World"s Peace Foundation, while the bland features of a gentleman from China, and the presence of a yellow delegate from the Mosquito Coast, gave ample evidence that the company had been gathered together without reference to colour, race, religion, education, or other prejudices whatsoever.
But it would be out of the question to indicate by name the whole of the notable a.s.semblage. Indeed, certain of the guests, while carrying in their faces and att.i.tudes something strangely and elusively familiar, seemed in a sense to be nameless, and to represent rather types and abstractions than actual personalities. Such was the case, for instance, with a female member of the company, seated in a place of honour near the host, whose demure garb and gentle countenance seemed to indicate her as a Lady Pacifist, but denied all further identification.
The mild, ecclesiastical features of a second guest, so entirely Christian in its expression as to be almost devoid of expression altogether, marked him at once as An Eminent Divine, but, while puzzlingly suggestive of an actual and well-known person, seemed to elude exact recognition. His accent, when he presently spoke, stamped him as British and his garb was that of the Established Church. Another guest appeared to answer to the general designation of Capitalist or Philanthropist, and seemed from his prehensile grasp upon his knife and fork to typify the Money Power. In front of this guest, doubtless with a view of indicating his extreme wealth and the consideration in which he stood, was placed a floral decoration representing a broken bank, with the figure of a ruined depositor entwined among the debris.