Part 25 (1/2)
”You speak,” I said, ”like a patriot. May I ask your name?”
”My name is Raymon,” he answered, with a bow, ”Raymon Domenico y Miraflores de las Gracias.”
”And may I call you simply Raymon?”
”I shall be delirious with pleasure if you will do so,”
he answered, ”and dare I ask you, in return, your business in our beautiful country?”
The car, as we were speaking, had entered upon a long gentle down-grade across the plain, so that it ran without great effort on my part.
”Certainly,” I said. ”I'm going into the interior to see General Villa!”
At the shock of the name, Raymon nearly fell off the car.
”Villa! General Francesco Villa! It is not possible!”
The little man was s.h.i.+vering with evident fear.
”See him! See Villa! Not possible. Let me show you a picture of him instead? But approach him--it is not possible. He shoots everybody at sight!”
”That's all right,” I said. ”I have a written safe conduct that protects me.”
”From whom?”
”Here,” I said, ”look at them--I have two.”
Raymon took the doc.u.ments I gave him and read aloud:
”'The bearer is on an important mission connected with American rights in Mexico. If anyone shoots him he will be held to a strict accountability. W. W.' Ah! Excellent!
He will be compelled to send in an itemised account.
Excellent! And this other, let me see. 'If anybody interferes with the bearer, I will knock his face in. T.
R.' Admirable. This is, if anything, better than the other for use in our country. It appeals to our quick Mexican natures. It is, as we say, _simpatico_. It touches us.”
”It is meant to,” I said.
”And may I ask,” said Raymon, ”the nature of your business with Villa?”
”We are old friends,” I answered. ”I used to know him years ago when he kept a Mexican cigar store in Buffalo.
It occurred to me that I might be able to help the cause of peaceful intervention. I have already had a certain experience in Turkey. I am commissioned to make General Villa an offer.”
”I see,” said Raymon. ”In that case, if we are to find Villa let us make all haste forward. And first we must direct ourselves yonder”--he pointed in a vague way towards the mountains--”where we must presently leave our car and go on foot, to the camp of General Carranza.”
”Carranza!” I exclaimed. ”But he is fighting Villa!”
”Exactly. It is _possible_--not certain--but possible, that he knows where Villa is. In our Mexico when two of our generalistas are fighting in the mountains, they keep coming across one another. It is hard to avoid it.”
”Good,” I said. ”Let us go forward.”