第14章

``Have no anxiety at all, they do just what I say,'' returned Mendoza, in an eager whisper.``If I say `It is all right, I am satisfied with what the Government has done in my absence,' it is enough.And I will say it, I give you the word of a soldier, Iwill say it.I will not move a vote of want of confidence on Tuesday.You need go no farther than myself.I am glad that Iam powerful enough to serve you, and if you doubt me''--he struck his heart and bowed with a deprecatory smile--``you need not pay in the money in exchange for the stock all at the same time.You can pay ten thousand this year, and next year ten thousand more and so on, and so feel confident that I shall have the interests of the mine always in my heart.Who knows what may not happen in a year? I may be able to serve you even more.Who knows how long the present Government will last? But I give you my word of honor, no matter whether I be in Opposition or at the head of the Government, if I receive every six months the retaining fee of which you speak, I will be your representative.And my friends can do nothing.I despise them._I_ am the Opposition.You have done well, my dear sir, to consider me alone.''

Clay turned in his chair and looked back of him through the office to the room beyond.

``Boys,'' he called, ``you can come out now.''

He rose and pushed his chair away and beckoned to the orderly who sat in the saddle holding the General's horse.Langham and MacWilliams came out and stood in the open door, and Mendoza rose and looked at Clay.

``You can go now,'' Clay said to him, quietly.``And you can rise in the Senate on Tuesday and move your vote of want of confidence and object to our concession, and when you have resumed your seat the Secretary of Mines will rise in his turn and tell the Senate how you stole out here in the night and tried to blackmail me, and begged me to bribe you to be silent, and that you offered to throw over your friends and to take all that we would give you and keep it yourself.That will make you popular with your friends, and will show the Government just what sort of a leader it has working against it.''

Clay took a step forward and shook his finger in the officer's face.``Try to break that concession; try it.It was made by one Government to a body of honest, decent business men, with a Government of their own back of them, and if you interfere with our conceded rights to work those mines, I'll have a man-of-war down here with white paint on her hull, and she'll blow you and your little republic back up there into the mountains.Now you can go.''

Mendoza had straightened with surprise when Clay first began to speak, and had then bent forward slightly as though he meant to interrupt him.His eyebrows were lowered in a straight line, and his lips moved quickly.

``You poor--'' he began, contemptuously.``Bah,'' he exclaimed, ``you're a fool; I should have sent a servant to talk with you.

You are a child--but you are an insolent child,'' he cried, suddenly, his anger breaking out, ``and I shall punish you.You dare to call me names! You shall fight me, you shall fight me to-morrow.You have insulted an officer, and you shall meet me at once, to-morrow.''

``If I meet you to-morrow,'' Clay replied, ``I will thrash you for your impertinence.The only reason I don't do it now is because you are on my doorstep.You had better not meet me tomorrow, or at any other time.And I have no leisure to fight duels with anybody.''

``You are a coward,'' returned the other, quietly, ``and I tell you so before my servant.''