These are some adventurous mariners who had the misfortune to discover El Dorado, he remarked.
Below them there had appeared a large hollow in the earth shaped like the interior of a bowl. The sides were steep and apparently of polished glass, and on its slightly concave surface stood about two dozen men clad in the half costume, half uniform, of aviators. Their upturned faces, lit with wrath with malice, with despair, with cynical humor, were covered by long growths of beard, but with the exception of a few who had pined perceptibly away, they seemed to be a well-fed, healthy lot.
Braddock Washington drew a garden chair to the edge of the pit and sat down.
Well, how are you, boys? he inquired genially.
A chorus of execration in which all joined except a few too dispirited to cry out, rose up into the sunny air, but Braddock Washington heard it with unruffled composure. When its last echo had died away he spoke again.
Have you thought up a way out of your difficulty?
From here and there among them a remark floated up.
We decided to stay here for love!
Bring us up there and well find us a way!
Braddock Washington waited until they were again quiet. Then he said:
Ive told you the situation. I dont want you here. I wish to heaven Id never seen you. Your own curiosity got you here, and any time that you can think of a way out which protects me and my interests Ill be glad to consider it. But so long as you confine your efforts to digging tunnels yes, I know about the new one youve started you wont get very far. This isnt as hard on you as you make it out, with all your howling for the loved ones at home. If you were the type who worried much about the loved ones at home, youd never have taken up aviation.
A tall man moved apart from the others, and held up his hand to call his captors attention to what he was about to say.
Let me ask you a few questions! he cried. You pretend to be a fair-minded man.
How absurd. How could a man of my position be fair-minded toward you? You might as well speak of a Spaniard being fair-minded toward a piece of steak.
At this harsh observation the faces of the two dozen steaks fell, but the tall man continued:
All right! he cried. Weve argued this out before. Youre not a humanitarian and youre not fair-minded, but youre human at least you say you are and you ought to be able to put yourself in our place for long enough to think how how how
How what? demanded Washington, coldly.
how unnecessary
Not to me.
Well, how cruel
Weve covered that. Cruelty doesnt exist where self-preservation is involved. Youve been soldiers; you know that. Try another.
Well, then, how stupid.
There, admitted Washington, I grant you that. But try to think of an alternative. Ive offered to have all or any of you painlessly executed if you wish. Ive offered to have your wives, sweethearts, children, and mothers kidnapped and brought out here. Ill enlarge your place down there and feed and clothe you the rest of your lives. If there was some method of producing permanent amnesia[36] Id have all of you operated on and released immediately, somewhere outside of my preserves. But thats as far as my ideas go.
How about trusting us not to peach on you? cried some one.
You dont proffer that suggestion seriously, said Washington, with an expression of scorn. I did take out one man to teach my daughter Italian. Last week he got away.
A wild yell of jubilation went up suddenly from two dozen throats and a pandemonium of joy ensued. The prisoners clog-danced and cheered and yodled and wrestled with one another in a sudden uprush of animal spirits. They even ran up the glass sides of the bowl as far as they could, and slid back to the bottom upon the natural cushions of their bodies. The tall man started a song in which they all joined
oh, well hang the Kaiser
on a sour apple tree
Braddock Washington sat in inscrutable silence until the song was over. You see, he remarked, when he could gain a modicum of attention. I bear you no ill-will. I like to see you enjoying yourselves. Thats why I didnt tell you the whole story at once. The man what was his name? Critchtichiello? was shot by some of my agents in fourteen different places.
Not guessing that the places referred to were cities, the tumult of rejoicing subsided immediately.
Nevertheless, cried Washington with a touch of anger, he tried to run away. Do you expect me to take chances with any of you after an experience like that?
Again a series of ejaculations went up.
Sure!
Would your daughter like to learn Chinese?
Hey, I can speak Italian! My mother was a wop.[37]
Maybe shed like tlearna speak NYawk!
If shes the little one with the big blue eyes I can teach her a lot of things better than Italian.
I know some Irish songs and I could hammer brass oncet.
Mr. Washington reached forward suddenly with his cane and pushed the button in the grass so that the picture below went out instantly, and there remained only that great dark mouth covered dismally with the black teeth of the grating.
Hey! called a single voice from below, you aint goin away without givin us your blessing?
But Mr. Washington, followed by the two boys, was already strolling on toward the ninth hole of the golf course, as though the pit and its contents were no more than a hazard over which his facile iron had triumphed with ease.
VII
July under the lee of the diamond mountain was a month of blanket nights and of warm, glowing days. John and Kismine were in love. He did not know that the little gold football (inscribed with the legend Pro deo et patria et St. Midas[38]) which he had given her rested on a platinum chain next to her bosom. But it did. And she for her part was not aware that a large sapphire which had dropped one day from her simple coiffure was stowed away tenderly in Johns jewel box.
Late one afternoon when the ruby and ermine music room was quiet, they spent an hour there together. He held her hand and she gave him such a look that he whispered her name aloud. She bent toward him then hesitated.
Did you say Kismine? she asked softly, or
She had wanted to be sure. She thought she might have misunderstood.
Neither of them had ever kissed before, but in the course of an hour it seemed to make little difference.
The afternoon drifted away. That night when a last breath of music drifted down from the highest tower, they each lay awake, happily dreaming over the separate minutes of the day. They had decided to be married as soon as possible.
VIII
Every day Mr. Washington and the two young men went hunting or fishing in the deep forests or played golf around the somnolent course games which John diplomatically allowed his host to win or swam in the mountain coolness of the lake. John found Mr. Washington a somewhat exacting personality utterly uninterested in any ideas or opinions except his own. Mrs. Washington was aloof and reserved at all times. She was apparently indifferent to her two daughters, and entirely absorbed in her son Percy, with whom she held interminable conversations in rapid Spanish at dinner.
Jasmine, the elder daughter, resembled Kismine in appearance except that she was somewhat bow-legged, and terminated in large hands and feet but was utterly unlike her in temperament. Her favorite books had to do with poor girls who kept house for widowed fathers. John learned from Kismine that Jasmine had never recovered from the shock and disappointment caused her by the termination of the World War, just as she was about to start for Europe as a canteen expert. She had even pined away for a time, and Braddock Washington had taken steps to promote a new war in the Balkans[39] but she had seen a photograph of some wounded Serbian[40] soldiers and lost interest in the whole proceedings. But Percy and Kismine seemed to have inherited the arrogant attitude in all its harsh magnificence from their father. A chaste and consistent selfishness ran like a pattern through their every idea.
John was enchanted by the wonders of the château and the valley. Braddock Washington, so Percy told him, had caused to be kidnapped a landscape gardener, an architect, a designer of state settings, and a French decadent poet left over from the last century. He had put his entire force of negroes at their disposal, guaranteed to supply them with any materials that the world could offer, and left them to work out some ideas of their own. But one by one they had shown their uselessness. The decadent poet had at once begun bewailing his separation from the boulevards in spring he made some vague remarks about spices, apes, and ivories, but said nothing that was of any practical value. The stage designer on his part wanted to make the whole valley a series of tricks and sensational effects a state of things that the Washingtons would soon have grown tired of. And as for the architect and the landscape gardener, they thought only in terms of convention. They must make this like this and that like that.
But they had, at least, solved the problem of what was to be done with them they all went mad early one morning after spending the night in a single room trying to agree upon the location of a fountain, and were now confined comfortably in an insane asylum at Westport, Connecticut.
But, inquired John curiously, who did plan all your wonderful reception rooms and halls, and approaches and bathrooms ?
Well, answered Percy, I blush to tell you, but it was a moving-picture fella. He was the only man we found who was used to playing with an unlimited amount of money, though he did tuck his napkin in his collar and couldnt read or write.
As August drew to a close John began to regret that he must soon go back to school. He and Kismine had decided to elope the following June.
It would be nicer to be married here, Kismine confessed, but of course I could never get fathers permission to marry you at all. Next to that Id rather elope. Its terrible for wealthy people to be married in America at present they always have to send out bulletins to the press saying that theyre going to be married in remnants, when what they mean is just a peck of old second-hand pearls and some used lace worn once by the Empress Eugénie.[41]
I know, agreed John fervently. When I was visiting the Schnlitzer-Murphys, the eldest daughter, Gwendolyn, married a man whose father owns half of West Virginia.[42] She wrote home saying what a tough struggle she was carrying on on his salary as a bank clerk and then she ended up by saying that Thank God, I have four good maids anyhow, and that helps a little.
Its absurd, commented Kismine. Think of the millions and millions of people in the world, laborers and all, who get along with only two maids.
One afternoon late in August a chance remark of Kismines changed the face of the entire situation, and threw John into a state of terror.
They were in their favorite grove, and between kisses John was indulging in some romantic forebodings which he fancied added poignancy to their relations.
Sometimes I think well never marry, he said sadly. Youre too wealthy, too magnificent. No one as rich as you are can be like other girls. I should marry the daughter of some well-to-do wholesale hardware man from Omaha[43] or Sioux City,[44] and be content with her half-million.
I knew the daughter of a wholesale hardware man once, remarked Kismine. I dont think youd have been contented with her. She was a friend of my sisters. She visited here.
Oh, then youve had other guests? exclaimed John in surprise.
Kismine seemed to regret her words.
Oh, yes, she said hurriedly, weve had a few.
But arent you wasnt your father afraid theyd talk outside?
Oh, to some extent, to some extent, she answered. Lets talk about something pleasanter.
But Johns curiosity was aroused.
Something pleasanter! he demanded. Whats unpleasant about that? Werent they nice girls?
To his great surprise Kismine began to weep.
Yes th thats the the whole t-trouble. I grew qu-quite attached to some of them. So did Jasmine, but she kept inv-viting them anyway. I couldnt understand it.
A dark suspicion was born in Johns heart.
Do you mean that they told, and your father had them removed?
Worse than that, she muttered brokenly. Father took no chances and Jasmine kept writing them to come, and they had such a good time!
She was overcome by a paroxysm of grief.
Stunned with the horror of this revelation, John sat there open-mouthed, feeling the nerves of his body twitter like so many sparrows perched upon his spinal column.
Now, Ive told you, and I shouldnt have, she said, calming suddenly and drying her dark blue eyes.
Do you mean to say that your father had them murdered before they left?
She nodded.
In August usually or early in September. Its only natural for us to get all the pleasure out of them that we can first.
How abominable! How why, I must be going crazy! Did you really admit that
I did, interrupted Kismine, shrugging her shoulders. We cant very well imprison them like those aviators, where theyd be a continual reproach to us every day. And its always been made easier for Jasmine and me because father had it done sooner than we expected. In that way we avoided any farewell scene
So you murdered them! Uh! cried John.
It was done very nicely. They were drugged while they were asleep and their families were always told that they died of scarlet fever in Butte.
But I fail to understand why you kept on inviting them!
I didnt, burst out Kismine. I never invited one. Jasmine did. And they always had a very good time. Shed give them the nicest presents toward the last. I shall probably have visitors too Ill harden up to it. We cant let such an inevitable thing as death stand in the way of enjoying life while we have it. Think how lonesome itd be out here if we never had any one. Why, father and mother have sacrificed some of their best friends just as we have.
And so, cried John accusingly, and so you were letting me make love to you and pretending to return it, and talking about marriage, all the time knowing perfectly well that Id never get out of here alive