Read Online The Complete Works of Stephen Crane by Stephen Crane - Free Book Online Page B

the place with more than one eye upon the scene in the plaza, but they soon paid heed to the arrival of a gentleman with such an amount of beautiful leather luggage, all marked boldly with the initials “R. C.” Coleman let them lead him and follow him and conduct him and use bad English upon him without noting either their words, their salaams or their work. His mind had quickly fixed upon the fact that here was the probable headquarters of the Wainwright party and, with the rush of his western race fleeting through his veins, he felt that he would choke and die if he did not learn of the Wainwrights in the first two minutes. It was a tragic venture to attempt to make the Levantine mind understand something off the course, that the new arrival’s first thought was to establish a knowledge of the whereabouts of some of his friends rather than to swarm helter-skelter into that part of the hotel for which he was willing to pay rent. In fact he failed to thus impress them; failed in dark wrath, but, nevertheless, failed. At last he was simply forced to concede the travel of files of men up the broad, red-carpeted stair-case, each man being loaded with Coleman’s luggage. The men in the hotel-bureau were then able to comprehend that the foreign gentleman might have something else on his mind. They raised their eye-brows languidly when he spoke of the Wainwright party in gentle surprise that he had not yet learned that they were gone some time. They were departed on some excursion. Where? Oh, really — it was almost laughable, indeed — they didn’t know. Were they sure? Why, yes — it was almost laughable, indeed — they were quite sure. Where could the gentleman find out about them? Well, they — as they had explained — did not know, but — it was possible — the American minister might know. Where was he to be found? Oh, that was very simple. It was well known that the American minister had apartments in the hotel. Was he in? Ah, that they could not say.
    So Coleman, rejoicing at his final emancipation and with the grime of travel still upon him, burst in somewhat violently upon the secretary of the Hon. Thomas M. Gordner of Nebraska, the United States minister to Greece. From his desk the secretary arose from behind an accidental bulwark of books and govermental pamphets. “Yes, certainly. Mr. Gordner is in. If you would give me your card—”
    Directly, Coleman was introduced into another room where a quiet man who was rolling a cigarette looked him frankly but carefully in the eye. “The Wainwrights?” said the minister immediately after the question. “Why, I myself am immensely concerned about them at present. I’m afraid they’ve gotten themselves into trouble.’
    “Really?” said Coleman.
    “Yes. That little professor is rather — er — stubborn; Isn’t he? He wanted to make an expedition to Nikopolis and I explained to him all the possibilities of war and begged him to at least not take his wife and daughter with him.”
    “Daughter,” murmured Coleman, as if in his sleep. “But that little old man had a head like a stone and only laughed at me. Of course those villainous young students were only too delighted at a prospect of war, but it was a stupid and absurd thing for the man to take his wife and daughter there. They are up there now. I can’t get a word from them or get a word to them.”
    Coleman had been choking. “Where is Nikopolis?” he asked.
    The minister gazed suddenly in comprehension of the man before him. “Nikopolis is in Turkey,” he answered gently.
    Turkey at that time was believed to be a country of delay, corruption, turbulence and massacre. It meant everything. More than a half of the Christians of the world shuddered at the name of Turkey. Coleman’s lips tightened and perhaps blanched, and his chin moved out strangely, once, twice, thrice. “How can I get to Nikopolis?” he said.
    The minister smiled. “It would take you the better part of four days if you