Captain Jinks, Hero Part 10

He got up and approached the bar and the crowd followed him, and soon every one was supplied with some kind of beverage.

"Here's to Thatcher and Slade! May they represent s...o...b..rgh honorably in the Cubapines and show 'em what s...o...b..rghers are like," said Jackson, elevating his iced c.o.c.ktail.

The health was heartily drunk.

"And here is to that distinguished officer, Captain Jinks. Long may he wave!" cried old Reddy.

"Speech, speech!" exclaimed the convivial crowd.

"Gentlemen," responded Sam, "I am a soldier and not an orator, but I am proud to have my name coupled with those of your honored fellow townsmen. It is a sign of the greatness of our country that men of just the same character are in all quarters of this mighty republic answering their country's call. Soon we shall have the very pick of our youth collected on the sh.o.r.es of these ungrateful islanders who have turned against their best friends, and these misguided people will see for themselves the fruits of our civilization as we see it, in the persons of our soldiers. Permit me in responding to your flattering toast to propose the names of Mr. Reddy and Mr. Tucker as representatives of an older generation of patriots whose example we are happy to have before us for our guidance."

This, Sam's first speech, was received with great applause, and then Josh Thatcher proposed three cheers for Captain Jinks, which were given with a will. The only perverse spirit was that of the commercial traveler, who had sat in the corner reading an old copy of the s...o...b..rgh _Herald_, and now on hearing the cheers, took a candle and went upstairs to bed.

"That man's no good," said Reddy with a shake of his head. While the whole company were expressing their concurrence with this sentiment, Sam bade them good-night and took his leave.

CHAPTER VI

Off for the Cubapines

[Ill.u.s.tration]

By the next morning's mail Sam's commission arrived, and with it orders to report at once at the city of St. Kisco, whence a transport was about to sail on a date which gave Sam hardly time to catch it. He must hurry at once to town and get his new uniforms for which he had been fitted the week before, and then proceed by the fastest trains on the long journey to the distant port without even paying his parents a farewell visit. He found Cleary busily engaged in making his final arrangements, and persuaded him to cut them short and travel with him.

Sam had hardly time to take breath from the moment of his departure from s...o...b..rgh to the evening on which he and Cleary at last sat down in their sleeping-car. His friend heaved a deep sigh.

"Well, here we are actually off and I haven't got anything to do for a change. This is what I call comfort."

"Yes," said Sam, "but I wish we were in the Cubapines. This inaction is terrible while so much is at stake. It's a consolation to know that I am going to help to save the country, but it is tantalizing to wait so long. Then in your own way you're going to help the country too," he added, thinking that he might seem to Cleary to be monopolizing the honors.

"I'll help it by helping you," laughed Cleary. "I've got another contract for you. You see the magazines are worth working. They handle the news after the newspapers are through with it, and they don't interfere with each other. So I got permission to tackle them from _The Lyre_, and I saw the editor of _Scribblers' Magazine_ yesterday and it's a go, if things come out as I expect."

"What do you mean?" asked Sam.

"Why, you are to write articles for them, a regular series, and the price is to be fixed on a sliding scale according to your celebrity at the time of each publication. It won't be less than a hundred dollars a page, and may run up to a thousand. It wouldn't be fair to fix the price ahead. If the articles run say six months, the last article might be worth ten times as much as the first."

"Yes, it might be better written," said Sam.

"Oh, I don't mean that. But your name might be more of an ad. by that time."

"I've never written anything to print in my life," said Sam, "and I'm not sure I can."

"That doesn't make any difference. I'll write them for you. You might be too modest anyhow. I can't think of a good name for the series. It ought to be 'The Autobiography of a Hero,' or 'A Modern Was.h.i.+ngton in the Cubapines,' or something like that. What do you think?"

"I'm sure I don't know," said Sam. "I must leave that to you. They sound to me rather too flattering, but if you are sure that is the way those things are always done, I won't make any objection. You might ask Mr. Jonas. Where is he?"

"He's going on next week. He's the greatest fellow I ever saw.

Everything he touches turns to gold. He's got his grip on everything in sight on those blessed islands already. He's scarcely started, and he could sell out his interests there for a cold million to-day. It's going to be a big company to grab everything. He's called it the 'Benevolent a.s.similation Company, Limited'; rather a good name, I think, tho perhaps 'Unlimited' would be nearer the truth."

"Yes," said Sam. "It shows our true purposes. I hope the Cubapinos will rejoice when they hear the name."

"Perhaps they won't. There's no counting on those people. I'm sick of them before I've seen them. I'm just going to tell what a lot of skins they are when I begin writing for _The Lyre_. By the way, did you have your photographs taken at s...o...b..rgh?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: A BLOOD BROTHERHOOD "A BIG COMPANY TO GRAB EVERYTHING ... THE 'BENEVOLENT a.s.sIMILATION COMPANY, LIMITED'"]

"No," said Sam, "I forgot all about it, but I can write home about the old ones, and I've got one in cadet uniform taken at East Point."

"Well, we mustn't forget to have you taken at St. Kisco, and we can mail the photos to _The Lyre_, but you must be careful not to overlook a thing like that again. The people will want to know what the hero who saved the country looked like."

"Even if I don't do anything very wonderful," said Sam, "and I hope I shall, I shall be taking part in a great work, and doing my share of civilizing and Christianizing a barbarous country. They have no conception of our civilized and refined manners, of the sway of law and order, of all our civilized customs, the result of centuries of improvement and effort."

Cleary picked up a newspaper to read.

"What's that other newspaper lying there?" asked Sam.

"That's _The Evening Star_; do you want it?" and he handed it to him.

"Good Lord! what's that frightful picture?" said Cleary, as Sam opened the paper. "Oh, I see; it's that lynching yesterday. Why, it's from a snap-shot; that's what I call enterprise! There's the darkey tied to the stake, and the flames are just up to his waist. My! how he squirms.

It's fearful, isn't it? And look at the crowd! There are small boys bringing wood, and women and girls looking on, and, upon my word, a baby in arms, too! I know that square very well. I've often been there.

That's the First Presbyterian Church there behind the stake. Rather a handsome building," and Cleary turned back to his own paper, while Sam settled down in his corner to read how the leading citizens gathered bones and charred flesh as mementoes and took them home to their children. No one could have guessed what he was reading from his expression, for his face spoke of nothing but a guileless conscience and a contented heart.

One day at St. Kisco gave just time enough for the photographs, and most of the day was devoted to them. Sam was taken in twenty poses--in the act of leading his troops in a breach, giving the order to fire, charging bayonets himself with a musket supposed to have been taken from a dead foe, standing with his arms folded and his cap pulled over his eyes in the trenches, and waving his cap on a bastion in the moment of triumph. Cleary lay down so that his friend might be pictured with his foot upon his prostrate form. The photographer was one who made a specialty of such work, and was connected with a cinematograph company.

"If you have good luck, sir, and become famous," he said, "as your friend thinks you will, we'll fight your battles over again over there in the vacant lot; and then we'll work these in, and you'll soon be in every variety show in the country."

"But I may be mounted on horseback," said Sam.

"That's so," said Cleary. "Can't you get a horse somewhere and take him on that?"

"We never do that, sir. Here's a saddle. Just sit on it across this chair, and when the time comes we'll work it in all right. We'll have a real horse over in the lot." And thus Sam was taken straddling a chair.

They left orders to send copies of the photographs to Homeville, s...o...b..rgh, and to Miss Hunter who was still at East Point, and the remainder to _The Lyre_. That very evening they boarded the transport and at daybreak sailed away over the great ocean. The s.h.i.+p was filled by various drafts for different regiments and men-of-war. Sam's regiment was already at the seat of war, but there were several captains and lieutenants a.s.signed to it on board, as well as thirty or forty men. Sam felt entirely comfortable again for the first time since his resignation at East Point. He was in his element, the military world, once more. Everything was ruled by drum, fife, and bugle. He found the same feeling of intense patriotism again, which civilians can not quite attain to, however they may make the attempt. The relations between some of the officers seemed to Sam somewhat strange. The highest naval officer on board, a captain, was not on speaking terms with the highest army officer, a brigadier-general of volunteers. This breach apparently set the fas.h.i.+on, for all the way down, through both arms of the service, there were jealousies and quarrels. There was one great subject of dispute, the respective merits of the two admirals who had overcome the Castalian fleet at Havilla. Some ascribed the victory to the one and some to the other, but to take one side was to put an end to all friends.h.i.+ps on the other.

"See here, Sam," said Cleary, not long after they had been out of sight of land, "who are you for, Admiral Hercules or Admiral Slewey? We can't keep on the fence, that's evident, and if we get down on different sides we can't be friends, and that might upset all our plans, not to speak of the Benevolent a.s.similation Trust."

"The fact is," said Sam, "that I don't know anything about it. They're both admirals, and they both must be right."

"n.o.body knows anything about it, but we must make up our minds all the same. My idea is that Hercules is going to come out ahead; and as long as one seems as good as the other in other respects, I move that we go for Hercules."

"Very well," said Sam, "if you say so. He was in command, anyway, and more likely to be right."

So Sam and Cleary allied themselves with the Hercules party, which was in the majority. They became quite intimate with the naval officers who belonged to this faction, and saw more of them than of the army men.

Sam was much interested in learning about the profession which kept alive at sea the same traditions which the army preserved on land. For the first few days of the voyage the rolling of the s.h.i.+p made him feel a little sick, and he concealed his failings as well as he could and kept to himself; but he proved to be on the whole a good sailor. He was particularly pleased to learn that on a man-of-war the captain takes his meals alone, and that only on invitation can an inferior officer sit down at table with him. This appealed to him as an admirable way of maintaining discipline and respect. The fact that all the naval men he met had their arms and bodies more or less tattooed also aroused his admiration. He inquired of the common soldiers if they ever indulged in the same artistic luxury, and found out to his delight that a few of them did.

"It's strange," he remarked to Cleary, "that tattooing is universal in the navy and comparatively rare in the army. I rather think the habit must have been common to both services, and somehow we have nearly lost it. It's a fine thing. It marks a man with n.o.ble symbols and mottoes, and commits him to an honorable life, indelibly I may say."