"He agreed; but on the sidewalk he fell to cursing again in the dull monotonous way that he had done when I pulled him out of the coal cellar.
"'Captain,' said he, 'before we go any further, it's no more than fair to tell you that I'm known from Baffin's Bay to Terra del Fuego as "Bad-Luck" Kearny.And I'm It.Everything I get into goes up in the air except a balloon.Every bet I ever made I lost except when I coppered it.Every boat I ever sailed on sank except the submarines.
Everything I was ever interested in went to pieces except a patent bombshell that I invented.Everything I ever took hold of and tried to run I ran into the ground except when I tried to plough.And that's why they call me Bad-Luck Kearny.I thought I'd tell you.'
"'Bad luck,' said I, 'or what goes by that name, may now and then tangle the affairs of any man.But if it persists beyond the estimate of what we may call the "averages" there must be a cause for it.'
"'There is,' said Kearny emphatically, 'and when we walk another square I will show it to you.'
"Surprised, I kept by his side until we came to Canal Street and out into the middle of its great width.
"Kearny seized me by an arm and pointed a tragic forefinger at a rather brilliant star that shone steadily about thirty degrees above the horizon.
"'That's Saturn,' said he, 'the star that presides over bad luck and evil and disappointment and nothing doing and trouble.I was born under that star.Every move I make, up bobs Saturn and blocks it.He's the hoodoo planet of the heavens.They say he's 73,000 miles in diameter and no solider of body than split-pea soup, and he's got as many disreputable and malignant rings as Chicago.Now, what kind of a star is that to be born under?'
"I asked Kearny where he had obtained all this astonishing knowledge.
"'From Azrath, the great astrologer of Cleveland, Ohio,' said he.
'That man looked at a glass ball and told me my name before I'd taken a chair.He prophesied the date of my birth and death before I'd said a word.And then he cast my horoscope, and the sidereal system socked me in the solar plexus.It was bad luck for Francis Kearny from A to Izard and for his friends that were implicated with him.For that I gave up ten dollars.This Azrath was sorry, but he respected his profession too much to read the heavens wrong for any man.It was night time, and he took me out on a balcony and gave me a free view of the sky.And he showed me which Saturn was, and how to find it in different balconies and longitudes.
"'But Saturn wasn't all.He was only the man higher up.He furnishes so much bad luck that they allow him a gang of deputy sparklers to help hand it out.They're circulating and revolving and hanging around the main supply all the time, each one throwing the hoodoo on his own particular district.
"'You see that ugly little red star about eight inches above and to the right of Saturn?' Kearny asked me.'Well, that's her.That's Phoebe.She's got me in charge."By the day of your birth," says Azrath to me, "your life is subjected to the influence of Saturn.By the hour and minute of it you must dwell under the sway and direct authority of Phoebe, the ninth satellite." So said this Azrath.'
Kearny shook his fist violently skyward.'Curse her, she's done her work well,' said he.'Ever since I was astrologized, bad luck has followed me like my shadow, as I told you.And for many years before.
Now, Captain, I've told you my handicap as a man should.If you're afraid this evil star of mine might cripple your scheme, leave me out of it.'
"I reassured Kearny as well as I could.I told him that for the time we would banish both astrology and astronomy from our heads.The manifest valour and enthusiasm of the man drew me.'Let us see what a little courage and diligence will do against bad luck,' I said.'We will sail to-morrow for Esperando.'
"Fifty miles down the Mississippi our steamer broke her rudder.We sent for a tug to tow us back and lost three days.When we struck the blue waters of the Gulf, all the storm clouds of the Atlantic seemed to have concentrated above us.We thought surely to sweeten those leaping waves with our sugar, and to stack our arms and lumber on the floor of the Mexican Gulf.
"Kearny did not seek to cast off one iota of the burden of our danger from the shoulders of his fatal horoscope.He weathered every storm on deck, smoking a black pipe, to keep which alight rain and sea-water seemed but as oil.And he shook his fist at the black clouds behind which his baleful star winked its unseen eye.When the skies cleared one evening, he reviled his malignant guardian with grim humour.
"'On watch, aren't you, you red-headed vixen? Out making it hot for little Francis Kearny and his friends, according to Hoyle.Twinkle, twinkle, little devil! You're a lady, aren't you?--dogging a man with your bad luck just because he happened to be born while your boss was floorwalker.Get busy and sink the ship, you one-eyed banshee.Phoebe!
H'm! Sounds as mild as a milkmaid.You can't judge a woman by her name.Why couldn't I have had a man star? I can't make the remarks to Phoebe that I could to a man.Oh, Phoebe, you be--blasted!'
"For eight days gales and squalls and waterspouts beat us from our course.Five days only should have landed us in Esperando.Our Jonah swallowed the bad credit of it with appealing frankness; but that scarcely lessened the hardships our cause was made to suffer.
"At last one afternoon we steamed into the calm estuary of the little Rio Escondido.Three miles up this we crept, feeling for the shallow channel between the low banks that were crowded to the edge with gigantic trees and riotous vegetation.Then our whistle gave a little toot, and in five minutes we heard a shout, and Carlos--my brave Carlos Quintana--crashed through the tangled vines waving his cap madly for joy.
"A hundred yards away was his camp, where three hundred chosen patriots of Esperando were awaiting our coming.For a month Carlos had been drilling them there in the tactics of war, and filling them with the spirit of revolution and liberty.
