A CHARMED LIFE

by Richard Harding Davis

She loved him so, that when he went away to a little war in which hiscountry was interested she could not understand, nor quite forgive. 

As the correspondent of a newspaper, Chesterton had looked on at otherwars; when the yellow races met, when the infidel Turk spanked theChristian Greek; and one he had watched from inside a British square, where he was greatly alarmed lest he should be trampled upon byterrified camels. This had happened before he and she had met. Afterthey met, she told him that what chances he had chosen to take beforehe came into her life fell outside of her jurisdiction. But now thathis life belonged to her, this talk of his standing up to be shot at waswicked. It was worse than wicked; it was absurd. 

When the Maine sank in Havana harbor and the word "war" was appearinghourly in hysterical extras, Miss Armitage explained her position. 

"You mustn't think, " she said, "that I am one of those silly girls whowould beg you not to go to war. "

At the moment of speaking her cheek happened to be resting against his, and his arm was about her, so he humbly bent his head and kissed her, and whispered very proudly and softly, "No, dearest. "

At which she withdrew from him frowning. 

"No! I'm not a bit like those girls, " she proclaimed. "I merely tell youYOU CAN'T GO! My gracious!" she cried, helplessly. She knew the wordsfell short of expressing her distress, but her education had notsupplied her with exclamations of greater violence. 

"My goodness!" she cried. "How can you frighten me so? It's not likeyou, " she reproached him. "You are so unselfish, so noble. You arealways thinking of other people. How can you talk of going to war--to bekilled--to me? And now, now that you have made me love you so?"

The hands, that when she talked seemed to him like swallows dartingand flashing in the sunlight, clutched his sleeve. The fingers, thathe would rather kiss than the lips of any other woman that ever lived, clung to his arm. Their clasp reminded him of that of a drowning childhe had once lifted from the surf. 

"If you should die, " whispered Miss Armitage. "What would I do. Whatwould I do!"

"But my dearest, " cried the young man. "My dearest ONE! I've GOT to go. It's our own war. Everybody else will go, " he pleaded. "Every man youknow, and they're going to fight, too. I'm going only to look on. That'sbad enough, isn't it, without sitting at home? You should be sorry I'mnot going to fight. "

"Sorry!" exclaimed the girl. "If you love me--"

"If I love you, " shouted the young man. His voice suggested that he wasabout to shake her. "How dare you?"

She abandoned that position and attacked from one more logical. 

"But why punish me?" she protested. "Do I want the war? Do I want tofree Cuba? No! I want YOU, and if you go, you are the one who is sureto be killed. You are so big--and so brave, and you will be rushing inwherever the fighting is, and then--then you will die. " She raisedher eyes and looked at him as though seeing him from a great distance. "And, " she added fatefully, "I will die, too, or maybe I will have tolive, to live without you for years, for many miserable years. "

Fearfully, with great caution, as though in his joy in her he mightcrush her in his hands, the young man drew her to him and held herclose. After a silence he whispered. "But, you know that nothing canhappen to me. Not now, that God has let me love you. He could not be socruel. He would not have given me such happiness to take it from me. Aman who loves you, as I love you, cannot come to any harm. And the manYOU love is immortal, immune. He holds a charmed life. So long as youlove him, he must live. "

The eyes of the girl smiled up at him through her tears. She lifted herlips to his. "Then you will never die!" she said. 

She held him away from her. "Listen!" she whispered. "What you say istrue. It must be true, because you are always right. I love you so thatnothing can harm you. My love will be a charm. It will hang around yourneck and protect you, and keep you, and bring you back to me. When youare in danger my love will save you. For, while it lives, I live. Whenit dies--"

Chesterton kissed her quickly. 

"What happens then, " he said, "doesn't matter. "

The war game had run its happy-go-lucky course briefly and brilliantly, with "glory enough for all, " even for Chesterton. For, in no previouscampaign had good fortune so persistently stood smiling at his elbow. Ateach moment of the war that was critical, picturesque, dramatic, by somelucky accident he found himself among those present. He could not lose. Even when his press boat broke down at Cardenas, a Yankee cruiser andtwo Spanish gun-boats, apparently for his sole benefit, engaged in animpromptu duel within range of his megaphone. When his horse went lame, the column with which he had wished to advance, passed forward to thefront unmolested, while the rear guard, to which he had been forced tojoin his fortune, fought its way through the stifling underbrush. 

Between his news despatches, when he was not singing the praises ofhis fellow-countrymen, or copying lists of their killed and wounded, hewrote to Miss Armitage. His letters were scrawled on yellow copypaper and consisted of repetitions of the three words, "I love you, "rearranged, illuminated, and intensified. 

Each letter began much in the same way. "The war is still going on. Youcan read about it in the papers. What I want you to know is that I loveyou as no man ever--" And so on for many pages. 

From her only one of the letters she wrote reached him. It was picked upin the sand at Siboney after the medical corps, in an effort to wipe outthe yellow-fever, had set fire to the post-office tent. 

She had written it some weeks before from her summer home at Newport, and in it she said: "When you went to the front, I thought no womancould love more than I did then. But, now I know. At least I know onegirl who can. She cannot write it. She can never tell you. You must justbelieve. 

"Each day I hear from you, for as soon as the paper comes, I take itdown to the rocks and read your cables, and I look south across theocean to Cuba, and try to see you in all that fighting and heat andfever. But I am not afraid. For each morning I wake to find I love youmore; that it has grown stronger, more wonderful, more hard to bear. And I know the charm I gave you grows with it, and is more powerful, and that it will bring you back to me wearing new honors, 'bearing yoursheaves with you. '

"As though I cared for your new honors. I want YOU, YOU, YOU--only YOU. "

When Santiago surrendered and the invading army settled down to arrangeterms of peace, and imbibe fever, and General Miles moved to Porto Rico, Chesterton moved with him. 

In that pretty little island a command of regulars under a general ofthe regular army had, in a night attack, driven back the Spaniards fromAdhuntas. The next afternoon as the column was in line of march, and themen were shaking themselves into their accoutrements, a dusty, sweatingvolunteer staff officer rode down the main street of Adhuntas, and withthe authority of a field marshal, held up his hand. 

"General Miles's compliments, sir, " he panted, "and peace is declared!"

Different men received the news each in a different fashion. Somewhirled their hats in the air and cheered. Those who saw promotion andthe new insignia on their straps vanish, swore deeply. Chesterton fellupon his saddle-bags and began to distribute his possessions amongthe enlisted men. After he had remobilized, his effects consisted of achange of clothes, his camera, water-bottle, and his medicine case. Inhis present state of health and spirits he could not believe he stoodin need of the medicine case, but it was a gift from Miss Armitage, andcarried with it a promise from him that he always would carry it. Hehad "packed" it throughout the campaign, and for others it had proved ofvalue. 

"I take it you are leaving us, " said an officer enviously. 

"I am leaving you so quick, " cried Chesterton laughing, "that you won'teven see the dust. There's a transport starts from Mayaguez at sixto-morrow morning, and, if I don't catch it, this pony will die on thewharf. "

"The road to Mayaguez is not healthy for Americans, " said the general incommand. "I don't think I ought to let you go. The enemy does not knowpeace is on yet, and there are a lot of guerillas--"

Chesterton shook his head in pitying wonder. 

"Not let me go!" he exclaimed. "Why, General, you haven't enough men inyour command to stop me, and as for the Spaniards and guerillas--! I'mhomesick, " cried the young man. "I'm so damned homesick that I am liableto die of it before the transport gets me to Sandy Hook. "

"If you are shot up by an outpost, " growled the general, "you will beworse off than homesick. It's forty miles to Mayaguez. Better wait tilldaylight. Where's the sense of dying, after the fighting's over?"

"If I don't catch that transport I sure WILL die, " laughed Chesterton. His head was bent and he was tugging at his saddle girths. Apparentlythe effort brought a deeper shadow to his tan, "but nothing else cankill me! I have a charm, General, " he exclaimed. 

"We hadn't noticed it, " said the general. 

The staff officers, according to regulations, laughed. 

"It's not that kind of a charm, " said Chesterton. "Good-by, General. "

The road was hardly more than a trail, but the moon made it as lightas day, and cast across it black tracings of the swinging vines andcreepers; while high in the air it turned the polished surface of thepalms into glittering silver. As he plunged into the cool depths of theforest Chesterton threw up his arms and thanked God that he was movingtoward her. The luck that had accompanied him throughout the campaignhad held until the end. Had he been forced to wait for a transport, eachhour would have meant a month of torment, an arid, wasted place in hislife. As it was, with each eager stride of El Capitan, his little PortoRican pony, he was brought closer to her. He was so happy that ashe galloped through the dark shadows of the jungle or out into thebrilliant moonlight he shouted aloud and sang; and again as he urged ElCapitan to greater bursts of speed, he explained in joyous, breathlessphrases why it was that he urged him on. 

"For she is wonderful and most beautiful, " he cried, "the most gloriousgirl in all the world! And, if I kept her waiting, even for a moment, ElCapitan, I would be unworthy--and I might lose her! So you see we ridefor a great prize!"

The Spanish column that, the night before, had been driven fromAdhuntas, now in ignorance of peace, occupied both sides of the valleythrough which ran the road to Mayaguez, and in ambush by the road itselfhad placed an outpost of two men. One was a sharp-shooter of the pickedcorps of the Guardia Civile, and one a sergeant of the regiment that layhidden in the heights. If the Americans advanced toward Mayaguez, thesemen were to wait until the head of the column drew abreast of them, whenthey were to fire. The report of their rifles would be the signal forthose in the hill above to wipe out the memory of Adhuntas. 

Chesterton had been riding at a gallop, but, as he reached the placewhere the men lay in ambush, he pulled El Capitan to a walk, and tookadvantage of his first breathing spell to light his pipe. He had alreadyfilled it, and was now fumbling in his pocket for his match-box. Thematch-box was of wood such as one can buy, filled to the brim withmatches, for one penny. But it was a most precious possession. In theearly days of his interest in Miss Armitage, as they were once settingforth upon a motor trip, she had handed it to him. 

"Why, " he asked. 

"You always forget to bring any, " she said simply, "and have to borrowsome. "

The other men in the car, knowing this to be a just reproof, laughedsardonically, and at the laugh the girl had looked up in surprise. Chesterton, seeing the look, understood that her act, trifling asit was, had been sincere, had been inspired simply by thought of hiscomfort. And he asked himself why young Miss Armitage should considerhis comfort, and why the fact that she did consider it should make himso extremely happy. And he decided it must be because she loved him andhe loved her. 

Having arrived at that conclusion, he had asked her to marry him, andupon the match-box had marked the date and the hour. Since then she hadgiven him many pretty presents, marked with her initials, marked withhis crest, with strange cabalistic mottoes that meant nothing to any onesave themselves. But the wooden matchbox was still the most valued ofhis possessions. 

As he rode into the valley the rays of the moon fell fully upon him, andexposed him to the outpost as pitilessly as though he had been held inthe circle of a search-light. 

The bronzed Mausers pushed cautiously through the screen of vines. Therewas a pause, and the rifle of the sergeant wavered. When he spoke histone was one of disappointment. 

"He is a scout, riding alone, " he said. 

"He is an officer, " returned the sharp-shooter, excitedly. "The othersfollow. We should fire now and give the signal. "

"He is no officer, he is a scout, " repeated the sergeant. "They havesent him ahead to study the trail and to seek us. He may be a league inadvance. If we shoot HIM, we only warn the others. "

Chesterton was within fifty yards. After an excited and anxioussearch he had found the match-box in the wrong pocket. The eyes ofthe sharp-shooter frowned along the barrel of his rifle. With his chinpressed against the stock he whispered swiftly from the corner of hislips, "He is an officer! I am aiming where the strap crosses his heart. You aim at his belt. We fire together. "

The heat of the tropic night and the strenuous gallop had covered ElCapitan with a lather of sweat. The reins upon his neck dripped with it. The gauntlets with which Chesterton held them were wet. As he raised thematchbox it slipped from his fingers and fell noiselessly in the trail. With an exclamation he dropped to the road and to his knees, and gropingin the dust began an eager search. 

The sergeant caught at the rifle of the sharpshooter, and pressed itdown. 

"Look!" he whispered. "He IS a scout. He is searching the trail for thetracks of our ponies. If you fire they will hear it a league away. "

"But if he finds our trail and returns--"

The sergeant shook his head. "I let him pass forward, " he said grimly. "He will never return. "

Chesterton pounced upon the half-buried matchbox, and in a panic lest hemight again lose it, thrust it inside his tunic. 

"Little do you know, El Capitan, " he exclaimed breathlessly, as hescrambled back into the saddle and lifted the pony into a gallop, "whata narrow escape I had. I almost lost it. "

Toward midnight they came to a wooden bridge swinging above a ravinein which a mountain stream, forty feet below, splashed over half-hiddenrocks, and the stepping stones of the ford. Even before the campaignbegan the bridge had outlived its usefulness, and the unwonted burden ofartillery, and the vibrations of marching men had so shaken it that itswayed like a house of cards. Threatened by its own weight, at the mercyof the first tropic storm, it hung a death trap for the one who firstadded to its burden. 

No sooner had El Capitan struck it squarely with his four hoofs, than hereared and, whirling, sprang back to the solid earth. The suddenness ofhis retreat had all but thrown Chesterton, but he regained his seat, anddigging the pony roughly with his spurs, pulled his head again towardthe bridge. 

"What are you shying at, now?" he panted. "That's a perfectly goodbridge. "

For a minute horse and man struggled for the mastery, the horse spinningin short circles, the man pulling, tugging, urging him with knees andspurs. The first round ended in a draw. There were two more rounds withthe advantage slightly in favor of El Capitan, for he did not approachthe bridge. 

The night was warm and the exertion violent. Chesterton, puzzled andannoyed, paused to regain his breath and his temper. Below him, inthe ravine, the shallow waters of the ford called to him, suggesting apleasant compromise. He turned his eyes downward and saw hanging overthe water what appeared to be a white bird upon the lower limb of adead tree. He knew it to be an orchid, an especially rare orchid, and heknew, also, that the orchid was the favorite flower of Miss Armitage. In a moment he was on his feet, and with the reins over his arm, wasslipping down the bank, dragging El Capitan behind him. He ripped fromthe dead tree the bark to which the orchid was clinging, and with wetmoss and grass packed it in his leather camera case. The camera heabandoned on the path. He always could buy another camera; he could notagain carry a white orchid, plucked in the heart of the tropics on thenight peace was declared, to the girl he left behind him. Followed by ElCapitan, nosing and snuffing gratefully at the cool waters, he waded theford, and with his camera case swinging from his shoulder, galloped upthe opposite bank and back into the trail. 

A minute later, the bridge, unable to recover from the death blow struckby El Capitan, went whirling into the ravine and was broken upon therocks below. Hearing the crash behind him, Chesterton guessed that inthe jungle a tree had fallen. 

They had started at six in the afternoon and had covered twenty of theforty miles that lay between Adhuntas and Mayaguez, when, just at theoutskirts of the tiny village of Caguan, El Capitan stumbled, and whenhe arose painfully, he again fell forward. 

Caguan was a little church, a little vine-covered inn, a dozen one-storyadobe houses shining in the moonlight like whitewashed sepulchres. Theyfaced a grass-grown plaza, in the centre of which stood a great woodencross. At one corner of the village was a corral, and in it many ponies. At the sight Chesterton gave a cry of relief. A light showed throughthe closed shutters of the inn, and when he beat with his whip upon thedoor, from the adobe houses other lights shone, and white-clad figuresappeared in the moonlight. The landlord of the inn was a Spaniard, fatand prosperous-looking, but for the moment his face was eloquent withsuch distress and misery that the heart of the young man, who was atpeace with all the world, went instantly out to him. The Spaniard wasless sympathetic. When he saw the khaki suit and the campaign hathe scowled, and ungraciously would have closed the door. Chesterton, apologizing, pushed it open. His pony, he explained, had gone lame, andhe must have another, and at once. The landlord shrugged his shoulders. These were war times, he said, and the American officer could takewhat he liked. They in Caguan were noncombatants and could not protest. Chesterton hastened to reassure him. The war, he announced, was over, and were it not, he was no officer to issue requisitions. He intendedto pay for the pony. He unbuckled his belt and poured upon the tablea handful of Spanish doubloons. The landlord lowered the candle andsilently counted the gold pieces, and then calling to him two of hisfellow-villagers, crossed the tiny plaza and entered the corral. 

"The American pig, " he whispered, "wishes to buy a pony. He tells me thewar is over; that Spain has surrendered. We know that must be a lie. Itis more probable he is a deserter. He claims he is a civilian, but thatalso is a lie, for he is in uniform. You, Paul, sell him your pony, andthen wait for him at the first turn in the trail, and take it from him. "

"He is armed, " protested the one called Paul. 

"You must not give him time to draw his revolver, " ordered the landlord. "You and Pedro will shoot him from the shadow. He is our country'senemy, and it will be in a good cause. And he may carry despatches. Ifwe take them to the commandante at Mayaguez he will reward us. "

"And the gold pieces?" demanded the one called Paul. 

"We will divide them in three parts, " said the landlord. 

In the front of the inn, surrounded by a ghostlike group that spokeits suspicions, Chesterton was lifting his saddle from El Capitan andrubbing the lame foreleg. It was not a serious sprain. A week wouldset it right, but for that night the pony was useless. Impatiently, Chesterton called across the plaza, begging the landlord to make haste. He was eager to be gone, alarmed and fearful lest even this slight delayshould cause him to miss the transport. The thought was intolerable. Buthe was also acutely conscious that he was very hungry, and he was tooold a campaigner to scoff at hunger. With the hope that he could findsomething to carry with him and eat as he rode forward, he entered theinn. 

The main room of the house was now in darkness, but a smaller roomadjoining it was lit by candles, and by a tiny taper floating beforea crucifix. In the light of the candles Chesterton made out a bed, apriest bending over it, a woman kneeling beside it, and upon the bed thelittle figure of a boy who tossed and moaned. As Chesterton halted andwaited hesitating, the priest strode past him, and in a voice dull andflat with grief and weariness, ordered those at the door to bring thelandlord quickly. As one of the group leaped toward the corral, thepriest said to the others: "There is another attack. I have lost hope. "

Chesterton advanced and asked if he could be of service. The priestshook his head. The child, he said, was the only son of the landlord, and much beloved by him, and by all the village. He was now in the thirdweek of typhoid fever and the period of hemorrhages. Unless they couldbe checked, the boy would die, and the priest, who for many miles ofmountain and forest was also the only doctor, had exhausted his store ofsimple medicines. 

"Nothing can stop the hemorrhage, " he protested wearily, "but thestrongest of drugs. And I have nothing!"

Chesterton bethought him of the medicine case Miss Armitage had forcedupon him. "I have given opium to the men for dysentery, " he said. "Wouldopium help you?"

The priest sprang at him and pushed him out of the door and toward thesaddle-bags. 

"My children, " he cried, to the silent group in the plaza, "God has senta miracle!"

After an hour at the bedside the priest said, "He will live, " andknelt, and the mother of the boy and the villagers knelt with him. WhenChesterton raised his eyes, he found that the landlord, who had beensilently watching while the two men struggled with death for the lifeof his son, had disappeared. But he heard, leaving the village along thetrail to Mayaguez, the sudden clatter of a pony's hoofs. It moved like athing driven with fear. 

The priest strode out into the moonlight. In the recovery of the childhe saw only a demonstration of the efficacy of prayer, and he couldnot too quickly bring home the lesson to his parishioners. Amid theirmurmurs of wonder and gratitude Chesterton rode away. To the kindly careof the priest he bequeathed El Capitan. With him, also, he left the goldpieces which were to pay for the fresh pony. 

A quarter of a mile outside the village three white figures confrontedhim. Two who stood apart in the shadow shrank from observation, but thelandlord, seated bareback upon a pony that from some late exertion wasbreathing heavily, called to him to halt. 

"In the fashion of my country, " he began grandiloquently, "we have comethis far to wish you God speed upon your journey. " In the fashion ofthe American he seized Chesterton by the hand. "I thank you, senor, " hemurmured. 

"Not me, " returned Chesterton. "But the one who made me 'pack' thatmedicine chest. Thank her, for to-night I think it saved a life. "

The Spaniard regarded him curiously, fixing him with his eyes as thoughdeep in consideration. At last he smiled gravely. 

"You are right, " he said. "Let us both remember her in our prayers. "

As Chesterton rode away the words remained gratefully in his memory andfilled him with pleasant thoughts. "The world, " he mused, "is full ofjust such kind and gentle souls. "

After an interminable delay he reached Newport, and they escaped fromthe others, and Miss Armitage and he ran down the lawn to the rocks, andstood with the waves whispering at their feet. 

It was the moment for which each had so often longed, with which bothhad so often tortured themselves by living in imagination, that now, that it was theirs, they were fearful it might not be true. 

Finally, he said: "And the charm never failed! Indeed, it was wonderful!It stood by me so obviously. For instance, the night before San Juan, in the mill at El Poso, I slept on the same poncho with anothercorrespondent. I woke up with a raging appetite for bacon and coffee, and he woke up out of his mind, and with a temperature of one hundredand four. And again, I was standing by Capron's gun at El Caney, whena shell took the three men who served it, and only scared ME. And therewas another time--" He stopped. "Anyway, " he laughed, "here I am. "

"But there was one night, one awful night, " began the girl. Shetrembled, and he made this an added excuse for drawing her closer tohim. "When I felt you were in great peril, that you would surely die. And all through the night I knelt by the window and looked toward Cubaand prayed, and prayed to God to let you live. "

Chesterton bent his head and kissed the tips of her fingers. After amoment he said: "Would you know what night it was? It might be curiousif I had been--"

"Would I know!" cried the girl. "It was eight days ago. The night of thetwelfth. An awful night!"

"The twelfth!" exclaimed Chesterton, and laughed and then begged herpardon humbly. "I laughed because the twelfth, " he exclaimed, "was thenight peace was declared. The war was over. I'm sorry, but THAT night Iwas riding toward you, thinking only of you. I was never for a moment indanger. "