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A CHARMED LIFE

by Richard Harding Davis

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

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

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

"You mustn't think,"she said,"that I am one of those silly girls who would 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 you YOU CAN'T GO! My gracious!"she cried, helplessly. She knew the words fell short of expressing her distress, but her education had not supplied her with exclamations of greater violence.

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

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

"If you should die,"whispered Miss Armitage."What would I do. What would 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 you know, and they're going to fight, too. I'm going only to look on. That's bad enough, isn't it, without sitting at home? You should be sorry I'm not going to fight."

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

"If I love you,"shouted the young man. His voice suggested that he was about 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 to free Cuba? No! I want YOU, and if you go, you are the one who is sure to be killed. You are so big—and so brave, and you will be rushing in wherever the fighting is, and then—then you will die."She raised her 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 to live, to live without you for years, for many miserable years."

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

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

She held him away from her."Listen!"she whispered."What you say is true. It must be true, because you are always right. I love you so that nothing can harm you. My love will be a charm. It will hang around your neck and protect you, and keep you, and bring you back to me. When you are in danger my love will save you. For, while it lives, I live. When it 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 previous campaign had good fortune so persistently stood smiling at his elbow. At each moment of the war that was critical, picturesque, dramatic, by some lucky accident he found himself among those present. He could not lose. Even when his press boat broke down at Cardenas, a Yankee cruiser and two Spanish gun-boats, apparently for his sole benefit, engaged in an impromptu duel within range of his megaphone. When his horse went lame, the column with which he had wished to advance, passed forward to the front unmolested, while the rear guard, to which he had been forced to join his fortune, fought its way through the stifling underbrush.

Between his news despatches, when he was not singing the praises of his fellow-countrymen, or copying lists of their killed and wounded, he wrote to Miss Armitage. His letters were scrawled on yellow copy paper 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. You can read about it in the papers. What I want you to know is that I love you as no man ever—"And so on for many pages.

From her only one of the letters she wrote reached him. It was picked up in the sand at Siboney after the medical corps, in an effort to wipe out the 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 woman could love more than I did then. But, now I know. At least I know one girl who can. She cannot write it. She can never tell you. You must just believe.

"Each day I hear from you, for as soon as the paper comes, I take it down to the rocks and read your cables, and I look south across the ocean to Cuba, and try to see you in all that fighting and heat and fever. But I am not afraid. For each morning I wake to find I love you more; 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 your sheaves 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 arrange terms 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 of the regular army had, in a night attack, driven back the Spaniards from Adhuntas. The next afternoon as the column was in line of march, and the men were shaking themselves into their accoutrements, a dusty, sweating volunteer staff officer rode down the main street of Adhuntas, and with the 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. Some whirled their hats in the air and cheered. Those who saw promotion and the new insignia on their straps vanish, swore deeply. Chesterton fell upon his saddle-bags and began to distribute his possessions among the enlisted men. After he had remobilized, his effects consisted of a change of clothes, his camera, water-bottle, and his medicine case. In his present state of health and spirits he could not believe he stood in need of the medicine case, but it was a gift from Miss Armitage, and carried with it a promise from him that he always would carry it. He had"packed"it throughout the campaign, and for others it had proved of value.

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

"I am leaving you so quick,"cried Chesterton laughing,"that you won't even see the dust. The re's a transport starts from Mayaguez at six to-morrow morning, and, if I don't catch it, this pony will die on the wharf."

"The road to Mayaguez is not healthy for Americans,"said the general in command."I don't think I ought to let you go. The enemy does not know peace 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 in your command to stop me, and as for the Spaniards and guerillas—! I'm homesick,"cried the young man."I'm so damned homesick that I am liable to die of it before the transport gets me to Sandy Hook."

"If you are shot up by an outpost,"growled the general,"you will be worse off than homesick. It's forty miles to Mayaguez. Better wait till daylight. 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. Apparently the effort brought a deeper shadow to his tan,"but nothing else can kill 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 light as day, and cast across it black tracings of the swinging vines and creepers; while high in the air it turned the polished surface of the palms into glittering silver. As he plunged into the cool depths of the forest Chesterton threw up his arms and thanked God that he was moving toward her. The luck that had accompanied him throughout the campaign had held until the end. Had he been forced to wait for a transport, each hour would have meant a month of torment, an Arid, wasted place in his life. As it was, with each eager stride of El Capitan, his little Porto Rican pony, he was brought closer to her. He was so happy that as he galloped through the dark shadows of the jungle or out into the brilliant moonlight he shouted aloud and sang; and again as he urged El Capitan to greater bursts of speed, he explained in joyous, breathless phrases why it was that he urged him on.

"For she is wonderful and most beautiful,"he cried,"the most glorious girl in all the world! And, if I kept her waiting, even for a moment, El Capitan, I would be unworthy—and I might lose her! So you see we ride for a great prize!"

The Spanish column that, the night before, had been driven from Adhuntas, now in ignorance of peace, occupied both sides of the valley through which ran the road to Mayaguez, and in ambush by the road itself had placed an outpost of two men. One was a sharp-shooter of the picked corps of the Guardia Civile, and one a sergeant of the regiment that lay hidden in the heights. If the Americans advanced toward Mayaguez, these men were to wait until the head of the column drew abreast of them, when they were to fire. The report of their rifles would be the signal for those in the hill above to wipe out the memory of Adhuntas.

Chesterton had been riding at a gallop, but, as he reached the place where the men lay in ambush, he pulled El Capitan to a walk, and took advantage of his first breathing spell to light his pipe. He had already filled it, and was now fumbling in his pocket for his match-box. The match-box was of wood such as one can buy, filled to the brim with matches, for one penny. But it was a most precious possession. In the early days of his interest in Miss Armitage, as they were once setting forth 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 borrow some."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chesterton was within fifty yards. After an excited and anxious search he had found the match-box in the wrong pocket. The eyes of the sharp-shooter frowned along the barrel of his rifle. With his chin pressed against the stock he whispered swiftly from the corner of his lips,"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 El Capitan 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 the matchbox it slipped from his fingers and fell noiselessly in the trail. With an exclamation he dropped to the road and to his knees, and groping in the dust began an eager search.

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

"Look!"he whispered."He IS a scout. He is searching the trail for the tracks 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 he might again lose it, thrust it inside his tunic.

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