SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE

BY

RICHARD HARDING DAVIS

 TO IRENE AND DANA GIBSON

SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE

I

"It is so good of you to come early, " said Mrs. Porter, as AliceLangham entered the drawing-room. "I want to ask a favor of you. I'msure you won't mind. I would ask one of the debutantes, except thatthey're always so cross if one puts them next to men they don't knowand who can't help them, and so I thought I'd just ask you, you're sogood-natured. You don't mind, do you?"

"I mind being called good-natured, " said Miss Langham, smiling. "Mindwhat, Mrs. Porter?" she asked. 

"He is a friend of George's, " Mrs. Porter explained, vaguely. "He's acowboy. It seems he was very civil to George when he was out thereshooting in New Mexico, or Old Mexico, I don't remember which. He tookGeorge to his hut and gave him things to shoot, and all that, and nowhe is in New York with a letter of introduction. It's just likeGeorge. He may be a most impossible sort of man, but, as I said to Mr. Porter, the people I've asked can't complain, because I don't knowanything more about him than they do. He called to-day when I was outand left his card and George's letter of introduction, and as a man hadfailed me for to-night, I just thought I would kill two birds with onestone, and ask him to fill his place, and he's here. And, oh, yes, "Mrs. Porter added, "I'm going to put him next to you, do you mind?"

"Unless he wears leather leggings and long spurs I shall mind verymuch, " said Miss Langham. 

"Well, that's very nice of you, " purred Mrs. Porter, as she moved away. "He may not be so bad, after all; and I'll put Reginald King on yourother side, shall I?" she asked, pausing and glancing back. 

The look on Miss Langham's face, which had been one of amusement, changed consciously, and she smiled with polite acquiescence. 

"As you please, Mrs. Porter, " she answered. She raised her eyebrowsslightly. "I am, as the politicians say, 'in the hands of my friends. '"

"Entirely too much in the hands of my friends, " she repeated, as sheturned away. This was the twelfth time during that same winter thatshe and Mr. King had been placed next to one another at dinner, and ithad passed beyond the point when she could say that it did not matterwhat people thought as long as she and he understood. It had nowreached that stage when she was not quite sure that she understoodeither him or herself. They had known each other for a very long time;too long, she sometimes thought, for them ever to grow to know eachother any better. But there was always the chance that he had anotherside, one that had not disclosed itself, and which she could notdiscover in the strict social environment in which they both lived. And she was the surer of this because she had once seen him when he didnot know that she was near, and he had been so different that it hadpuzzled her and made her wonder if she knew the real Reggie King at all. 

It was at a dance at a studio, and some French pantomimists gave alittle play. When it was over, King sat in the corner talking to oneof the Frenchwomen, and while he waited on her he was laughing at herand at her efforts to speak English. He was telling her how to saycertain phrases and not telling her correctly, and she suspected thisand was accusing him of it, and they were rhapsodizing and exclaimingover certain delightful places and dishes of which they both knew inParis with the enthusiasm of two children. Miss Langham saw him offhis guard for the first time and instead of a somewhat bored and cleverman of the world, he appeared as sincere and interested as a boy. 

When he joined her, later, the same evening, he was as entertaining asusual, and as polite and attentive as he had been to the Frenchwoman, but he was not greatly interested, and his laugh was modulated and notspontaneous. She had wondered that night, and frequently since then, if, in the event of his asking her to marry him, which was possible, and of her accepting him, which was also possible, whether she wouldfind him, in the closer knowledge of married life, as keen andlighthearted with her as he had been with the French dancer. If hewould but treat her more like a comrade and equal, and less like aprime minister conferring with his queen! She wanted something moreintimate than the deference that he showed her, and she did not likehis taking it as an accepted fact that she was as worldly-wise ashimself, even though it were true. 

She was a woman and wanted to be loved, in spite of the fact that shehad been loved by many men--at least it was so supposed--and hadrejected them. 

Each had offered her position, or had wanted her because she was fittedto match his own great state, or because he was ambitious, or becauseshe was rich. The man who could love her as she once believed mencould love, and who could give her something else besides approval ofher beauty and her mind, had not disclosed himself. She had begun tothink that he never would, that he did not exist, that he was animagination of the playhouse and the novel. The men whom she knew werecareful to show her that they appreciated how distinguished was herposition, and how inaccessible she was to them. They seemed to thinkthat by so humbling themselves, and by emphasizing her position theypleased her best, when it was what she wanted them to forget. Each ofthem would draw away backward, bowing and protesting that he wasunworthy to raise his eyes to such a prize, but that if she would onlystoop to him, how happy his life would be. Sometimes they meant itsincerely; sometimes they were gentlemanly adventurers of title, fromwhom it was a business proposition, and in either case she turnedrestlessly away and asked herself how long it would be before the manwould come who would pick her up on his saddle and gallop off with her, with his arm around her waist and his horse's hoofs clattering beneaththem, and echoing the tumult in their hearts. 

She had known too many great people in the world to feel impressed withher own position at home in America; but she sometimes compared herselfto the Queen in "In a Balcony, " and repeated to herself, with mockseriousness:--

 "And you the marble statue all the time They praise and point at as preferred to life, Yet leave for the first breathing woman's cheek, First dancer's, gypsy's or street balladine's!"

And if it were true, she asked herself, that the man she had imaginedwas only an ideal and an illusion, was not King the best of the others, the unideal and ever-present others? Every one else seemed to thinkso. The society they knew put them constantly together and approved. Her people approved. Her own mind approved, and as her heart was notapparently ever to be considered, who could say that it did not approveas well? He was certainly a very charming fellow, a manly, clevercompanion, and one who bore about him the evidences of distinction andthorough breeding. As far as family went, the Kings were as old as ayoung country could expect, and Reggie King was, moreover, in spite ofhis wealth, a man of action and ability. His yacht journeyed fromcontinent to continent, and not merely up the Sound to Newport, and hewas as well known and welcome to the consuls along the coasts of Africaand South America as he was at Cowes or Nice. His books of voyageswere recognized by geographical societies and other serious bodies, whohad given him permission to put long disarrangements of the alphabetafter his name. She liked him because she had grown to be at home withhim, because it was good to know that there was some one who would notmisunderstand her, and who, should she so indulge herself, would nottake advantage of any appeal she might make to his sympathy, who wouldalways be sure to do the tactful thing and the courteous thing, andwho, while he might never do a great thing, could not do an unkind one. 

Miss Langham had entered the Porters' drawing-room after the greaternumber of the guests had arrived, and she turned from her hostess tolisten to an old gentleman with a passion for golf, a passion in whichhe had for a long time been endeavoring to interest her. She answeredhim and his enthusiasm in kind, and with as much apparent interest asshe would have shown in a matter of state. It was her principle to beall things to all men, whether they were great artists, greatdiplomats, or great bores. If a man had been pleading with her toleave the conservatory and run away with him, and another had come upinnocently and announced that it was his dance, she would have said:"Oh, is it?" with as much apparent delight as though his coming hadbeen the one bright hope in her life. 

She was growing enthusiastic over the delights of golf andunconsciously making a very beautiful picture of herself in herinterest and forced vivacity, when she became conscious for the firsttime of a strange young man who was standing alone before the fireplacelooking at her, and frankly listening to all the nonsense she wastalking. She guessed that he had been listening for some time, and shealso saw, before he turned his eyes quickly away, that he wasdistinctly amused. Miss Langham stopped gesticulating and lowered hervoice, but continued to keep her eyes on the face of the stranger, whose own eyes were wandering around the room, to give her, so sheguessed, the idea that he had not been listening, but that she hadcaught him at it in the moment he had first looked at her. He was atall, broad-shouldered youth, with a handsome face, tanned and dyed, either by the sun or by exposure to the wind, to a deep ruddy brown, which contrasted strangely with his yellow hair and mustache, and withthe pallor of the other faces about him. He was a stranger apparentlyto every one present, and his bearing suggested, in consequence, thatease of manner which comes to a person who is not only sure of himself, but who has no knowledge of the claims and pretensions to socialdistinction of those about him. His most attractive feature was hiseyes, which seemed to observe all that was going on, not only what wason the surface, but beneath the surface, and that not rudely orcovertly but with the frank, quick look of the trained observer. MissLangham found it an interesting face to watch, and she did not lookaway from it. She was acquainted with every one else in the room, andhence she knew this must be the cowboy of whom Mrs. Porter had spoken, and she wondered how any one who had lived the rough life of the Westcould still retain the look when in formal clothes of one who was inthe habit of doing informal things in them. 

Mrs. Porter presented her cowboy simply as "Mr. Clay, of whom I spoketo you, " with a significant raising of the eyebrows, and the cowboymade way for King, who took Miss Langham in. He looked franklypleased, however, when he found himself next to her again, but did nottake advantage of it throughout the first part of the dinner, duringwhich time he talked to the young married woman on his right, and MissLangham and King continued where they had left off at their lastmeeting. They knew each other well enough to joke of the way in whichthey were thrown into each other's society, and, as she said, theytried to make the best of it. But while she spoke, Miss Langham wascontinually conscious of the presence of her neighbor, who piqued herinterest and her curiosity in different ways. He seemed to be at hisease, and yet from the manner in which he glanced up and down the tableand listened to snatches of talk on either side of him he had theappearance of one to whom it was all new, and who was seeing it for thefirst time. 

There was a jolly group at one end of the long table, and they wishedto emphasize the fact by laughing a little more hysterically at theirremarks than the humor of those witticisms seemed to justify. Adaughter-in-law of Mrs. Porter was their leader in this, and at onepoint she stopped in the middle of a story and waving her hand at thedouble row of faces turned in her direction, which had been attractedby the loudness of her voice, cried, gayly, "Don't listen. This is forprivate circulation. It is not a jeune-fille story. " The debutantesat the table continued talking again in steady, even tones, as thoughthey had not heard the remark or the first of the story, and the mennext to them appeared equally unconscious. But the cowboy, MissLangham noted out of the corner of her eye, after a look of politesurprise, beamed with amusement and continued to stare up and down thetable as though he had discovered a new trait in a peculiar andinteresting animal. For some reason, she could not tell why, she feltannoyed with herself and with her friends, and resented the attitudewhich the new-comer assumed toward them. 

"Mrs. Porter tells me that you know her son George?" she said. He didnot answer her at once, but bowed his head in assent, with a look ofinterrogation, as though, so it seemed to her, he had expected her, when she did speak, to say something less conventional. 

"Yes, " he replied, after a pause, "he joined us at Ayutla. It was theterminus of the Jalisco and Mexican Railroad then. He came out overthe road and went in from there with an outfit after mountain lions. Ibelieve he had very good sport. "

"That is a very wonderful road, I am told, " said King, bending forwardand introducing himself into the conversation with a nod of the headtoward Clay; "quite a remarkable feat of engineering. "

"It will open up the country, I believe, " assented the other, indifferently. 

"I know something of it, " continued King, "because I met the men whowere putting it through at Pariqua, when we touched there in the yacht. They shipped most of their plant to that port, and we saw a good dealof them. They were a very jolly lot, and they gave me a mostinteresting account of their work and its difficulties. "

Clay was looking at the other closely, as though he was trying to findsomething back of what he was saying, but as his glance seemed only toembarrass King he smiled freely again in assent, and gave him his fullattention. 

"There are no men to-day, Miss Langham, " King exclaimed, suddenly, turning toward her, "to my mind, who lead as picturesque lives as docivil engineers. And there are no men whose work is as littleappreciated. "

"Really?" said Miss Langham, encouragingly. 

"Now those men I met, " continued King, settling himself with his sideto the table, "were all young fellows of thirty or thereabouts, butthey were leading the lives of pioneers and martyrs--at least that'swhat I'd call it. They were marching through an almost unknown part ofMexico, fighting Nature at every step and carrying civilization withthem. They were doing better work than soldiers, because soldiersdestroy things, and these chaps were creating, and making the waystraight. They had no banners either, nor brass bands. They foughtmountains and rivers, and they were attacked on every side by fever andthe lack of food and severe exposure. They had to sit down around acamp-fire at night and calculate whether they were to tunnel amountain, or turn the bed of a river or bridge it. And they knew allthe time that whatever they decided to do out there in the wildernessmeant thousands of dollars to the stockholders somewhere up in God'scountry, who would some day hold them to account for them. Theydragged their chains through miles and miles of jungle, and over flatalkali beds and cactus, and they reared bridges across roaring canons. We know nothing about them and we care less. When their work is donewe ride over the road in an observation-car and look down thousands andthousands of feet into the depths they have bridged, and we never givethem a thought. They are the bravest soldiers of the present day, andthey are the least recognized. I have forgotten their names, and younever heard them. But it seems to me the civil engineer, for all that, is the chief civilizer of our century. "

Miss Langham was looking ahead of her with her eyes half-closed, asthough she were going over in her mind the situation King had described. 

"I never thought of that, " she said. "It sounds very fine. As you say, the reward is so inglorious. But that is what makes it fine. "

The cowboy was looking down at the table and pulling at a flower in thecentre-piece. He had ceased to smile. Miss Langham turned on himsomewhat sharply, resenting his silence, and said, with a slightchallenge in her voice:--

"Do you agree, Mr. Clay, " she asked, "or do you prefer thechocolate-cream soldiers, in red coats and gold lace?"

"Oh, I don't know, " the young man answered, with some slighthesitation. "It's a trade for each of them. The engineer's work isall the more absorbing, I imagine, when the difficulties are greatest. He has the fun of overcoming them. "

"You see nothing in it then, " she asked, "but a source of amusement?"

"Oh, yes, a good deal more, " he replied. "A livelihood, for one thing. I--I have been an engineer all my life. I built that road Mr. King istalking about. "

An hour later, when Mrs. Porter made the move to go, Miss Langham rosewith a protesting sigh. "I am so sorry, " she said, "it has been mostinteresting. I never met two men who had visited so many inaccessibleplaces and come out whole. You have quite inspired Mr. King, he wasnever so amusing. But I should like to hear the end of that adventure;won't you tell it to me in the other room?"

Clay bowed. "If I haven't thought of something more interesting in themeantime, " he said. 

"What I can't understand, " said King, as he moved up into MissLangham's place, "is how you had time to learn so much of the rest ofthe world. You don't act like a man who had spent his life in thebrush. "

"How do you mean?" asked Clay, smiling--"that I don't use the wrongforks?"

"No, " laughed King, "but you told us that this was your first visitEast, and yet you're talking about England and Vienna and Voisin's. How is it you've been there, while you have never been in New York?"

"Well, that's partly due to accident and partly to design, " Clayanswered. "You see I've worked for English and German and Frenchcompanies, as well as for those in the States, and I go abroad to makereports and to receive instructions. And then I'm what you call aself-made man; that is, I've never been to college. I've always had toeducate myself, and whenever I did get a holiday it seemed to me that Iought to put it to the best advantage, and to spend it wherecivilization was the furthest advanced--advanced, at least, in years. When I settle down and become an expert, and demand large sums for justlooking at the work other fellows have done, then I hope to live in NewYork, but until then I go where the art galleries are biggest and wherethey have got the science of enjoying themselves down to the veryfinest point. I have enough rough work eight months of the year tomake me appreciate that. So whenever I get a few months to myself Itake the Royal Mail to London, and from there to Paris or Vienna. Ithink I like Vienna the best. The directors are generally importantpeople in their own cities, and they ask one about, and so, though Ihope I am a good American, it happens that I've more friends on theContinent than in the United States. "

"And how does this strike you?" asked King, with a movement of hisshoulder toward the men about the dismantled table. 

"Oh, I don't know, " laughed Clay. "You've lived abroad yourself; howdoes it strike you?"

Clay was the first man to enter the drawing-room. He walked directlyaway from the others and over to Miss Langham, and, taking her fan outof her hands as though to assure himself of some hold upon her, seatedhimself with his back to every one else. 

"You have come to finish that story?" she said, smiling. 

Miss Langham was a careful young person, and would not have encourageda man she knew even as well as she knew King, to talk to her throughdinner, and after it as well. She fully recognized that because shewas conspicuous certain innocent pleasures were denied her which othergirls could enjoy without attracting attention or comment. But Clayinterested her beyond her usual self, and the look in his eyes was atribute which she had no wish to put away from her. 

"I've thought of something more interesting to talk about, " said Clay. "I'm going to talk about you. You see I've known you a long time. "

"Since eight o'clock?" asked Miss Langham. 

"Oh, no, since your coming out, four years ago. "

"It's not polite to remember so far back, " she said. "Were you one ofthose who assisted at that important function? There were so manythere I don't remember. "

"No, I only read about it. I remember it very well; I had ridden overtwelve miles for the mail that day, and I stopped half-way back to theranch and camped out in the shade of a rock and read all the papers andmagazines through at one sitting, until the sun went down and Icouldn't see the print. One of the papers had an account of yourcoming out in it, and a picture of you, and I wrote East to thephotographer for the original. It knocked about the West for threemonths and then reached me at Laredo, on the border between Texas andMexico, and I have had it with me ever since. "

Miss Langham looked at Clay for a moment in silent dismay and with aperplexed smile. 

"Where is it now?" she asked at last. 

"In my trunk at the hotel. "

"Oh, " she said, slowly. She was still in doubt as to how to treat thisact of unconventionality. "Not in your watch?" she said, to cover upthe pause. "That would have been more in keeping with the rest of thestory. "

The young man smiled grimly, and pulling out his watch pried back thelid and turned it to her so that she could see a photograph inside. The face in the watch was that of a young girl in the dress of afashion of several years ago. It was a lovely, frank face, looking outof the picture into the world kindly and questioningly, and withoutfear. 

"Was I once like that?" she said, lightly. "Well, go on. "

"Well, " he said, with a little sigh of relief, "I became greatlyinterested in Miss Alice Langham, and in her comings out and goings in, and in her gowns. Thanks to our having a press in the States thatmakes a specialty of personalities, I was able to follow you prettyclosely, for, wherever I go, I have my papers sent after me. I can getalong without a compass or a medicine-chest, but I can't do without thenewspapers and the magazines. There was a time when I thought you weregoing to marry that Austrian chap, and I didn't approve of that. Iknew things about him in Vienna. And then I read of your engagement toothers--well--several others; some of them I thought worthy, and othersnot. Once I even thought of writing you about it, and once I saw youin Paris. You were passing on a coach. The man with me told me it wasyou, and I wanted to follow the coach in a fiacre, but he said he knewat what hotel you were stopping, and so I let you go, but you were notat that hotel, or at any other--at least, I couldn't find you. "

"What would you have done--?" asked Miss Langham. "Never mind, " sheinterrupted, "go on. "

"Well, that's all, " said Clay, smiling. "That's all, at least, thatconcerns you. That is the romance of this poor young man. "

"But not the only one, " she said, for the sake of saying something. 

"Perhaps not, " answered Clay, "but the only one that counts. I alwaysknew I was going to meet you some day. And now I have met you. "

"Well, and now that you have met me, " said Miss Langham, looking at himin some amusement, "are you sorry?"

"No--" said Clay, but so slowly and with such consideration that MissLangham laughed and held her head a little higher. "Not sorry to meetyou, but to meet you in such surroundings. "

"What fault do you find with my surroundings?"

"Well, these people, " answered Clay, "they are so foolish, so futile. You shouldn't be here. There must be something else better than this. You can't make me believe that you choose it. In Europe you could havea salon, or you could influence statesmen. There surely must besomething here for you to turn to as well. Something better thangolf-sticks and salted almonds. "

"What do you know of me?" said Miss Langham, steadily. "Only what youhave read of me in impertinent paragraphs. How do you know I am fittedfor anything else but just this? You never spoke with me beforeto-night. "

"That has nothing to do with it, " said Clay, quickly. "Time is madefor ordinary people. When people who amount to anything meet theydon't have to waste months in finding each other out. It is only thedoubtful ones who have to be tested again and again. When I was a kidin the diamond mines in Kimberley, I have seen the experts pick out aperfect diamond from the heap at the first glance, and without amoment's hesitation. It was the cheap stones they spent most of theafternoon over. Suppose I HAVE only seen you to-night for the firsttime; suppose I shall not see you again, which is quite likely, for Isail tomorrow for South America--what of that? I am just as sure ofwhat you are as though I had known you for years. "

Miss Langham looked at him for a moment in silence. Her beauty was sogreat that she could take her time to speak. She was not afraid oflosing any one's attention. 

"And have you come out of the West, knowing me so well, just to tell methat I am wasting myself?" she said. "Is that all?"

"That is all, " answered Clay. "You know the things I would like totell you, " he added, looking at her closely. 

"I think I like to be told the other things best, " she said, "they arethe easier to believe. "

"You have to believe whatever I tell you, " said Clay, smiling. The girlpressed her hands together in her lap, and looked at him curiously. The people about them were moving and making their farewells, and theybrought her back to the present with a start. 

"I'm sorry you're going away, " she said. "It has been so odd. You comesuddenly up out of the wilderness, and set me to thinking and try totrouble me with questions about myself, and then steal away againwithout stopping to help me to settle them. Is it fair?" She rose andput out her hand, and he took it and held it for a moment, while theystood looking at one another. 

"I am coming back, " he said, "and I will find that you have settledthem for yourself. "

"Good-by, " she said, in so low a tone that the people standing nearthem could not hear. "You haven't asked me for it, you know, but--Ithink I shall let you keep that picture. "

"Thank you, " said Clay, smiling, "I meant to. "

"You can keep it, " she continued, turning back, "because it is not mypicture. It is a picture of a girl who ceased to exist four years ago, and whom you have never met. Good-night. "

Mr. Langham and Hope, his younger daughter, had been to the theatre. The performance had been one which delighted Miss Hope, and whichsatisfied her father because he loved to hear her laugh. Mr. Langhamwas the slave of his own good fortune. By instinct and education hewas a man of leisure and culture, but the wealth he had inherited waslike an unruly child that needed his constant watching, and in keepingit well in hand he had become a man of business, with time for nothingelse. 

Alice Langham, on her return from Mrs. Porter's dinner, found him inhis study engaged with a game of solitaire, while Hope was kneeling ona chair beside him with her elbows on the table. Mr. Langham had beentroubled with insomnia of late, and so it often happened that whenAlice returned from a ball she would find him sitting with a novel, orhis game of solitaire, and Hope, who had crept downstairs from her bed, dozing in front of the open fire and keeping him silent company. Thefather and the younger daughter were very close to one another, and hadgrown especially so since his wife had died and his son and heir hadgone to college. This fourth member of the family was a great bond ofsympathy and interest between them, and his triumphs and escapades atYale were the chief subjects of their conversation. It was told by thedirectors of a great Western railroad, who had come to New York todiscuss an important question with Mr. Langham, that they had beenushered downstairs one night into his basement, where they had foundthe President of the Board and his daughter Hope working out a game offootball on the billiard table. They had chalked it off into whatcorresponded to five-yard lines, and they were hurling twenty-twochess-men across it in "flying wedges" and practising the severaltricks which young Langham had intrusted to his sister under an oath ofsecrecy. The sight filled the directors with the horrible fear thatbusiness troubles had turned the President's mind, but after they hadsat for half an hour perched on the high chairs around the table, whileHope excitedly explained the game to them, they decided that he waswiser than they knew, and each left the house regretting he had no sonworthy enough to bring "that young girl" into the Far West. 

"You are home early, " said Mr. Langham, as Alice stood above himpulling at her gloves. "I thought you said you were going on to somedance. "

"I was tired, " his daughter answered. 

"Well, when I'm out, " commented Hope, "I won't come home at eleveno'clock. Alice always was a quitter. "

"A what?" asked the older sister. 

"Tell us what you had for dinner, " said Hope. "I know it isn't nice toask, " she added, hastily, "but I always like to know. "

"I don't remember, " Miss Langham answered, smiling at her father, "except that he was very much sunburned and had most perplexing eyes. "

"Oh, of course, " assented Hope, "I suppose you mean by that that youtalked with some man all through dinner. Well, I think there is a timefor everything. "

"Father, " interrupted Miss Langham, "do you know many engineers--I meando you come in contact with them through the railroads and mines youhave an interest in? I am rather curious about them, " she said, lightly. "They seem to be a most picturesque lot of young men. "

"Engineers? Of course, " said Mr. Langham, vaguely, with the ten ofspades held doubtfully in air. "Sometimes we have to depend upon themaltogether. We decide from what the engineering experts tell uswhether we will invest in a thing or not. "

"I don't think I mean the big men of the profession, " said hisdaughter, doubtfully. "I mean those who do the rough work. The menwho dig the mines and lay out the railroads. Do you know any of them?"

"Some of them, " said Mr. Langham, leaning back and shuffling the cardsfor a new game. "Why?"

"Did you ever hear of a Mr. Robert Clay?"

Mr. Langham smiled as he placed the cards one above the other in evenrows. "Very often, " he said. "He sails to-morrow to open up thelargest iron deposits in South America. He goes for the ValenciaMining Company. Valencia is the capital of Olancho, one of thoselittle republics down there. "

"Do you--are you interested in that company?" asked Miss Langham, seating herself before the fire and holding out her hands toward it. "Does Mr. Clay know that you are?"

"Yes--I am interested in it, " Mr. Langham replied, studying the cardsbefore him, "but I don't think Clay knows it--nobody knows it yet, except the president and the other officers. " He lifted a card and putit down again in some indecision. "It's generally supposed to beoperated by a company, but all the stock is owned by one man. As amatter of fact, my dear children, " exclaimed Mr. Langham, as he placeda deuce of clubs upon a deuce of spades with a smile of content, "theValencia Mining Company is your beloved father. "

"Oh, " said Miss Langham, as she looked steadily into the fire. 

Hope tapped her lips gently with the back of her hand to hide the factthat she was sleepy, and nudged her father's elbow. "You shouldn'thave put the deuce there, " she said, "you should have used it to buildwith on the ace. "

II

A year before Mrs. Porter's dinner a tramp steamer on her way to thecapital of Brazil had steered so close to the shores of Olancho thather solitary passenger could look into the caverns the waves hadtunnelled in the limestone cliffs along the coast. The solitarypassenger was Robert Clay, and he made a guess that the white palisadeswhich fringed the base of the mountains along the shore had been forcedup above the level of the sea many years before by some volcanicaction. Olancho, as many people know, is situated on the northeasterncoast of South America, and its shores are washed by the mainequatorial current. From the deck of a passing vessel you can obtainbut little idea of Olancho or of the abundance and tropical beautywhich lies hidden away behind the rampart of mountains on her shore. You can see only their desolate dark-green front, and the white cavesat their base, into which the waves rush with an echoing roar, and inand out of which fly continually thousands of frightened bats. 

The mining engineer on the rail of the tramp steamer observed thispeculiar formation of the coast with listless interest, until he noted, when the vessel stood some thirty miles north of the harbor ofValencia, that the limestone formation had disappeared, and that thewaves now beat against the base of the mountains themselves. Therewere five of these mountains which jutted out into the ocean, and theysuggested roughly the five knuckles of a giant hand clenched and lyingflat upon the surface of the water. They extended for seven miles, andthen the caverns in the palisades began again and continued on down thecoast to the great cliffs that guard the harbor of Olancho's capital. 

"The waves tunnelled their way easily enough until they ran up againstthose five mountains, " mused the engineer, "and then they had to fallback. " He walked to the captain's cabin and asked to look at a map ofthe coast line. "I believe I won't go to Rio, " he said later in theday; "I think I will drop off here at Valencia. "

So he left the tramp steamer at that place and disappeared into theinterior with an ox-cart and a couple of pack-mules, and returned towrite a lengthy letter from the Consul's office to a Mr. Langham in theUnited States, knowing he was largely interested in mines and inmining. "There are five mountains filled with ore, " Clay wrote, "whichshould be extracted by open-faced workings. I saw great masses of redhematite lying exposed on the side of the mountain, only waiting a pickand shovel, and at one place there were five thousand tons in plainsight. I should call the stuff first-class Bessemer ore, running aboutsixty-three per cent metallic iron. The people know it is there, buthave no knowledge of its value, and are too lazy to ever work itthemselves. As to transportation, it would only be necessary to run afreight railroad twenty miles along the sea-coast to the harbor ofValencia and dump your ore from your own pier into your own vessels. It would not, I think, be possible to ship direct from the minesthemselves, even though, as I say, the ore runs right down into thewater, because there is no place at which it would be safe for a largevessel to touch. I will look into the political side of it and seewhat sort of a concession I can get for you. I should think ten percent of the output would satisfy them, and they would, of course, admitmachinery and plant free of duty. "

Six months after this communication had arrived in New York City, theValencia Mining Company was formally incorporated, and a man named VanAntwerp, with two hundred workmen and a half-dozen assistants, was sentSouth to lay out the freight railroad, to erect the dumping-pier, andto strip the five mountains of their forests and underbrush. It wasnot a task for a holiday, but a stern, difficult, and perplexingproblem, and Van Antwerp was not quite the man to solve it. He wasstubborn, self-confident, and indifferent by turns. He did not dependupon his lieutenants, but jealously guarded his own opinions from theleast question or discussion, and at every step he antagonized theeasy-going people among whom he had come to work. He had no patiencewith their habits of procrastination, and he was continually offendingtheir lazy good-nature and their pride. He treated the rich planters, who owned the land between the mines and the harbor over which thefreight railroad must run, with as little consideration as he showedthe regiment of soldiers which the Government had farmed out to thecompany to serve as laborers in the mines. Six months after VanAntwerp had taken charge at Valencia, Clay, who had finished therailroad in Mexico, of which King had spoken, was asked by telegraph toundertake the work of getting the ore out of the mountains he haddiscovered, and shipping it North. He accepted the offer and was giventhe title of General Manager and Resident Director, and an enormoussalary, and was also given to understand that the rough work ofpreparation had been accomplished, and that the more important serviceof picking up the five mountains and putting them in fragments intotramp steamers would continue under his direction. He had a letter ofrecall for Van Antwerp, and a letter of introduction to the Minister ofMines and Agriculture. Further than that he knew nothing of the workbefore him, but he concluded, from the fact that he had been paid thealmost prohibitive sum he had asked for his services, that it must beimportant, or that he had reached that place in his career when hecould stop actual work and live easily, as an expert, on the work ofothers. 

Clay rolled along the coast from Valencia to the mines in apaddle-wheeled steamer that had served its usefulness on theMississippi, and which had been rotting at the levees in New Orleans, when Van Antwerp had chartered it to carry tools and machinery to themines and to serve as a private launch for himself. It was a choiceeither of this steamer and landing in a small boat, or riding along theline of the unfinished railroad on horseback. Either route consumedsix valuable hours, and Clay, who was anxious to see his new field ofaction, beat impatiently upon the rail of the rolling tub as itwallowed in the sea. 

He spent the first three days after his arrival at the mines in themountains, climbing them on foot and skirting their base on horseback, and sleeping where night overtook him. Van Antwerp did not accompanyhim on his tour of inspection through the mines, but delegated thatduty to an engineer named MacWilliams, and to Weimer, the United StatesConsul at Valencia, who had served the company in many ways and who wasin its closest confidence. 

For three days the men toiled heavily over fallen trunks and trees, slippery with the moss of centuries, or slid backward on the rollingstones in the waterways, or clung to their ponies' backs to dodge thehanging creepers. At times for hours together they walked in singlefile, bent nearly double, and seeing nothing before them but theshining backs and shoulders of the negroes who hacked out the way forthem to go. And again they would come suddenly upon a precipice, anddrink in the soft cool breath of the ocean, and look down thousands offeet upon the impenetrable green under which they had been crawling, out to where it met the sparkling surface of the Caribbean Sea. It wasthree days of unceasing activity while the sun shone, and of anxiousquestionings around the camp-fire when the darkness fell, and whenthere were no sounds on the mountain-side but that of falling water ina distant ravine or the calls of the night-birds. 

On the morning of the fourth day Clay and his attendants returned tocamp and rode to where the men had just begun to blast away the slopingsurface of the mountain. 

As Clay passed between the zinc sheds and palm huts of thesoldier-workmen, they came running out to meet him, and one, who seemedto be a leader, touched his bridle, and with his straw sombrero in hishand begged for a word with el Senor the Director. 

The news of Clay's return had reached the opening, and the throb of thedummy-engines and the roar of the blasting ceased as theassistant-engineers came down the valley to greet the new manager. They found him seated on his horse gazing ahead of him, and listeningto the story of the soldier, whose fingers, as he spoke, trembled inthe air, with all the grace and passion of his Southern nature, whileback of him his companions stood humbly, in a silent chorus, witheager, supplicating eyes. Clay answered the man's speech curtly, witha few short words, in the Spanish patois in which he had beenaddressed, and then turned and smiled grimly upon the expectant groupof engineers. He kept them waiting for some short space, while helooked them over carefully, as though he had never seen them before. 

"Well, gentlemen, " he said, "I'm glad to have you here all together. Iam only sorry you didn't come in time to hear what this fellow has hadto say. I don't as a rule listen that long to complaints, but he toldme what I have seen for myself and what has been told me by others. Ihave been here three days now, and I assure you, gentlemen, that myeasiest course would be to pack up my things and go home on the nextsteamer. I was sent down here to take charge of a mine in activeoperation, and I find--what? I find that in six months you have donealmost nothing, and that the little you have condescended to do hasbeen done so badly that it will have to be done over again; that youhave not only wasted a half year of time--and I can't tell how muchmoney--but that you have succeeded in antagonizing all the people onwhose good-will we are absolutely dependent; you have allowed yourmachinery to rust in the rain, and your workmen to rot with sickness. You have not only done nothing, but you haven't a blue print to show mewhat you meant to do. I have never in my life come across laziness andmismanagement and incompetency upon such a magnificent and recklessscale. You have not built the pier, you have not opened the freightroad, you have not taken out an ounce of ore. You know more ofValencia than you know of these mines; you know it from the Alameda tothe Canal. You can tell me what night the band plays in the Plaza, butyou can't give me the elevation of one of these hills. You have spentyour days on the pavements in front of cafés, and your nights indance-halls, and you have been drawing salaries every month. I've morerespect for these half-breeds that you've allowed to starve in thisfever-bed than I have for you. You have treated them worse than they'dtreat a dog, and if any of them die, it's on your heads. You have putthem in a fever-camp which you have not even taken the trouble todrain. Your commissariat is rotten, and you have let them drink allthe rum they wanted. There is not one of you--"

The group of silent men broke, and one of them stepped forward andshook his forefinger at Clay. 

"No man can talk to me like that, " he said, warningly, "and think I'llwork under him. I resign here and now. "

"You what--" cried Clay, "you resign?"

He whirled his horse round with a dig of his spur and faced them. 

"How dare you talk of resigning? I'll pack the whole lot of you backto New York on the first steamer, if I want to, and I'll give you suchcharacters that you'll be glad to get a job carrying a transit. You'rein no position to talk of resigning yet--not one of you. Yes, " headded, interrupting himself, "one of you is MacWilliams, the man whohad charge of the railroad. It's no fault of his that the road's notworking. I understand that he couldn't get the right of way from thepeople who owned the land, but I have seen what he has done, and hisplans, and I apologize to him--to MacWilliams. As for the rest of you, I'll give you a month's trial. It will be a month before the nextsteamer could get here anyway, and I'll give you that long to redeemyourselves. At the end of that time we will have another talk, but youare here now only on your good behavior and on my sufferance. Good-morning. "

As Clay had boasted, he was not the man to throw up his positionbecause he found the part he had to play was not that of leading man, but rather one of general utility, and although it had been severalyears since it had been part of his duties to oversee the setting up ofmachinery, and the policing of a mining camp, he threw himself asearnestly into the work before him as though to show his subordinatesthat it did not matter who did the work, so long as it was done. Themen at first were sulky, resentful, and suspicious, but they could notlong resist the fact that Clay was doing the work of five men and fivedifferent kinds of work, not only without grumbling, but apparentlywith the keenest pleasure. 

He conciliated the rich coffee planters who owned the land which hewanted for the freight road by calls of the most formal state anddinners of much less formality, for he saw that the iron mine had itssocial as well as its political side. And with this fact in mind, heopened the railroad with great ceremony, and much music and feasting, and the first piece of ore taken out of the mine was presented to thewife of the Minister of the Interior in a cluster of diamonds, whichmade the wives of the other members of the Cabinet regret that theirhusbands had not chosen that portfolio. Six months followed of hard, unremitting work, during which time the great pier grew out into thebay from MacWilliams' railroad, and the face of the first mountain wasscarred and torn of its green, and left in mangled nakedness, while theringing of hammers and picks, and the racking blasts of dynamite, andthe warning whistles of the dummy-engines drove away the accumulatedsilence of centuries. 

It had been a long uphill fight, and Clay had enjoyed it mightily. Twounexpected events had contributed to help it. One was the arrival inValencia of young Teddy Langham, who came ostensibly to learn theprofession of which Clay was so conspicuous an example, and in realityto watch over his father's interests. He was put at Clay's elbow, andClay made him learn in spite of himself, for he ruled him andMacWilliams of both of whom he was very fond, as though, so theycomplained, they were the laziest and the most rebellious members ofhis entire staff. The second event of importance was the announcementmade one day by young Langham that his father's physician had orderedrest in a mild climate, and that he and his daughters were coming in amonth to spend the winter in Valencia, and to see how the son and heirhad developed as a man of business. 

The idea of Mr. Langham's coming to visit Olancho to inspect his newpossessions was not a surprise to Clay. It had occurred to him aspossible before, especially after the son had come to join them there. The place was interesting and beautiful enough in itself to justify avisit, and it was only a ten days' voyage from New York. But he hadnever considered the chance of Miss Langham's coming, and when that wasnow not only possible but a certainty, he dreamed of little else. Helived as earnestly and toiled as indefatigably as before, but the placewas utterly transformed for him. He saw it now as she would see itwhen she came, even while at the same time his own eyes retained theirpoint of view. It was as though he had lengthened the focus of aglass, and looked beyond at what was beautiful and picturesque, insteadof what was near at hand and practicable. He found himself smilingwith anticipation of her pleasure in the orchids hanging from the deadtrees, high above the opening of the mine, and in the parrots hurlingthemselves like gayly colored missiles among the vines; and heconsidered the harbor at night with its colored lamps floating on theblack water as a scene set for her eyes. He planned the dinners thathe would give in her honor on the balcony of the great restaurant inthe Plaza on those nights when the band played, and the senoritascircled in long lines between admiring rows of officers and caballeros. And he imagined how, when the ore-boats had been filled and his workhad slackened, he would be free to ride with her along the roughmountain roads, between magnificent pillars of royal palms, or toventure forth in excursions down the bay, to explore the caves and tolunch on board the rolling paddle-wheel steamer, which he would have repainted and gilded for her coming. He pictured himself acting as herguide over the great mines, answering her simple questions about thestrange machinery, and the crew of workmen, and the local government bywhich he ruled two thousand men. It was not on account of any personalpride in the mines that he wanted her to see them, it was not becausehe had discovered and planned and opened them that he wished to showthem to her, but as a curious spectacle that he hoped would give her amoment's interest. 

But his keenest pleasure was when young Langham suggested that theyshould build a house for his people on the edge of the hill that juttedout over the harbor and the great ore pier. If this were done, Langhamurged, it would be possible for him to see much more of his family thanhe would be able to do were they installed in the city, five miles away. 

"We can still live in the office at this end of the railroad, " the boysaid, "and then we shall have them within call at night when we getback from work; but if they are in Valencia, it will take the greaterpart of the evening going there and all of the night getting back, forI can't pass that club under three hours. It will keep us out oftemptation. "

"Yes, exactly, " said Clay, with a guilty smile, "it will keep us out oftemptation. "

So they cleared away the underbrush, and put a double force of men towork on what was to be the most beautiful and comfortable bungalow onthe edge of the harbor. It had blue and green and white tiles on thefloors, and walls of bamboo, and a red roof of curved tiles to let inthe air, and dragons' heads for water-spouts, and verandas as broad asthe house itself. There was an open court in the middle hung withbalconies looking down upon a splashing fountain, and to decorate thispatio, they levied upon people for miles around for tropical plants andcolored mats and awnings. They cut down the trees that hid the view ofthe long harbor leading from the sea into Valencia, and planted arampart of other trees to hide the iron-ore pier, and they sodded theraw spots where the men had been building, until the place was ascompletely transformed as though a fairy had waved her wand above it. 

It was to be a great surprise, and they were all--Clay, MacWilliams, and Langham--as keenly interested in it as though each were preparingit for his honeymoon. They would be walking together in Valencia whenone would say, "We ought to have that for the house, " and withoutquestion they would march into the shop together and order whateverthey fancied to be sent out to the house of the president of the mineson the hill. They stocked it with wine and linens, and hired a volanteand six horses, and fitted out the driver with a new pair of boots thatreached above his knees, and a silver jacket and a sombrero that was soheavy with braid that it flashed like a halo about his head in thesunlight, and he was ordered not to wear it until the ladies came, under penalty of arrest. It delighted Clay to find that it was onlythe beautiful things and the fine things of his daily routine thatsuggested her to him, as though she could not be associated in his mindwith anything less worthy, and he kept saying to himself, "She willlike this view from the end of the terrace, " and "This will be herfavorite walk, " or "She will swing her hammock here, " and "I know shewill not fancy the rug that Weimer chose. "

While this fairy palace was growing the three men lived as roughly asbefore in the wooden hut at the terminus of the freight road, threehundred yards below the house, and hidden from it by an impenetrablerampart of brush and Spanish bayonet. There was a rough road leadingfrom it to the city, five miles away, which they had extended stillfarther up the hill to the Palms, which was the name Langham hadselected for his father's house. And when it was finally finished, they continued to live under the corrugated zinc roof of their officebuilding, and locking up the Palms, left it in charge of a gardener anda watchman until the coming of its rightful owners. 

It had been a viciously hot, close day, and even now the air came insickening waves, like a blast from the engine-room of a steamer, andthe heat lightning played round the mountains over the harbor andshowed the empty wharves, and the black outlines of the steamers, andthe white front of the Custom-House, and the long half-circle oftwinkling lamps along the quay. MacWilliams and Langham sat panting onthe lower steps of the office-porch considering whether they were toolazy to clean themselves and be rowed over to the city, where, as itwas Sunday night, was promised much entertainment. They had been forthe last hour trying to make up their minds as to this, and appealingto Clay to stop work and decide for them. But he sat inside at a tablefiguring and writing under the green shade of a student's lamp and madeno answer. The walls of Clay's office were of unplaned boards, bristling with splinters, and hung with blue prints and outline maps ofthe mine. A gaudily colored portrait of Madame la Presidenta, thenoble and beautiful woman whom Alvarez, the President of Olancho, hadlately married in Spain, was pinned to the wall above the table. Thistable, with its green oil-cloth top, and the lamp, about which wingedinsects beat noisily, and an earthen water-jar--from which the waterdripped as regularly as the ticking of a clock--were the only articlesof furniture in the office. On a shelf at one side of the door lay themen's machetes, a belt of cartridges, and a revolver in a holster. 

Clay rose from the table and stood in the light of the open door, stretching himself gingerly, for his joints were sore and stiff withfording streams and climbing the surfaces of rocks. The red ore andyellow mud of the mines were plastered over his boots andriding-breeches, where he had stood knee-deep in the water, and hisshirt stuck to him like a wet bathing-suit, showing his ribs when hebreathed and the curves of his broad chest. A ring of burning paperand hot ashes fell from his cigarette to his breast and burnt a holethrough the cotton shirt, and he let it lie there and watched it burnwith a grim smile. 

"I wanted to see, " he explained, catching the look of listlesscuriosity in MacWilliams's eye, "whether there was anything hotter thanmy blood. It's racing around like boiling water in a pot. "

"Listen, " said Langham, holding up his hand. "There goes the call forprayers in the convent, and now it's too late to go to town. I amglad, rather. I'm too tired to keep awake, and besides, they don'tknow how to amuse themselves in a civilized way--at least not in myway. I wish I could just drop in at home about now; don't you, MacWilliams? Just about this time up in God's country all the peopleare at the theatre, or they've just finished dinner and are sittingaround sipping cool green mint, trickling through little lumps of ice. What I'd like--" he stopped and shut one eye and gazed, with his headon one side, at the unimaginative MacWilliams--"what I'd like to donow, " he continued, thoughtfully, "would be to sit in the front row ata comic opera, ON THE AISLE. The prima donna must be very, verybeautiful, and sing most of her songs at me, and there must be threecomedians, all good, and a chorus entirely composed of girls. I nevercould see why they have men in the chorus, anyway. No one ever looksat them. Now that's where I'd like to be. What would you like, MacWilliams?"

MacWilliams was a type with which Clay was intimately familiar, but tothe college-bred Langham he was a revelation and a joy. He came fromsome little town in the West, and had learned what he knew ofengineering at the transit's mouth, after he had first served hisapprenticeship by cutting sage-brush and driving stakes. His life hadbeen spent in Mexico and Central America, and he spoke of the home hehad not seen in ten years with the aggressive loyalty of the confirmedwanderer, and he was known to prefer and to import canned corn andcanned tomatoes in preference to eating the wonderful fruits of thecountry, because the former came from the States and tasted to him ofhome. He had crowded into his young life experiences that would haveshattered the nerves of any other man with a more sensitive conscienceand a less happy sense of humor; but these same experiences had onlyserved to make him shrewd and self-confident and at his ease when theoccasion or difficulty came. 

He pulled meditatively on his pipe and considered Langham's questiondeeply, while Clay and the younger boy sat with their arms upon theirknees and waited for his decision in thoughtful silence. 

"I'd like to go to the theatre, too, " said MacWilliams, with an air asthough to show that he also was possessed of artistic tastes. "I'dlike to see a comical chap I saw once in '80--oh, long ago--before Ijoined the P. Q. & M. He WAS funny. His name was Owens; that was hisname, John E. Owens--"

"Oh, for heaven's sake, MacWilliams, " protested Langham, in dismay;"he's been dead for five years. "

"Has he?" said MacWilliams, thoughtfully. "Well--" he concluded, unabashed, "I can't help that, he's the one I'd like to see best. "

"You can have another wish, Mac, you know, " urged Langham, "can't he, Clay?"

Clay nodded gravely, and MacWilliams frowned again in thought. "No, " hesaid after an effort, "Owens, John E. Owens; that's the one I want tosee. "

"Well, now I want another wish, too, " said Langham. "I move we caneach have two wishes. I wish--"

"Wait until I've had mine, " said Clay. "You've had one turn. I want tobe in a place I know in Vienna. It's not hot like this, but cool andfresh. It's an open, out-of-door concert-garden, with hundreds ofcolored lights and trees, and there's always a breeze coming through. And Eduard Strauss, the son, you know, leads the orchestra there, andthey play nothing but waltzes, and he stands in front of them, andbegins by raising himself on his toes, and then he lifts his shouldersgently--and then sinks back again and raises his baton as though hewere drawing the music out after it, and the whole place seems to rockand move. It's like being picked up and carried on the deck of a yachtover great waves; and all around you are the beautiful Viennese womenand those tall Austrian officers in their long, blue coats and flathats and silver swords. And there are cool drinks--" continued Clay, with his eyes fixed on the coming storm--"all sorts of cool drinks--inhigh, thin glasses, full of ice, all the ice you want--"

"Oh, drop it, will you?" cried Langham, with a shrug of his dampshoulders. "I can't stand it. I'm parching. "

"Wait a minute, " interrupted MacWilliams, leaning forward and lookinginto the night. "Some one's coming. " There was a sound down the roadof hoofs and the rattle of the land-crabs as they scrambled off intothe bushes, and two men on horseback came suddenly out of the darknessand drew rein in the light from the open door. The first was GeneralMendoza, the leader of the Opposition in the Senate, and the other, hisorderly. The General dropped his Panama hat to his knee and bowed inthe saddle three times. 

"Good-evening, your Excellency, " said Clay, rising. "Tell that peon toget my coat, will you?" he added, turning to Langham. Langham clappedhis hands, and the clanging of a guitar ceased, and their servant andcook came out from the back of the hut and held the General's horsewhile he dismounted. "Wait until I get you a chair, " said Clay. "You'll find those steps rather bad for white duck. "

"I am fortunate in finding you at home, " said the officer, smiling, andshowing his white teeth. "The telephone is not working. I tried atthe club, but I could not call you. "

"It's the storm, I suppose, " Clay answered, as he struggled into hisjacket. "Let me offer you something to drink. " He entered the house, and returned with several bottles on a tray and a bundle of cigars. The Spanish-American poured himself out a glass of water, mixing itwith Jamaica rum, and said, smiling again, "It is a saying of yourcountrymen that when a man first comes to Olancho he puts a little ruminto his water, and that when he is here some time he puts a littlewater in his rum. "

"Yes, " laughed Clay. "I'm afraid that's true. "

There was a pause while the men sipped at their glasses, and looked atthe horses and the orderly. The clanging of the guitar began againfrom the kitchen. "You have a very beautiful view here of the harbor, yes, " said Mendoza. He seemed to enjoy the pause after his ride, andto be in no haste to begin on the object of his errand. MacWilliamsand Langham eyed each other covertly, and Clay examined the end of hiscigar, and they all waited. 

"And how are the mines progressing, eh?" asked the officer, genially. "You find much good iron in them, they tell me. "

"Yes, we are doing very well, " Clay assented; "it was difficult atfirst, but now that things are in working order, we are getting outabout ten thousand tons a month. We hope to increase that soon totwenty thousand when the new openings are developed and our shippingfacilities are in better shape. "

"So much!" exclaimed the General, pleasantly. 

"Of which the Government of my country is to get its share of ten percent--one thousand tons! It is munificent!" He laughed and shook hishead slyly at Clay, who smiled in dissent. 

"But you see, sir, " said Clay, "you cannot blame us. The mines havealways been there, before this Government came in, before the Spaniardswere here, before there was any Government at all, but there was notthe capital to open them up, I suppose, or--and it needed a certainenergy to begin the attack. Your people let the chance go, and, as itturned out, I think they were very wise in doing so. They get ten percent of the output. That's ten per cent on nothing, for the minesreally didn't exist, as far as you were concerned, until we came, didthey? They were just so much waste land, and they would have remainedso. And look at the price we paid down before we cut a tree. Threemillions of dollars; that's a good deal of money. It will be some timebefore we realize anything on that investment. "

Mendoza shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. "I will be frankwith you, " he said, with the air of one to whom dissimulation isdifficult. "I come here to-night on an unpleasant errand, but it iswith me a matter of duty, and I am a soldier, to whom duty is theforemost ever. I have come to tell you, Mr. Clay, that we, theOpposition, are not satisfied with the manner in which the Governmenthas disposed of these great iron deposits. When I say not satisfied, my dear friend, I speak most moderately. I should say that we aresurprised and indignant, and we are determined the wrong it has doneour country shall be righted. I have the honor to have been chosen tospeak for our party on this most important question, and on nextTuesday, sir, " the General stood up and bowed, as though he were beforea great assembly, "I will rise in the Senate and move a vote of want ofconfidence in the Government for the manner in which it has given awaythe richest possessions in the storehouse of my country, giving it notonly to aliens, but for a pittance, for a share which is not a share, but a bribe, to blind the eyes of the people. It has been a shamefulbargain, and I cannot say who is to blame; I accuse no one. But Isuspect, and I will demand an investigation; I will demand that thevalue not of one-tenth, but of one-half of all the iron that yourcompany takes out of Olancho shall be paid into the treasury of theState. And I come to you to-night, as the Resident Director, to informyou beforehand of my intention. I do not wish to take you unprepared. I do not blame your people; they are business men, they know how tomake good bargains, they get what they best can. That is the rule oftrade, but they have gone too far, and I advise you to communicate withyour people in New York and learn what they are prepared to offernow--now that they have to deal with men who do not consider their owninterests but the interests of their country. "

Mendoza made a sweeping bow and seated himself, frowning dramatically, with folded arms. His voice still hung in the air, for he had spokenas earnestly as though he imagined himself already standing in the hallof the Senate championing the cause of the people. 

MacWilliams looked up at Clay from where he sat on the steps below him, but Clay did not notice him, and there was no sound, except the quicksputtering of the nicotine in Langham's pipe, at which he pulledquickly, and which was the only outward sign the boy gave of hisinterest. Clay shifted one muddy boot over the other and leaned backwith his hands stuck in his belt. 

"Why didn't you speak of this sooner?" he asked. 

"Ah, yes, that is fair, " said the General, quickly. "I know that it islate, and I regret it, and I see that we cause you inconvenience; buthow could I speak sooner when I was ignorant of what was going on? Ihave been away with my troops. I am a soldier first, a politicianafter. During the last year I have been engaged in guarding thefrontier. No news comes to a General in the field moving from camp tocamp and always in the saddle; but I may venture to hope, sir, thatnews has come to you of me?"

Clay pressed his lips together and bowed his head. 

"We have heard of your victories, General, yes, " he said; "and on yourreturn you say you found things had not been going to your liking?"

"That is it, " assented the other, eagerly. "I find that indignationreigns on every side. I find my friends complaining of the railroadwhich you run across their land. I find that fifteen hundred soldiersare turned into laborers, with picks and spades, working by the side ofnegroes and your Irish; they have not been paid their wages, and theyhave been fed worse than though they were on the march; sickness and--"

Clay moved impatiently and dropped his boot heavily on the porch. 

"That was true at first, " he interrupted, "but it is not so now. Ishould be glad, General, to take you over the men's quarters at anytime. As for their not having been paid, they were never paid by theirown Government before they came to us and for the same reason, becausethe petty officers kept back the money, just as they have always done. But the men are paid now. However, this is not of the most importance. Who is it that complains of the terms of our concession?"

"Every one!" exclaimed Mendoza, throwing out his arms, "and they ask, moreover, this: they ask why, if this mine is so rich, why was not thestock offered here to us in this country? Why was it not put on themarket, that any one might buy? We have rich men in Olancho, whyshould not they benefit first of all others by the wealth of their ownlands? But no! we are not asked to buy. All the stock is taken in NewYork, no one benefits but the State, and it receives only ten per cent. It is monstrous!"

"I see, " said Clay, gravely. "That had not occurred to me before. They feel they have been slighted. I see. " He paused for a moment asif in serious consideration. "Well, " he added, "that might bearranged. "

He turned and jerked his head toward the open door. "If you boys meanto go to town to-night, you'd better be moving, " he said. The two menrose together and bowed silently to their guest. 

"I should like if Mr. Langham would remain a moment with us, " saidMendoza, politely. "I understand that it is his father who controlsthe stock of the company. If we discuss any arrangement it might bewell if he were here. "

Clay was sitting with his chin on his breast, and he did not look up, nor did the young man turn to him for any prompting. "I'm not downhere as my father's son, " he said, "I am an employee of Mr. Clay's. Herepresents the company. Good-night, sir. "

"You think, then, " said Clay, "that if your friends were given anopportunity to subscribe to the stock they would feel less resentfultoward us? They would think it was fairer to all?"

"I know it, " said Mendoza; "why should the stock go out of the countrywhen those living here are able to buy it?"

"Exactly, " said Clay, "of course. Can you tell me this, General? Arethe gentlemen who want to buy stock in the mine the same men who are inthe Senate? The men who are objecting to the terms of our concession?"

"With a few exceptions they are the same men. "

Clay looked out over the harbor at the lights of the town, and theGeneral twirled his hat around his knee and gazed with appreciation atthe stars above him. 

"Because if they are, " Clay continued, "and they succeed in getting ourshare cut down from ninety per cent to fifty per cent, they must seethat the stock would be worth just forty per cent less than it is now. "

"That is true, " assented the other. "I have thought of that, and ifthe Senators in Opposition were given a chance to subscribe, I am surethey would see that it is better wisdom to drop their objections to theconcession, and as stockholders allow you to keep ninety per cent ofthe output. And, again, " continued Mendoza, "it is really better forthe country that the money should go to its people than that it shouldbe stored up in the vaults of the treasury, when there is always thedanger that the President will seize it; or, if not this one, the nextone. "

"I should think--that is--it seems to me, " said Clay with carefulconsideration, "that your Excellency might be able to render us greathelp in this matter yourself. We need a friend among the Opposition. In fact--I see where you could assist us in many ways, where yourservices would be strictly in the line of your public duty and yetbenefit us very much. Of course I cannot speak authoritatively withoutfirst consulting Mr. Langham; but I should think he would allow youpersonally to purchase as large a block of the stock as you could wish, either to keep yourself or to resell and distribute among those of yourfriends in Opposition where it would do the most good. "

Clay looked over inquiringly to where Mendoza sat in the light of theopen door, and the General smiled faintly, and emitted a pleased littlesigh of relief. "Indeed, " continued Clay, "I should think Mr. Langhammight even save you the formality of purchasing the stock outright bysending you its money equivalent. I beg your pardon, " he asked, interrupting himself, "does your orderly understand English?"

"He does not, " the General assured him, eagerly, dragging his chair alittle closer. 

"Suppose now that Mr. Langham were to put fifty or let us say sixtythousand dollars to your account in the Valencia Bank, do you thinkthis vote of want of confidence in the Government on the question ofour concession would still be moved?"

"I am sure it would not, " exclaimed the leader of the Opposition, nodding his head violently. 

"Sixty thousand dollars, " repeated Clay, slowly, "for yourself; and doyou think, General, that were you paid that sum you would be able tocall off your friends, or would they make a demand for stock also?"

"Have no anxiety at all, they do just what I say, " returned Mendoza, inan eager whisper. "If I say 'It is all right, I am satisfied with whatthe Government has done in my absence, ' it is enough. And I will sayit, I give you the word of a soldier, I will say it. I will not move avote of want of confidence on Tuesday. You need go no farther thanmyself. I am glad that I am powerful enough to serve you, and if youdoubt me"--he struck his heart and bowed with a deprecatory smile--"youneed not pay in the money in exchange for the stock all at the sametime. You can pay ten thousand this year, and next year ten thousandmore and so on, and so feel confident that I shall have the interestsof the mine always in my heart. Who knows what may not happen in ayear? I may be able to serve you even more. Who knows how long thepresent Government will last? But I give you my word of honor, nomatter whether I be in Opposition or at the head of the Government, ifI receive every six months the retaining fee of which you speak, I willbe your representative. And my friends can do nothing. I despisethem. _I_ am the Opposition. You have done well, my dear sir, toconsider me alone. "

Clay turned in his chair and looked back of him through the office tothe room beyond. 

"Boys, " he called, "you can come out now. "

He rose and pushed his chair away and beckoned to the orderly who satin the saddle holding the General's horse. Langham and MacWilliamscame out and stood in the open door, and Mendoza rose and looked atClay. 

"You can go now, " Clay said to him, quietly. "And you can rise in theSenate on Tuesday and move your vote of want of confidence and objectto our concession, and when you have resumed your seat the Secretary ofMines will rise in his turn and tell the Senate how you stole out herein the night and tried to blackmail me, and begged me to bribe you tobe silent, and that you offered to throw over your friends and to takeall that we would give you and keep it yourself. That will make youpopular with your friends, and will show the Government just what sortof a leader it has working against it. "

Clay took a step forward and shook his finger in the officer's face. "Try to break that concession; try it. It was made by one Governmentto a body of honest, decent business men, with a Government of theirown back of them, and if you interfere with our conceded rights to workthose mines, I'll have a man-of-war down here with white paint on herhull, and she'll blow you and your little republic back up there intothe mountains. Now you can go. "

Mendoza had straightened with surprise when Clay first began to speak, and had then bent forward slightly as though he meant to interrupt him. His eyebrows were lowered in a straight line, and his lips movedquickly. 

"You poor--" he began, contemptuously. "Bah, " he exclaimed, "you're afool; I should have sent a servant to talk with you. You are achild--but you are an insolent child, " he cried, suddenly, his angerbreaking out, "and I shall punish you. You dare to call me names! Youshall fight me, you shall fight me to-morrow. You have insulted anofficer, and you shall meet me at once, to-morrow. "

"If I meet you to-morrow, " Clay replied, "I will thrash you for yourimpertinence. The only reason I don't do it now is because you are onmy doorstep. You had better not meet me tomorrow, or at any othertime. And I have no leisure to fight duels with anybody. "

"You are a coward, " returned the other, quietly, "and I tell you sobefore my servant. "

Clay gave a short laugh and turned to MacWilliams in the doorway. 

"Hand me my gun, MacWilliams, " he said, "it's on the shelf to theright. "

MacWilliams stood still and shook his head. "Oh, let him alone, " hesaid. "You've got him where you want him. "

"Give me the gun, I tell you, " repeated Clay. "I'm not going to hurthim, I'm only going to show him how I can shoot. "

MacWilliams moved grudgingly across the porch and brought back therevolver and handed it to Clay. "Look out now, " he said, "it's loaded. "

At Clay's words the General had retreated hastily to his horse's headand had begun unbuckling the strap of his holster, and the orderlyreached back into the boot for his carbine. Clay told him in Spanishto throw up his hands, and the man, with a frightened look at hisofficer, did as the revolver suggested. Then Clay motioned with hisempty hand for the other to desist. "Don't do that, " he said, "I'm notgoing to hurt you; I'm only going to frighten you a little. "

He turned and looked at the student lamp inside, where it stood on thetable in full view. Then he raised his revolver. He did notapparently hold it away from him by the butt, as other men do, but letit lie in the palm of his hand, into which it seemed to fit like thehand of a friend. His first shot broke the top of the glass chimney, the second shattered the green globe around it, the third put out thelight, and the next drove the lamp crashing to the floor. There was awild yell of terror from the back of the house, and the noise of aguitar falling down a flight of steps. "I have probably killed a verygood cook, " said Clay, "as I should as certainly kill you, if I were tomeet you. Langham, " he continued, "go tell that cook to come back. "

The General sprang into his saddle, and the altitude it gave him seemedto bring back some of the jauntiness he had lost. 

"That was very pretty, " he said; "you have been a cowboy, so they tellme. It is quite evident by your manners. No matter, if we do not meetto-morrow it will be because I have more serious work to do. Twomonths from to-day there will be a new Government in Olancho and a newPresident, and the mines will have a new director. I have tried to beyour friend, Mr. Clay. See how you like me for an enemy. Goodnight, gentlemen. "

"Good-night, " said MacWilliams, unmoved. "Please ask your man to closethe gate after you. "

When the sound of the hoofs had died away the men still stood in anuncomfortable silence, with Clay twirling the revolver around hismiddle finger. "I'm sorry I had to make a gallery play of that sort, "he said. "But it was the only way to make that sort of man understand. "

Langham sighed and shook his head ruefully. 

"Well, " he said, "I thought all the trouble was over, but it looks tome as though it had just begun. So far as I can see they're going togive the governor a run for his money yet. "

Clay turned to MacWilliams. 

"How many of Mendoza's soldiers have we in the mines, Mac?" he asked. 

"About fifteen hundred, " MacWilliams answered. "But you ought to hearthe way they talk of him. "

"They do, eh?" said Clay, with a smile of satisfaction. "That's good. 'Six hundred slaves who hate their masters. ' What do they say about me?"

"Oh, they think you're all right. They know you got them their pay andall that. They'd do a lot for you. "

"Would they fight for me?" asked Clay. 

MacWilliams looked up and laughed uneasily. "I don't know, " he said. "Why, old man? What do you mean to do?"

"Oh, I don't know, " Clay answered. "I was just wondering whether Ishould like to be President of Olancho. "

III

The Langhams were to arrive on Friday, and during the week before thatday Clay went about with a long slip of paper in his pocket which hewould consult earnestly in corners, and upon which he would note downthe things that they had left undone. At night he would sit staring atit and turning it over in much concern, and would beg Langham to tellhim what he could have meant when he wrote "see Weimer, " or "cleanbrasses, " or "S. Q. M. " "Why should I see Weimer, " he would exclaim, "and which brasses, and what does S. Q. M. Stand for, for heaven'ssake?"

They held a full-dress rehearsal in the bungalow to improve its stateof preparation, and drilled the servants and talked English to them, sothat they would know what was wanted when the young ladies came. Itwas an interesting exercise, and had the three young men been lessserious in their anxiety to welcome the coming guests they would havefound themselves very amusing--as when Langham would lean over thebalcony in the court and shout back into the kitchen, in what wassupposed to be an imitation of his sister's manner, "Bring my coffeeand rolls--and don't take all day about it either, " while Clay andMacWilliams stood anxiously below to head off the servants when theycarried in a can of hot water instead of bringing the horses round tothe door, as they had been told to do. 

"Of course it's a bit rough and all that, " Clay would say, "but theyhave only to tell us what they want changed and we can have it readyfor them in an hour. "

"Oh, my sisters are all right, " Langham would reassure him; "they'llthink it's fine. It will be like camping-out to them, or a picnic. They'll understand. "

But to make sure, and to "test his girders, " as Clay put it, they gavea dinner, and after that a breakfast. The President came to the first, with his wife, the Countess Manuelata, Madame la Presidenta, andCaptain Stuart, late of the Gordon Highlanders, and now in command ofthe household troops at the Government House and of the body-guard ofthe President. He was a friend of Clay's and popular with every onepresent, except for the fact that he occupied this position, instead ofserving his own Government in his own army. Some people said he hadbeen crossed in love, others, less sentimental, that he had forged acheck, or mixed up the mess accounts of his company. But Clay andMacWilliams said it concerned no one why he was there, and thenemphasized the remark by picking a quarrel with a man who had given anunpleasant reason for it. Stuart, so far as they were concerned, coulddo no wrong. 

The dinner went off very well, and the President consented to dine withthem in a week, on the invitation of young Langham to meet his father. 

"Miss Langham is very beautiful, they tell me, " Madame Alvarez said toClay. "I heard of her one winter in Rome; she was presented there andmuch admired. "

"Yes, I believe she is considered very beautiful, " Clay said. "I haveonly just met her, but she has travelled a great deal and knows everyone who is of interest, and I think you will like her very much. "

"I mean to like her, " said the woman. "There are very few of thenative ladies who have seen much of the world beyond a trip to Paris, where they live in their hotels and at the dressmaker's while theirhusbands enjoy themselves; and sometimes I am rather heart-sick for myhome and my own people. I was overjoyed when I heard Miss Langham wasto be with us this winter. But you must not keep her out here toyourselves. It is too far and too selfish. She must spend some timewith me at the Government House. "

"Yes, " said Clay, "I am afraid of that. I am afraid the young ladieswill find it rather lonely out here. "

"Ah, no, " exclaimed the woman, quickly. "You have made it beautiful, and it is only a half-hour's ride, except when it rains, " she added, laughing, "and then it is almost as easy to row as to ride. "

"I will have the road repaired, " interrupted the President. "It is mywish, Mr. Clay, that you will command me in every way; I am mostdesirous to make the visit of Mr. Langham agreeable to him, he is doingso much for us. "

The breakfast was given later in the week, and only men were present. They were the rich planters and bankers of Valencia, generals in thearmy, and members of the Cabinet, and officers from the tiny war-shipin the harbor. The breeze from the bay touched them through the opendoors, the food and wine cheered them, and the eager courtesy andhospitality of the three Americans pleased and flattered them. Theywere of a people who better appreciate the amenities of life than itssacrifices. 

The breakfast lasted far into the afternoon, and, inspired by thesuccess of the banquet, Clay quite unexpectedly found himself on hisfeet with his hand on his heart, thanking the guests for the good-willand assistance which they had given him in his work. "I have trampeddown your coffee plants, and cut away your forests, and disturbed yoursleep with my engines, and you have not complained, " he said, in hisbest Spanish, "and we will show that we are not ungrateful. "

Then Weimer, the Consul, spoke, and told them that in his AnnualConsular Report, which he had just forwarded to the State Department, he had related how ready the Government of Olancho had been to assistthe American company. "And I hope, " he concluded, "that you will allowme, gentlemen, to propose the health of President Alvarez and themembers of his Cabinet. "

The men rose to their feet, one by one, filling their glasses andlaughing and saying, "Viva el Gobernador, " until they were allstanding. Then, as they looked at one another and saw only the facesof friends, some one of them cried, suddenly, "To President Alvarez, Dictator of Olancho!"

The cry was drowned in a yell of exultation, and men sprang cheering totheir chairs waving their napkins above their heads, and those who woreswords drew them and flashed them in the air, and the quiet, lazygood-nature of the breakfast was turned into an uproarious scene ofwild excitement. Clay pushed back his chair from the head of the tablewith an anxious look at the servants gathered about the open door, andWeimer clutched frantically at Langham's elbow and whispered, "What didI say? For heaven's sake, how did it begin?"

The outburst ceased as suddenly as it had started, and old GeneralRojas, the Vice-President, called out, "What is said is said, but itmust not be repeated. "

Stuart waited until after the rest had gone, and Clay led him out tothe end of the veranda. "Now will you kindly tell me what that was?"Clay asked. "It didn't sound like champagne. "

"No, " said the other, "I thought you knew. Alvarez means to proclaimhimself Dictator, if he can, before the spring elections. "

"And are you going to help him?"

"Of course, " said the Englishman, simply. 

"Well, that's all right, " said Clay, "but there's no use shouting thefact all over the shop like that--and they shouldn't drag me into it. "

Stuart laughed easily and shook his head. "It won't be long beforeyou'll be in it yourself, " he said. 

Clay awoke early Friday morning to hear the shutters beating viciouslyagainst the side of the house, and the wind rushing through the palms, and the rain beating in splashes on the zinc roof. It did not comesoothingly and in a steady downpour, but brokenly, like the rush ofwaves sweeping over a rough beach. He turned on the pillow and shuthis eyes again with the same impotent and rebellious sense ofdisappointment that he used to feel when he had wakened as a boy andfound it storming on his holiday, and he tried to sleep once more inthe hope that when he again awoke the sun would be shining in his eyes;but the storm only slackened and did not cease, and the rain continuedto fall with dreary, relentless persistence. The men climbed the muddyroad to the Palms, and viewed in silence the wreck which the night hadbrought to their plants and garden paths. Rivulets of muddy water hadcut gutters over the lawn and poured out from under the veranda, andplants and palms lay bent and broken, with their broad leavesbedraggled and coated with mud. The harbor and the encirclingmountains showed dimly through a curtain of warm, sticky rain. Tosomething that Langham said of making the best of it, MacWilliamsreplied, gloomily, that he would not be at all surprised if the ladiesrefused to leave the ship and demanded to be taken home immediately. "I am sorry, " Clay said, simply; "I wanted them to like it. "

The men walked back to the office in grim silence, and took turns inwatching with a glass the arms of the semaphore, three miles below, atthe narrow opening of the bay. Clay smiled nervously at himself, witha sudden sinking at the heart, and with a hot blush of pleasure, as hethought of how often he had looked at its great arms out lined like amast against the sky, and thanked it in advance for telling him thatshe was near. In the harbor below, the vessels lay with bare yards andempty decks, the wharves were deserted, and only an occasional smallboat moved across the beaten surface of the bay. 

But at twelve o'clock MacWilliams lowered the glass quickly, with alittle gasp of excitement, rubbed its moist lens on the inside of hiscoat and turned it again toward a limp strip of bunting that wascrawling slowly up the halyards of the semaphore. A second drippingrag answered it from the semaphore in front of the Custom-House, andMacWilliams laughed nervously and shut the glass. 

"It's red, " he said; "they've come. "

They had planned to wear white duck suits, and go out in a launch witha flag flying, and they had made MacWilliams purchase a red cummerbundand a pith helmet; but they tumbled into the launch now, wet andbedraggled as they were, and raced Weimer in his boat, with theAmerican flag clinging to the pole, to the side of the big steamer asshe drew slowly into the bay. Other row-boats and launches andlighters began to push out from the wharves, men appeared under thesagging awnings of the bare houses along the river-front, and thecustom and health officers in shining oil-skins and puffing damp cigarsclambered over the side. 

"I see them, " cried Langham, jumping up and rocking the boat in hisexcitement. "There they are in the bow. That's Hope waving. Hope!hullo, Hope!" he shouted, "hullo!" Clay recognized her standing betweenthe younger sister and her father, with the rain beating on all ofthem, and waving her hand to Langham. The men took off their hats, andas they pulled up alongside she bowed to Clay and nodded brightly. They sent Langham up the gangway first, and waited until he had madehis greetings to his family alone. 

"We have had a terrible trip, Mr. Clay, " Miss Langham said to him, beginning, as people will, with the last few days, as though they wereof the greatest importance; "and we could see nothing of you at themines at all as we passed--only a wet flag, and a lot of very friendlyworkmen, who cheered and fired off pans of dynamite. "

"They did, did they?" said Clay, with a satisfied nod. "That's allright, then. That was a royal salute in your honor. Kirkland had thatto do. He's the foreman of A opening. I am awfully sorry about thisrain--it spoils everything. "

"I hope it hasn't spoiled our breakfast, " said Mr. Langham. "We haven'teaten anything this morning, because we wanted a change of diet, andthe captain told us we should be on shore before now. "

"We have some carriages for you at the wharf, and we will drive youright out to the Palms, " said young Langham. "It's shorter by water, but there's a hill that the girls couldn't climb today. That's thehouse we built for you, Governor, with the flag-pole, up there on thehill; and there's your ugly old pier; and that's where we live, in thelittle shack above it, with the tin roof; and that opening to the rightis the terminus of the railroad MacWilliams built. Where'sMacWilliams? Here, Mac, I want you to know my father. This isMacWilliams, sir, of whom I wrote you. "

There was some delay about the baggage, and in getting the partytogether in the boats that Langham and the Consul had brought; andafter they had stood for some time on the wet dock, hungry and damp, itwas rather aggravating to find that the carriages which Langham hadordered to be at one pier had gone to another. So the new arrivals satrather silently under the shed of the levee on a row of cotton-bales, while Clay and MacWilliams raced off after the carriages. 

"I wish we didn't have to keep the hood down, " young Langham said, anxiously, as they at last proceeded heavily up the muddy streets; "itmakes it so hot, and you can't see anything. Not that it's worthseeing in all this mud and muck, but it's great when the sun shines. We had planned it all so differently. "

He was alone with his family now in one carriage, and the other men andthe servants were before them in two others. It seemed an interminableride to them all--to the strangers, and to the men who were anxiousthat they should be pleased. They left the city at last, and toiledalong the limestone road to the Palms, rocking from side to side andsinking in ruts filled with rushing water. When they opened the flapof the hood the rain beat in on them, and when they closed it theystewed in a damp, warm atmosphere of wet leather and horse-hair. 

"This is worse than a Turkish bath, " said Hope, faintly. "Don't youlive anywhere, Ted?"

"Oh, it's not far now, " said the younger brother, dismally; but even ashe spoke the carriage lurched forward and plunged to one side and cameto a halt, and they could hear the streams rushing past the wheels likethe water at the bow of a boat. A wet, black face appeared at theopening of the hood, and a man spoke despondently in Spanish. 

"He says we're stuck in the mud, " explained Langham. He looked at themso beseechingly and so pitifully, with the perspiration streaming downhis face, and his clothes damp and bedraggled, that Hope leaned backand laughed, and his father patted him on the knee. "It can't be anyworse, " he said, cheerfully; "it must mend now. It is not your fault, Ted, that we're starving and lost in the mud. "

Langham looked out to find Clay and MacWilliams knee-deep in therunning water, with their shoulders against the muddy wheels, and thedriver lashing at the horses and dragging at their bridles. He sprangout to their assistance, and Hope, shaking off her sister's detaininghands, jumped out after him, laughing. She splashed up the hill to thehorses' heads, motioning to the driver to release his hold on theirbridles. 

"That is not the way to treat a horse, " she said. "Let me have them. Are you men all ready down there?" she called. Each of the three menglued a shoulder to a wheel, and clenched his teeth and nodded. "Allright, then, " Hope called back. She took hold of the huge Mexican bitsclose to the mouth, where the pressure was not so cruel, and thencoaxing and tugging by turns, and slipping as often as the horsesthemselves, she drew them out of the mud, and with the help of the menback of the carriage pulled it clear until it stood free again at thetop of the hill. Then she released her hold on the bridles and lookeddown, in dismay, at her frock and hands, and then up at the three men. They appeared so utterly miserable and forlorn in their muddy garments, and with their faces washed with the rain and perspiration, that thegirl gave way suddenly to an uncontrollable shriek of delight. The menstared blankly at her for a moment, and then inquiringly at oneanother, and as the humor of the situation struck them they burst intoan echoing shout of laughter, which rose above the noise of the windand rain, and before which the disappointments and trials of themorning were swept away. Before they reached the Palms the sun was outand shining with fierce brilliancy, reflecting its rays on every dampleaf, and drinking up each glistening pool of water. 

MacWilliams and Clay left the Langhams alone together, and returned tothe office, where they assured each other again and again that therewas no doubt, from what each had heard different members of the familysay, that they were greatly pleased with all that had been prepared forthem. 

"They think it's fine!" said young Langham, who had run down the hillto tell them about it. "I tell you, they are pleased. I took them allover the house, and they just exclaimed every minute. Of course, " hesaid, dispassionately, "I thought they'd like it, but I had no idea itwould please them as much as it has. My Governor is so delighted withthe place that he's sitting out there on the veranda now, rockinghimself up and down and taking long breaths of sea-air, just as thoughhe owned the whole coast-line. "

Langham dined with his people that night, Clay and MacWilliams havingpromised to follow him up the hill later. It was a night of muchmoment to them all, and the two men ate their dinner in silence, eachconsidering what the coming of the strangers might mean to him. 

As he was leaving the room MacWilliams stopped and hovered uncertainlyin the doorway. 

"Are you going to get yourself into a dress-suit to-night?" he asked. Clay said that he thought he would; he wanted to feel quite clean oncemore. 

"Well, all right, then, " the other returned, reluctantly. "I'll do itfor this once, if you mean to, but you needn't think I'm going to makea practice of it, for I'm not. I haven't worn a dress-suit, " hecontinued, as though explaining his principles in the matter, "sinceyour spread when we opened the railroad--that's six months ago; and thetime before that I wore one at MacGolderick's funeral. MacGolderickblew himself up at Puerto Truxillo, shooting rocks for the breakwater. We never found all of him, but we gave what we could get together asfine a funeral as those natives ever saw. The boys, they wanted tomake him look respectable, so they asked me to lend them my dress-suit, but I told them I meant to wear it myself. That's how I came to wear adress-suit at a funeral. It was either me or MacGolderick. "

"MacWilliams, " said Clay, as he stuck the toe of one boot into the heelof the other, "if I had your imagination I'd give up railroading andtake to writing war clouds for the newspapers. "

"Do you mean you don't believe that story?" MacWilliams demanded, sternly. 

"I do, " said Clay, "I mean I don't. "

"Well, let it go, " returned MacWilliams, gloomily; "but there's beenfunerals for less than that, let me tell you. "

A half-hour later MacWilliams appeared in the door and stood gazingattentively at Clay arranging his tie before a hand-glass, and then athimself in his unusual apparel. 

"No wonder you voted to dress up, " he exclaimed finally, in a tone ofpersonal injury. "That's not a dress-suit you've got on anyway. Ithasn't any tails. And I hope for your sake, Mr. Clay, " he continued, his voice rising in plaintive indignation, "that you are not going toplay that scarf on us for a vest. And you haven't got a high collar on, either. That's only a rough blue print of a dress-suit. Why, you lookjust as comfortable as though you were going to enjoy yourself--and youlook cool, too. "

"Well, why not?" laughed Clay. 

"Well, but look at me, " cried the other. "Do I look cool? Do I lookhappy or comfortable? No, I don't. I look just about the way I feel, like a fool undertaker. I'm going to take this thing right off. Youand Ted Langham can wear your silk scarfs and bobtail coats, if youlike, but if they don't want me in white duck they don't get me. "

When they reached the Palms, Clay asked Miss Langham if she did notwant to see his view. "And perhaps, if you appreciate it properly, Iwill make you a present of it, " he said, as he walked before her downthe length of the veranda. 

"It would be very selfish to keep it all to my self, " she said. 

"Couldn't we share it?" They had left the others seated facing thebay, with MacWilliams and young Langham on the broad steps of theveranda, and the younger sister and her father sitting in long bamboosteamer-chairs above them. 

Clay and Miss Langham were quite alone. From the high cliff on whichthe Palms stood they could look down the narrow inlet that joined theocean and see the moonlight turning the water into a rippling ladder oflight and gilding the dark green leaves of the palms near them with aborder of silver. Directly below them lay the waters of the bay, reflecting the red and green lights of the ships at anchor, and beyondthem again were the yellow lights of the town, rising one above theother as the city crept up the hill. And back of all were themountains, grim and mysterious, with white clouds sleeping in theirhuge valleys, like masses of fog. 

Except for the ceaseless murmur of the insect life about them the nightwas absolutely still--so still that the striking of the ships' bells inthe harbor came to them sharply across the surface of the water, andthey could hear from time to time the splash of some great fish and thesteady creaking of an oar in a rowlock that grew fainter and fainter asit grew further away, until it was drowned in the distance. MissLangham was for a long time silent. She stood with her hands claspedbehind her, gazing from side to side into the moonlight, and hadapparently forgotten that Clay was present. 

"Well, " he said at last, "I think you appreciate it properly. I wasafraid you would exclaim about it, and say it was fine, or charming, orsomething. "

Miss Langham turned to him and smiled slightly. "And you told me oncethat you knew me so very well, " she said. 

Clay chose to forget much that he had said on that night when he hadfirst met her. He knew that he had been bold then, and had dared to beso because he did not think he would see her again; but, now that hewas to meet her every day through several months, it seemed better tohim that they should grow to know each other as they really were, simply and sincerely, and without forcing the situation in any way. 

So he replied, "I don't know you so well now. You must remember Ihaven't seen you for a year. "

"Yes, but you hadn't seen me for twenty-two years then, " she answered. "I don't think you have changed much, " she went on. "I expected to findyou gray with cares. Ted wrote us about the way you work all day atthe mines and sit up all night over calculations and plans and reports. But you don't show it. When are you going to take us over the mines?To-morrow? I am very anxious to see them, but I suppose father willwant to inspect them first. Hope knows all about them, I believe; sheknows their names, and how much you have taken out, and how much youhave put in, too, and what MacWilliams's railroad cost, and who got thecontract for the ore pier. Ted told us in his letters, and she used towork it out on the map in father's study. She is a most energeticchild; I think sometimes she should have been a boy. I wish I could bethe help to any one that she is to my father and to me. Whenever I amblue or down she makes fun of me, and--"

"Why should you ever be blue?" asked Clay, abruptly. 

"There is no real reason, I suppose, " the girl answered, smiling, "except that life is so very easy for me that I have to invent somewoes. I should be better for a few reverses. " And then she went on ina lower voice, and turning her head away, "In our family there is nowoman older than I am to whom I can go with questions that trouble me. Hope is like a boy, as I said, and plays with Ted, and my father isvery busy with his affairs, and since my mother died I have been verymuch alone. A man cannot understand. And I cannot understand why Ishould be speaking to you about myself and my troubles, except--" sheadded, a little wistfully, "that you once said you were interested inme, even if it was as long as a year ago. And because I want you to bevery kind to me, as you have been to Ted, and I hope that we are goingto be very good friends. "

She was so beautiful, standing in the shadow with the moonlight abouther and with her hand held out to him, that Clay felt as though thescene were hardly real. He took her hand in his and held it for amoment. His pleasure in the sweet friendliness of her manner and inher beauty was so great that it kept him silent. 

"Friends!" he laughed under his breath. "I don't think there is muchdanger of our not being friends. The danger lies, " he went on, smiling, "in my not being able to stop there. "

Miss Langham made no sign that she had heard him, but turned and walkedout into the moonlight and down the porch to where the others weresitting. 

Young Langham had ordered a native orchestra of guitars and reedinstruments from the town to serenade his people, and they werestanding in front of the house in the moonlight as Miss Langham andClay came forward. They played the shrill, eerie music of theircountry with a passion and feeling that filled out the strange tropicalscene around them; but Clay heard them only as an accompaniment to hisown thoughts, and as a part of the beautiful night and the tall, beautiful girl who had dominated it. He watched her from the shadow asshe sat leaning easily forward and looking into the night. Themoonlight fell full upon her, and though she did not once look at himor turn her head in his direction, he felt as though she must beconscious of his presence, as though there were already anunderstanding between them which she herself had established. She hadasked him to be her friend. That was only a pretty speech, perhaps;but she had spoken of herself, and had hinted at her perplexities andher loneliness, and he argued that while it was no compliment to beasked to share another's pleasure, it must mean something when one wasallowed to learn a little of another's troubles. 

And while his mind was flattered and aroused by this promise ofconfidence between them, he was rejoicing in the rare quality of herbeauty, and in the thought that she was to be near him, and near himhere, of all places. It seemed a very wonderful thing toClay--something that could only have happened in a novel or a play. For while the man and the hour frequently appeared together, he hadfound that the one woman in the world and the place and the man was amuch more difficult combination to bring into effect. No one, heassured himself thankfully, could have designed a more lovely settingfor his love-story, if it was to be a love-story, and he hoped it was, than this into which she had come of her own free will. It was a landof romance and adventure, of guitars and latticed windows, of warmbrilliant days and gorgeous silent nights, under purple heavens andwhite stars. And he was to have her all to himself, with no one nearto interrupt, no other friends, even, and no possible rival. She wasnot guarded now by a complex social system, with its responsibilities. He was the most lucky of men. Others had only seen her in herdrawing-room or in an opera-box, but he was free to fordmountain-streams at her side, or ride with her under arches of thegreat palms, or to play a guitar boldly beneath her window. He wasfree to come and go at any hour; not only free to do so, but the verynature of his duties made it necessary that they should be thrownconstantly together. 

The music of the violins moved him and touched him deeply, and stirreddepths at which he had not guessed. It made him humble and deeplygrateful, and he felt how mean and unworthy he was of such greathappiness. He had never loved any woman as he felt that he could lovethis woman, as he hoped that he was to love her. For he was not so farblinded by her beauty and by what he guessed her character to be, as toimagine that he really knew her. He only knew what he hoped she was, what he believed the soul must be that looked out of those kind, beautiful eyes, and that found utterance in that wonderful voice whichcould control him and move him by a word. 

He felt, as he looked at the group before him, how lonely his own lifehad been, how hard he had worked for so little--for what other menfound ready at hand when they were born into the world. 

He felt almost a touch of self-pity at his own imperfectness; and thepower of his will and his confidence in himself, of which he was soproud, seemed misplaced and little. And then he wondered if he had notneglected chances; but in answer to this his injured self-love rose torebut the idea that he had wasted any portion of his time, and heassured himself that he had done the work that he had cut out forhimself to do as best he could; no one but himself knew with whatcourage and spirit. And so he sat combating with himself, hoping onemoment that she would prove what he believed her to be, and the next, scandalized at his temerity in daring to think of her at all. 

The spell lifted as the music ceased, and Clay brought himself back tothe moment and looked about him as though he were waking from a dreamand had expected to see the scene disappear and the figures near himfade into the moonlight. 

Young Langham had taken a guitar from one of the musicians and pressedit upon MacWilliams, with imperative directions to sing such and suchsongs, of which, in their isolation, they had grown to think mosthighly, and MacWilliams was protesting in much embarrassment. 

MacWilliams had a tenor voice which he maltreated in the most villanousmanner by singing directly through his nose. He had a taste forsentimental songs, in which "kiss" rhymed with "bliss, " and in which"the people cry" was always sure to be followed with "as she goes by, that's pretty Katie Moody, " or "Rosie McIntyre. " He had gathered hissongs at the side of camp-fires, and in canteens at the firstsection-house of a new railroad, and his original collection of balladshad had but few additions in several years. MacWilliams at first wasshy, which was quite a new development, until he made them promise tolaugh if they wanted to laugh, explaining that he would not mind thatso much as he would the idea that he thought he was serious. 

The song of which he was especially fond was one called "He never caresto wander from his own Fireside, " which was especially appropriate incoming from a man who had visited almost every spot in the threeAmericas, except his home, in ten years. MacWilliams always ended theevening's entertainment with this chorus, no matter how many times ithad been sung previously, and seemed to regard it with much the sameveneration that the true Briton feels for his national anthem. 

The words of the chorus were:

 "He never cares to wander from his own fireside, He never cares to wander or to roam. With his babies on his knee, He's as happy as can be, For there's no place like Home, Sweet Home. "

MacWilliams loved accidentals, and what he called "barber-shop chords. "He used a beautiful accidental at the word "be, " of which he was veryfond, and he used to hang on that note for a long time, so that thosein the extreme rear of the hall, as he was wont to explain, should getthe full benefit of it. And it was his custom to emphasize "for" inthe last line by speaking instead of singing it, and then coming to afull stop before dashing on again with the excellent truth that "thereis NO place like Home, Sweet Home. "

The men at the mines used to laugh at him and his song at first, butthey saw that it was not to be so laughed away, and that he regarded itwith some peculiar sentiment. So they suffered him to sing it in peace. 

MacWilliams went through his repertoire to the unconcealed amusement ofyoung Langham and Hope. When he had finished he asked Hope if she knewa comic song of which he had only heard by reputation. One of the menat the mines had gained a certain celebrity by claiming to have heardit in the States, but as he gave a completely new set of words to thetune of the "Wearing of the Green" as the true version, his veracitywas doubted. Hope said she knew it, of course, and they all went intothe drawing-room, where the men grouped themselves about the piano. Itwas a night they remembered long afterward. Hope sat at the pianoprotesting and laughing, but singing the songs of which the new-comershad become so weary, but which the three men heard open-eyed, andhailed with shouts of pleasure. The others enjoyed them and theirdelight, as though they were people in a play expressing themselves inthis extravagant manner for their entertainment, until they understoodhow poverty-stricken their lives had been and that they were not onlyenjoying the music for itself, but because it was characteristic of allthat they had left behind them. It was pathetic to hear them boast ofhaving read of a certain song in such a paper, and of the fact thatthey knew the plot of a late comic opera and the names of those who hadplayed in it, and that it had or had not been acceptable to the NewYork public. 

"Dear me, " Hope would cry, looking over her shoulder with a despairingglance at her sister and father, "they don't even know 'Tommy Atkins'!"

It was a very happy evening for them all, foreshadowing, as it did, acontinuation of just such evenings. Young Langham was radiant withpleasure at the good account which Clay had given of him to his father, and Mr. Langham was gratified, and proud of the manner in which his sonand heir had conducted himself; and MacWilliams, who had never beforebeen taken so simply and sincerely by people of a class that he hadalways held in humorous awe, felt a sudden accession of dignity, and anunhappy fear that when they laughed at what he said, it was because itssense was so utterly different from their point of view, and notbecause they saw the humor of it. He did not know what the word "snob"signified, and in his roughened, easy-going nature there was no touchof false pride; but he could not help thinking how surprised his peoplewould be if they could see him, whom they regarded as a wanderer andrenegade on the face of the earth and the prodigal of the family, andfor that reason the best loved, leaning over a grand piano, while onedaughter of his much-revered president played comic songs for hisdelectation, and the other, who according to the newspapers refusedprinces daily, and who was the most wonderful creature he had everseen, poured out his coffee and brought it to him with her own hands. 

The evening came to an end at last, and the new arrivals accompaniedtheir visitors to the veranda as they started to their cabin for thenight. Clay was asking Mr. Langham when he wished to visit the mines, and the others were laughing over farewell speeches, when young Langhamstartled them all by hurrying down the length of the veranda andcalling on them to follow. 

"Look!" he cried, pointing down the inlet. "Here comes a man-of-war, or a yacht. Isn't she smart-looking? What can she want here at thishour of the night? They won't let them land. Can you make her out, MacWilliams?"

A long, white ship was steaming slowly up the inlet, and passed withina few hundred feet of the cliff on which they were standing. 

"Why, it's the 'Vesta'!" exclaimed Hope, wonderingly. "I thought shewasn't coming for a week?"

"It can't be the 'Vesta'!" said the elder sister; "she was not to havesailed from Havana until to-day. "

"What do you mean?" asked Langham. "Is it King's boat? Do you expecthim here? Oh, what fun! I say, Clay, here's the 'Vesta, ' ReggieKing's yacht, and he's no end of a sport. We can go all over the placenow, and he can land us right at the door of the mines if we want to. "

"Is it the King I met at dinner that night?" asked Clay, turning toMiss Langham. 

"Yes, " she said. "He wanted us to come down on the yacht, but wethought the steamer would be faster; so he sailed without us and was tohave touched at Havana, but he has apparently changed his course. Doesn't she look like a phantom ship in the moonlight?"

Young Langham thought he could distinguish King among the white figureson the bridge, and tossed his hat and shouted, and a man in the sternof the yacht replied with a wave of his hand. 

"That must be Mr. King, " said Hope. "He didn't bring any one with him, and he seems to be the only man aft. "

They stood watching the yacht as she stopped with a rattle ofanchor-chains and a confusion of orders that came sharply across thewater, and then the party separated and the three men walked down thehill, Langham eagerly assuring the other two that King was a very goodsort, and telling them what a treasure-house his yacht was, and how hewould have probably brought the latest papers, and that he wouldcertainly give a dance on board in their honor. 

The men stood for some short time together, after they had reached theoffice, discussing the great events of the day, and then with cheerfulgood-nights disappeared into their separate rooms. 

An hour later Clay stood without his coat, and with a pen in his hand, at MacWilliams's bedside and shook him by the shoulder. 

"I'm not asleep, " said MacWilliams, sitting up; "what is it? What haveyou been doing?" he demanded. "Not working?"

"There were some reports came in after we left, " said Clay, "and I findI will have to see Kirkland to-morrow morning. Send them word to runme down on an engine at five-thirty, will you? I am sorry to have towake you, but I couldn't remember in which shack that engineer lives. "

MacWilliams jumped from his bed and began kicking about the floor forhis boots. "Oh, that's all right, " he said. "I wasn't asleep, I wasjust--" he lowered his voice that Langham might not hear him throughthe canvas partitions--"I was just lying awake playing duets with thePresident, and racing for the International Cup in my new centre-boardyacht, that's all!"

MacWilliams buttoned a waterproof coat over his pajamas and stamped hisbare feet into his boots. "Oh, I tell you, Clay, " he said with a grimchuckle, "we're mixing right in with the four hundred, we are! I'msubstitute and understudy when anybody gets ill. We're right in ourown class at last! Pure amateurs with no professional record againstus. Me and President Langham, I guess!" He struck a match and lit thesmoky wick in a tin lantern. 

"But now, " he said, cheerfully, "my time being too valuable for me tosleep, I will go wake up that nigger engine-driver and set his alarmclock at five-thirty. Five-thirty, I believe you said. All right;good-night. " And whistling cheerfully to himself MacWilliamsdisappeared up the hill, his body hidden in the darkness and his legsshowing fantastically in the light of the swinging lantern. 

Clay walked out upon the veranda and stood with his back to one of thepillars. MacWilliams and his pleasantries disturbed and troubled him. Perhaps, after all, the boy was right. It seemed absurd, but it wastrue. They were only employees of Langham--two of the thousands ofyoung men who were working all over the United States to please him, tomake him richer, to whom he was only a name and a power, which meant anincrease of salary or the loss of place. 

Clay laughed and shrugged his shoulders. He knew that he was not inthat class; if he did good work it was because his self-respectdemanded it of him; he did not work for Langham or the Olancho MiningCompany (Limited). And yet he turned with almost a feeling ofresentment toward the white yacht lying calmly in magnificent repose ahundred yards from his porch. 

He could see her as clearly in her circle of electric lights as thoughshe were a picture and held in the light of a stereopticon on a screen. He could see her white decks, and the rails of polished brass, and thecomfortable wicker chairs and gay cushions and flat coils of rope, andthe tapering masts and intricate rigging. How easy it was made forsome men! This one had come like the prince in the fairy tale on hismagic carpet. If Alice Langham were to leave Valencia that next day, Clay could not follow her. He had his duties and responsibilities; hewas at another man's bidding. 

But this Prince Fortunatus had but to raise anchor and start inpursuit, knowing that he would be welcome wherever he found her. Thatwas the worst of it to Clay, for he knew that men did not follow womenfrom continent to continent without some assurance of a friendlygreeting. Clay's mind went back to the days when he was a boy, whenhis father was absent fighting for a lost cause; when his mother taughtin a little schoolhouse under the shadow of Pike's Peak, and when KitCarson was his hero. He thought of the poverty of those days povertyso mean and hopeless that it was almost something to feel shame for; ofthe days that followed when, an orphan and without a home, he hadsailed away from New Orleans to the Cape. How the mind of themathematician, which he had inherited from the Boston schoolmistress, had been swayed by the spirit of the soldier, which he had inheritedfrom his father, and which led him from the mines of South Africa tolittle wars in Madagascar, Egypt, and Algiers. It had been a life asrestless as the seaweed on a rock. But as he looked back to its poorbeginnings and admitted to himself its later successes, he gave a sighof content, and shaking off the mood stood up and paced the length ofthe veranda. 

He looked up the hill to the low-roofed bungalow with the palm-leavesabout it, outlined against the sky, and as motionless as patterns cutin tin. He had built that house. He had built it for her. That washer room where the light was shining out from the black bulk of thehouse about it like a star. And beyond the house he saw his five greatmountains, the knuckles of the giant hand, with its gauntlet of ironthat lay shut and clenched in the face of the sea that swept upwhimpering before it. Clay felt a boyish, foolish pride rise in hisbreast as he looked toward the great mines he had discovered andopened, at the iron mountains that were crumbling away before his touch. 

He turned his eyes again to the blazing yacht, and this time there wasno trace of envy in them. He laughed instead, partly with pleasure atthe thought of the struggle he scented in the air, and partly at hisown braggadocio. 

"I'm not afraid, " he said, smiling, and shaking his head at the whiteship that loomed up like a man-of-war in the black waters. "I'm notafraid to fight you for anything worth fighting for. "

He bowed his bared head in good-night toward the light on the hill, ashe turned and walked back into his bedroom. "And I think, " he murmuredgrimly, as he put out the light, "that she is worth fighting for. "

IV

The work which had called Clay to the mines kept him there for sometime, and it was not until the third day after the arrival of theLanghams that he returned again to the Palms. On the afternoon when heclimbed the hill to the bungalow he found the Langhams as he had leftthem, with the difference that King now occupied a place in the familycircle. Clay was made so welcome, and especially so by King, that hefelt rather ashamed of his sentiments toward him, and considered histhree days of absence to be well repaid by the heartiness of theirgreeting. 

"For myself, " said Mr. Langham, "I don't believe you had anything to doat the mines at all. I think you went away just to show us hownecessary you are. But if you want me to make a good report of ourresident director on my return, you had better devote yourself less tothe mines while you are here and more to us. " Clay said he was glad tofind that his duties were to be of so pleasant a nature, and asked themwhat they had seen and what they had done. 

They told him they had been nowhere, but had waited for his return inorder that he might act as their guide. 

"Then you should see the city at once, " said Clay, "and I will have thevolante brought to the door, and we can all go in this afternoon. There is room for the four of you inside, and I can sit on the box-seatwith the driver. "

"No, " said King, "let Hope or me sit on the box-seat. Then we canpractise our Spanish on the driver. "

"Not very well, " Clay replied, "for the driver sits on the first horse, like a postilion. It's a sort of tandem without reins. Haven't youseen it yet? We consider the volante our proudest exhibit. " So Clayordered the volante to be brought out, and placed them facing eachother in the open carriage, while he climbed to the box-seat, fromwhich position of vantage he pointed out and explained the objects ofinterest they passed, after the manner of a professional guide. It wasa warm, beautiful afternoon, and the clear mists of the atmosphereintensified the rich blue of the sky, and the brilliant colors of thehouses, and the different shades of green of the trees and bushes thatlined the highroad to the capital. 

"To the right, as we descend, " said Clay, speaking over his shoulder, "you see a tin house. It is the home of the resident director of theOlancho Mining Company (Limited), and of his able lieutenants, Mr. Theodore Langham and Mr. MacWilliams. The building on the extreme leftis the round-house, in which Mr. MacWilliams stores his threelocomotive engines, and in the far middle-distance is Mr. MacWilliamshimself in the act of repairing a water-tank. He is the one in a suitof blue overalls, and as his language at such times is free, we willdrive rapidly on and not embarrass him. Besides, " added the engineer, with the happy laugh of a boy who had been treated to a holiday, "I amsure that I am not setting him the example of fixity to duty which heshould expect from his chief. "

They passed between high hedges of Spanish bayonet, and came to mudcabins thatched with palm-leaves, and alive with naked, littlebrown-bodied children, who laughed and cheered to them as they passed. 

"It's a very beautiful country for the pueblo, " was Clay's comment. "Different parts of the same tree furnish them with food, shelter, andclothing, and the sun gives them fuel, and the Government changes sooften that they can always dodge the tax-collector. "

From the mud cabins they came to more substantial one-story houses ofadobe, with the walls painted in two distinct colors, blue, pink, oryellow, with red-tiled roofs, and the names with which they had beenchristened in bold black letters above the entrances. Then thecarriage rattled over paved streets, and they drove between houses oftwo stories painted more decorously in pink and light blue, withwide-open windows, guarded by heavy bars of finely wrought iron andornamented with scrollwork in stucco. The principal streets were givenup to stores and cafés, all wide open to the pavement and protectedfrom the sun by brilliantly striped awnings, and gay with the nationalcolors of Olancho in flags and streamers. In front of them satofficers in uniform, and the dark-skinned dandies of Valencia, in whiteduck suits and Panama hats, toying with tortoise shell canes, whichcould be converted, if the occasion demanded, into blades of Toledosteel. In the streets were priests and bare-legged mule drivers, andragged ranchmen with red-caped cloaks hanging to their sandals, andnegro women, with bare shoulders and long trains, vending lotterytickets and rolling huge cigars between their lips. It was an oldstory to Clay and King, but none of the others had seen aSpanish-American city before; they were familiar with the Far East andthe Mediterranean, but not with the fierce, hot tropics of their sistercontinent, and so their eyes were wide open, and they kept callingcontinually to one another to notice some new place or figure. 

They in their turn did not escape from notice or comment. The twosisters would have been conspicuous anywhere--in a queen's drawing-roomor on an Indian reservation. Theirs was a type that the caballeros andsenoritas did not know. With them dark hair was always associated withdark complexions, the rich duskiness of which was always vulgarized bya coat of powder, and this fair blending of pink and white skin undermasses of black hair was strangely new, so that each of the few womenwho were to be met on the street turned to look after the carriage, while the American women admired their mantillas, and felt that thestraw sailor-hats they wore had become heavy and unfeminine. 

Clay was very happy in picking out what was most characteristic andpicturesque, and every street into which he directed the driver to takethem seemed to possess some building or monument that was of peculiarinterest. They did not know that he had mapped out this ride manytimes before, and was taking them over a route which he had alreadytravelled with them in imagination. King knew what the capital would belike before he entered it, from his experience of other South Americancities, but he acted as though it were all new to him, and allowed Clayto explain, and to give the reason for those features of the place thatwere unusual and characteristic. Clay noticed this and appealed to himfrom time to time, when he was in doubt; but the other only smiled backand shook his head, as much as to say, "This is your city; they wouldrather hear about it from you. "

Clay took them to the principal shops, where the two girls heldwhispered consultations over lace mantillas, which they had at oncedetermined to adopt, and bought the gorgeous paper fans, covered withbrilliant pictures of bull-fighters in suits of silver tinsel; and fromthese open stores he led them to a dingy little shop, where there wasold silver and precious hand-painted fans of mother-of-pearl that hadbeen pawned by families who had risked and lost all in some revolution;and then to another shop, where two old maiden ladies made aparticularly good guava; and to tobacconists, where the men bought afew of the native cigars, which, as they were a monopoly of theGovernment, were as bad as Government monopolies always are. 

Clay felt a sudden fondness for the city, so grateful was he to it forentertaining her as it did, and for putting its best front forward forher delectation. He wanted to thank some one for building the quaintold convent, with its yellow walls washed to an orange tint, and blackin spots with dampness; and for the fountain covered with green mossthat stood before its gate, and around which were gathered the girlsand women of the neighborhood with red water-jars on their shoulders, and little donkeys buried under stacks of yellow sugar-cane, and thenegro drivers of the city's green water-carts, and the blue wagons thatcarried the manufactured ice. Toward five o'clock they decided tospend the rest of the day in the city, and to telephone for the twoboys to join them at La Venus, the great restaurant on the plaza, whereClay had invited them to dine. 

He suggested that they should fill out the time meanwhile by a call onthe President, and after a search for cards in various pocketbooks, they drove to the Government palace, which stood in an open square inthe heart of the city. 

As they arrived the President and his wife were leaving for theirafternoon drive on the Alameda, the fashionable parade-ground of thecity, and the state carriage and a squad of cavalry appeared from theside of the palace as the visitors drove up to the entrance. But atthe sight of Clay, General Alvarez and his wife retreated to the houseagain and made them welcome. The President led the men into hisreception-room and entertained them with champagne and cigarettes, notmanufactured by his Government; and his wife, after first conductingthe girls through the state drawing-room, where the late sunlight shonegloomily on strange old portraits of assassinated presidents andvictorious generals, and garish yellow silk furniture, brought them toher own apartments, and gave them tea after a civilized fashion, andshowed them how glad she was to see some one of her own world again. 

During their short visit Madame Alvarez talked a greater part of thetime herself, addressing what she said to Miss Langham, but looking atHope. It was unusual for Hope to be singled out in this way when hersister was present, and both the sisters noticed it and spoke of itafterwards. They thought Madame Alvarez very beautiful anddistinguished-looking, and she impressed them, even after that shortknowledge of her, as a woman of great force of character. 

"She was very well dressed for a Spanish woman, " was Miss Langham'scomment, later in the afternoon. "But everything she had on was just ayear behind the fashions, or twelve steamer days behind, as Mr. MacWilliams puts it. "

"She reminded me, " said Hope, "of a black panther I saw once in acircus. "

"Dear me!" exclaimed the sister, "I don't see that at all. Why?"

Hope said she did not know why; she was not given to analyzing herimpressions or offering reasons for them. "Because the panther lookedso unhappy, " she explained, doubtfully, "and restless; and he keptpacing up and down all the time, and hitting his head against the barsas he walked as though he liked the pain. Madame Alvarez seemed to meto be just like that--as though she were shut up somewhere and wantedto be free. "

When Madame Alvarez and the two sisters had joined the men, they allwalked together to the terrace, and the visitors waited until thePresident and his wife should take their departure. Hope noticed, inadvance of the escort of native cavalry, an auburn-haired, fair-skinnedyoung man who was sitting an English saddle. 

The officer's eyes were blue and frank and attractive-looking, even asthey then were fixed ahead of him with a military lack of expression;but he came to life very suddenly when the President called to him, andprodded his horse up to the steps and dismounted. He was introduced byAlvarez as "Captain Stuart of my household troops, late of the GordonHighlanders. Captain Stuart, " said the President, laying his handaffectionately on the younger man's epaulette, "takes care of my lifeand the safety of my home and family. He could have the command of thearmy if he wished; but no, he is fond of us, and he tells me we are inmore need of protection from our friends at home than from our enemieson the frontier. Perhaps he knows best. I trust him, Mr. Langham, "added the President, solemnly, "as I trust no other man in all thiscountry. "

"I am very glad to meet Captain Stuart, I am sure, " said Mr. Langham, smiling, and appreciating how the shyness of the Englishman must besuffering under the praises of the Spaniard. And Stuart was indeed soembarrassed that he flushed under his tan, and assured Clay, whileshaking hands with them all, that he was delighted to make hisacquaintance; at which the others laughed, and Stuart came to himselfsufficiently to laugh with them, and to accept Clay's invitation todine with them later. 

They found the two boys waiting in the café of the restaurant wherethey had arranged to meet, and they ascended the steps together to thetable on the balcony that Clay had reserved for them. 

The young engineer appeared at his best as host. The responsibility ofseeing that a half-dozen others were amused and content sat well uponhim; and as course followed course, and the wines changed, and thecandles left the rest of the room in darkness and showed only the tableand the faces around it, they all became rapidly more merry and theconversation intimately familiar. 

Clay knew the kind of table-talk to which the Langhams were accustomed, and used the material around his table in such a way that the talkthere was vastly different. From King he drew forth tales of theburied cities he had first explored, and then robbed of their ugliestidols. He urged MacWilliams to tell carefully edited stories of lifealong the Chagres before the Scandal came, and of the fastnesses of theAndes; and even Stuart grew braver and remembered "something of thesame sort" he had seen at Fort Nilt, in Upper Burma. 

"Of course, " was Clay's comment at the conclusion of one of thesenarratives, "being an Englishman, Stuart left out the point of thestory, which was that he blew in the gates of the fort with a charge ofdynamite. He got a D. S. O. For doing it. "

"Being an Englishman, " said Hope, smiling encouragingly on theconscious Stuart, "he naturally would leave that out. "

Mr. Langham and his daughters formed an eager audience. They had neverbefore met at one table three men who had known such experiences, andwho spoke of them as though they must be as familiar in the lives ofthe others as in their own--men who spoiled in the telling stories thatwould have furnished incidents for melodramas, and who impressed theirhearers more with what they left unsaid, and what was only suggested, than what in their view was the most important point. 

The dinner came to an end at last, and Mr. Langham proposed that theyshould go down and walk with the people in the plaza; but his twodaughters preferred to remain as spectators on the balcony, and Clayand Stuart stayed with them. 

"At last!" sighed Clay, under his breath, seating himself at MissLangham's side as she sat leaning forward with her arms upon therailing and looking down into the plaza below. She made no sign atfirst that she had heard him, but as the voices of Stuart and Hope rosefrom the other end of the balcony she turned her head and asked, "Whyat last?"

"Oh, you couldn't understand, " laughed Clay. "You have not beenlooking forward to just one thing and then had it come true. It is theonly thing that ever did come true to me, and I thought it never would. "

"You don't try to make me understand, " said the girl, smiling, butwithout turning her eyes from the moving spectacle below her. Clayconsidered her challenge silently. He did not know just how much itmight mean from her, and the smile robbed it of all serious intent; sohe, too, turned and looked down into the great square below them, content, now that she was alone with him, to take his time. 

At one end of the plaza the President's band was playing native waltzesthat came throbbing through the trees and beating softly above therustling skirts and clinking spurs of the senoritas and officers, sweeping by in two opposite circles around the edges of the tessellatedpavements. Above the palms around the square arose the dim, whitefacade of the cathedral, with the bronze statue of Anduella, theliberator of Olancho, who answered with his upraised arm and cocked hatthe cheers of an imaginary populace. Clay's had been an unobtrusivepart in the evening's entertainment, but he saw that the others hadbeen pleased, and felt a certain satisfaction in thinking that Kinghimself could not have planned and carried out a dinner more admirablein every way. He was gratified that they should know him to be notaltogether a barbarian. But what he best liked to remember was thatwhenever he had spoken she had listened, even when her eyes were turnedaway and she was pretending to listen to some one else. He tormentedhimself by wondering whether this was because he interested her only asa new and strange character, or whether she felt in some way howeagerly he was seeking her approbation. For the first time in his lifehe found himself considering what he was about to say, and he suited itfor her possible liking. It was at least some satisfaction that shehad, if only for the time being, singled him out as of especialinterest, and he assured himself that the fault would be his if herinterest failed. He no longer looked on himself as an outsider. 

Stuart's voice arose from the farther end of the balcony, where thewhite figure of Hope showed dimly in the darkness. 

"They are talking about you over there, " said Miss Langham, turningtoward him. 

"Well, I don't mind, " answered Clay, "as long as they talk aboutme--over there. "

Miss Langham shook her head. "You are very frank and audacious, " shereplied, doubtfully, "but it is rather pleasant as a change. "

"I don't call that audacious, to say I don't want to be interruptedwhen I am talking to you. Aren't the men you meet generallyaudacious?" he asked. "I can see why not--though, " he continued, "youawe them. "

"I can't think that's a nice way to affect people, " protested MissLangham, after a pause. "I don't awe you, do I?"

"Oh, you affect me in many different ways, " returned Clay, cheerfully. "Sometimes I am very much afraid of you, and then again my feelings areonly those of unlimited admiration. "

"There, again, what did I tell you?" said Miss Langham. 

"Well, I can't help doing that, " said Clay. "That is one of the fewprivileges that is left to a man in my position--it doesn't matter whatI say. That is the advantage of being of no account and hopelesslydetrimental. The eligible men of the world, you see, have to be sovery careful. A Prime Minister, for instance, can't talk as he wishes, and call names if he wants to, or write letters, even. Whatever hesays is so important, because he says it, that he must be verydiscreet. I am so unimportant that no one minds what I say, and so Isay it. It's the only comfort I have. "

"Are you in the habit of going around the world saying whatever youchoose to every woman you happen to--to--" Miss Langham hesitated. 

"To admire very much, " suggested Clay. 

"To meet, " corrected Miss Langham. "Because, if you are, it is a verydangerous and selfish practice, and I think your theory ofnon-responsibility is a very wicked one. "

"Well, I wouldn't say it to a child, " mused Clay, "but to one who musthave heard it before--"

"And who, you think, would like to hear it again, perhaps, " interruptedMiss Langham. 

"No, not at all, " said Clay. "I don't say it to give her pleasure, butbecause it gives me pleasure to say what I think. "

"If we are to continue good friends, Mr. Clay, " said Miss Langham, indecisive tones, "we must keep our relationship on more of a social andless of a personal basis. It was all very well that first night I metyou, " she went on, in a kindly tone. 

"You rushed in then and by a sort of tour de force made me think agreat deal about myself and also about you. Your stories of cherishedphotographs and distant devotion and all that were very interesting;but now we are to be together a great deal, and if we are to talk aboutourselves all the time, I for one shall grow very tired of it. As amatter of fact you don't know what your feelings are concerning me, anduntil you do we will talk less about them and more about the things youare certain of. When are you going to take us to the mines, forinstance, and who was Anduella, the Liberator of Olancho, on thatpedestal over there? Now, isn't that much more instructive?"

Clay smiled grimly and made no answer, but sat with knitted browslooking out across the trees of the plaza. His face was so serious andhe was apparently giving such earnest consideration to what she hadsaid that Miss Langham felt an uneasy sense of remorse. And, moreover, the young man's profile, as he sat looking away from her, was veryfine, and the head on his broad shoulders was as well-modelled as thehead of an Athenian statue. 

Miss Langham was not insensible to beauty of any sort, and she regardedthe profile with perplexity and with a softening spirit. 

"You understand, " she said, gently, being quite certain that she didnot understand this new order of young man herself. "You are notoffended with me?" she asked. 

Clay turned and frowned, and then smiled in a puzzled way and stretchedout his hand toward the equestrian statue in the plaza. 

"Andulla or Anduella, the Treaty-Maker, as they call him, was born in1700, " he said; "he was a most picturesque sort of a chap, and freedthis country from the yoke of Spain. One of the stories they tell ofhim gives you a good idea of his character. " And so, without anychange of expression or reference to what had just passed between them, Clay continued through the remainder of their stay on the balcony todiscourse in humorous, graphic phrases on the history of Olancho, itsheroes, and its revolutions, the buccaneers and pirates of the olddays, and the concession-hunters and filibusters of the present. Itwas some time before Miss Langham was able to give him her fullattention, for she was considering whether he could be so foolish as tohave taken offence at what she said, and whether he would speak of itagain, and in wondering whether a personal basis for conversation wasnot, after all, more entertaining than anecdotes of the victories andheroism of dead and buried Spaniards. 

"That Captain Stuart, " said Hope to her sister, as they drove hometogether through the moonlight, "I like him very much. He seems tohave such a simple idea of what is right and good. It is like a childtalking. Why, I am really much older than he is in everything butyears--why is that?"

"I suppose it's because we always talk before you as though you were agrown-up person, " said her sister. "But I agree with you about CaptainStuart; only, why is he down here? If he is a gentleman, why is he notin his own army? Was he forced to leave it?"

"Oh, he seems to have a very good position here, " said Mr. Langham. "In England, at his age, he would be only a second-lieutenant. Don'tyou remember what the President said, that he would trust him with thecommand of his army? That's certainly a responsible position, and itshows great confidence in him. "

"Not so great, it seems to me, " said King, carelessly, "as he isshowing him in making him the guardian of his hearth and home. Did youhear what he said to-day? 'He guards my home and my family. ' I don'tthink a man's home and family are among the things he can afford toleave to the protection of stray English subalterns. From all I hear, it would be better if President Alvarez did less plotting and protectedhis own house himself. "

"The young man did not strike me as the sort of person, " said Mr. Langham, warmly, "who would be likely to break his word to the man whois feeding him and sheltering him, and whose uniform he wears. I don'tthink the President's home is in any danger from within. MadameAlvarez--"

Clay turned suddenly in his place on the box-seat of the carriage, where he had been sitting, a silent, misty statue in the moonlight, andpeered down on those in the carriage below him. 

"Madame Alvarez needs no protection, as you were about to say, Mr. Langham, " he interrupted, quickly. "Those who know her could saynothing against her, and those who do not know her would not so farforget themselves as to dare to do it. Have you noticed the effect ofthe moonlight on the walls of the convent?" he continued, gently. "Itmakes them quite white. "

"No, " exclaimed Mr. Langham and King, hurriedly, as they both turnedand gazed with absorbing interest at the convent on the hills abovethem. 

Before the sisters went to sleep that night Hope came to the door ofher sister's room and watched Alice admiringly as she sat before themirror brushing out her hair. 

"I think it's going to be fine down here; don't you, Alice?" she asked. "Everything is so different from what it is at home, and so beautiful, and I like the men we've met. Isn't that Mr. MacWilliams funny--and heis so tough. And Captain Stuart--it is a pity he's shy. The onlything he seems to be able to talk about is Mr. Clay. He worships Mr. Clay!"

"Yes, " assented her sister, "I noticed on the balcony that you seemedto have found some way to make him speak. "

"Well, that was it. He likes to talk about Mr. Clay, and I wanted tolisten. Oh! he is a fine man. He has done more exciting things--"

"Who? Captain Stuart?"

"No--Mr. Clay. He's been in three real wars and about a dozen littleones, and he's built thousands of miles of railroads, I don't know howmany thousands, but Captain Stuart knows; and he built the highestbridge in Peru. It swings in the air across a chasm, and it rocks whenthe wind blows. And the German Emperor made him a Baron. "

"Why?"

"I don't know. I couldn't understand. It was something about plansfor fortifications. He, Mr. Clay, put up a fort in the harbor of RioJaneiro during a revolution, and the officers on a German man-of-warsaw it and copied the plans, and the Germans built one just like it, only larger, on the Baltic, and when the Emperor found out whose designit was, he sent Mr. Clay the order of something-or-other, and made hima Baron. "

"Really, " exclaimed the elder sister, "isn't he afraid that some onewill marry him for his title?"

"Oh, well, you can laugh, but I think it's pretty fine, and so doesTed, " added Hope, with the air of one who propounds a final argument. 

"Oh, I beg your pardon, " laughed Alice. "If Ted approves we must allgo down and worship. "

"And father, too, " continued Hope. "He said he thought Mr. Clay wasone of the most remarkable men for his years that he had ever met. "

Miss Langham's eyes were hidden by the masses of her black hair thatshe had shaken over her face, and she said nothing. 

"And I liked the way he shut Reggie King up too, " continued Hope, stoutly, "when he and father were talking that way about MadameAlvarez. "

"Yes, upon my word, " exclaimed her sister, impatiently tossing her hairback over her shoulders. "I really cannot see that Madame Alvarez isin need of any champion. I thought Mr. Clay made it very much worse byrushing in the way he did. Why should he take it upon himself tocorrect a man as old as my father?"

"I suppose because Madame Alvarez is a friend of his, " Hope answered. 

"My dear child, a beautiful woman can always find some man to take herpart, " said Miss Langham. "But I've no doubt, " she added, rising andkissing her sister good-night, "that he is all that your Captain Stuartthinks him; but he is not going to keep us awake any longer, is he, even if he does show such gallant interest in old ladies?"

"Old ladies!" exclaimed Hope in amazement. 

"Why, Alice!"

But her sister only laughed and waved her out of the room, and Hopewalked away frowning in much perplexity. 

V

The visit to the city was imitated on the three succeeding evenings bysimilar excursions. On one night they returned to the plaza, and theother two were spent in drifting down the harbor and along the coast onKing's yacht. The President and Madame Alvarez were King's guests onone of these moonlight excursions, and were saluted by the propernumber of guns, and their native band played on the forward deck. Clayfelt that King held the centre of the stage for the time being, andobliterated himself completely. He thought of his own paddle-wheeltug-boat that he had had painted and gilded in her honor, and smiledgrimly. 

MacWilliams approached him as he sat leaning back on the rail andlooking up, with the eye of a man who had served before the mast, atthe lacework of spars and rigging above him. MacWilliams came towardhim on tiptoe and dropped carefully into a wicker chair. "There don'tseem to be any door-mats on this boat, " he said. "In every otherrespect she seems fitted out quite complete; all the latest magazinesand enamelled bathtubs, and Chinese waiter-boys with cock-tails uptheir sleeves. But there ought to be a mat at the top of each of thosestairways that hang over the side, otherwise some one is sure to soilthe deck. Have you been down in the engine-room yet?" he asked. "Well, don't go, then, " he advised, solemnly. "It will only make you feelbadly. I have asked the Admiral if I can send those half-breed enginedrivers over to-morrow to show them what a clean engine-room lookslike. I've just been talking to the chief. His name's MacKenzie, andI told him I was Scotch myself, and he said it 'was a greet pleesure'to find a gentleman so well acquainted with the movements of machinery. He thought I was one of King's friends, I guess, so I didn't tell him Ipulled a lever for a living myself. I gave him a cigar though, and hesaid, 'Thankee, sir, ' and touched his cap to me. "

MacWilliams chuckled at the recollection, and crossed his legscomfortably. "One of King's cigars, too, " he said. "Real Havana; heleaves them lying around loose in the cabin. Have you had one? TedLangham and I took about a box between us. "

Clay made no answer, and MacWilliams settled himself contentedly in thegreat wicker chair and puffed grandly on a huge cigar. 

"It's demoralizing, isn't it?" he said at last. 

"What?" asked Clay, absently. 

"Oh, this associating with white people again, as we're doing now. Itspoils you for tortillas and rice, doesn't it? It's going to be greatfun while it lasts, but when they've all gone, and Ted's gone, too, andthe yacht's vanished, and we fall back to tramping around the plazatwice a week, it won't be gay, will it? No; it won't be gay. We'rehaving the spree of our lives now, I guess, but there's going to be adifference in the morning. "

"Oh, it's worth a headache, I think, " said Clay, as he shrugged hisshoulders and walked away to find Miss Langham. 

The day set for the visit to the mines rose bright and clear. MacWilliams had rigged out his single passenger-car with rugs andcushions, and flags flew from its canvas top that flapped and billowedin the wind of the slow-moving train. Their observation-car, asMacWilliams termed it, was placed in front of the locomotive, and theywere pushed gently along the narrow rails between forests of Manacapalms, and through swamps and jungles, and at times over the limestoneformation along the coast, where the waves dashed as high as thesmokestack of the locomotive, covering the excursionists with asprinkling of white spray. Thousands of land-crabs, painted red andblack and yellow, scrambled with a rattle like dead men's bones acrossthe rails to be crushed by the hundreds under the wheels of theJuggernaut; great lizards ran from sunny rocks at the sound of theirapproach, and a deer bounded across the tracks fifty feet in front ofthe cow-catcher. MacWilliams escorted Hope out into the cab of thelocomotive, and taught her how to increase and slacken the speed of theengine, until she showed an unruly desire to throw the lever openaltogether and shoot them off the rails into the ocean beyond. 

Clay sat at the back of the car with Miss Langham, and told her and herfather of the difficulties with which young MacWilliams had had tocontend. Miss Langham found her chief pleasure in noting the attentionwhich her father gave to all that Clay had to tell him. Knowing herfather as she did, and being familiar with his manner toward other men, she knew that he was treating Clay with unusual consideration. Andthis pleased her greatly, for it justified her own interest in him. She regarded Clay as a discovery of her own, but she was glad to haveher opinion of him shared by others. 

Their coming was a great event in the history of the mines. Kirkland, the foreman, and Chapman, who handled the dynamite, Weimer, the Consul, and the native doctor, who cared for the fever-stricken and thecasualties, were all at the station to meet them in the whitest ofwhite duck and with a bunch of ponies to carry them on their tour ofinspection, and the village of mud-cabins and zinc-huts that stoodclear of the bare sunbaked earth on whitewashed wooden piles was asclean as Clay's hundred policemen could sweep it. Mr. Langham rode inadvance of the cavalcade, and the head of each of the differentdepartments took his turn in riding at his side, and explained what hadbeen done, and showed him the proud result. The village was empty, except for the families of the native workmen and the ownerless dogs, the scavengers of the colony, that snarled and barked and ran leapingin front of the ponies' heads. 

Rising abruptly above the zinc village, lay the first of the five greathills, with its open front cut into great terraces, on which the menclung like flies on the side of a wall, some of them in groups aroundan opening, or in couples pounding a steel bar that a fellow-workmanturned in his bare hands, while others gathered about the pantingsteam-drills that shook the solid rock with fierce, short blows, andhid the men about them in a throbbing curtain of steam. Self-importantlittle dummy-engines, dragging long trains of ore-cars, rolled androcked on the uneven surface of the ground, and swung around cornerswith warning screeches of their whistles. They could see, on peaksoutlined against the sky, the signal-men waving their red flags, andthen plunging down the mountain-side out of danger, as the earthrumbled and shook and vomited out a shower of stones and rubbish intothe calm hot air. It was a spectacle of desperate activity andpuzzling to the uninitiated, for it seemed to be scattered over anunlimited extent, with no head nor direction, and with each man, oreach group of men, working alone, like rag-pickers on a heap of ashes. 

After the first half-hour of curious interest Miss Langham admitted toherself that she was disappointed. She confessed she had hoped thatClay would explain the meaning of the mines to her, and act as herescort over the mountains which he was blowing into pieces. 

But it was King, somewhat bored by the ceaseless noise and heat, andher brother, incoherently enthusiastic, who rode at her side, whileClay moved on in advance and seemed to have forgotten her existence. She watched him pointing up at the openings in the mountains and downat the ore-road, or stooping to pick up a piece of ore from the groundin cowboy fashion, without leaving his saddle, and pounding it on thepommel before he passed it to the others. And, again, he would standfor minutes at a time up to his boot-tops in the sliding waste, withhis bridle rein over his arm and his thumbs in his belt, listening towhat his lieutenants were saying, and glancing quickly from them to Mr. Langham to see if he were following the technicalities of their speech. All of the men who had welcomed the appearance of the women on theirarrival with such obvious delight and with so much embarrassment seemednow as oblivious of their presence as Clay himself. 

Miss Langham pushed her horse up into the group beside Hope, who hadkept her pony close at Clay's side from the beginning; but she couldnot make out what it was they were saying, and no one seemed to thinkit necessary to explain. She caught Clay's eye at last and smiledbrightly at him; but, after staring at her for fully a minute, untilKirkland had finished speaking, she heard him say, "Yes, that's itexactly; in open-face workings there is no other way, " and so showedher that he had not been even conscious of her presence. But a fewminutes later she saw him look up at Hope, folding his arms across hischest tightly and shaking his head. "You see it was the only thing todo, " she heard him say, as though he were defending some course ofaction, and as though Hope were one of those who must be convinced. "If we had cut the opening on the first level, there was the danger ofthe whole thing sinking in, so we had to begin to clear away at the topand work down. That's why I ordered the bucket-trolley. As it turnedout, we saved money by it. "

Hope nodded her head slightly. "That's what I told father when Tedwrote us about it, " she said; "but you haven't done it at MountWashington. "

"Oh, but it's like this, Miss--" Kirkland replied, eagerly. "It'sbecause Washington is a solider foundation. We can cut openings allover it and they won't cave, but this hill is most all rubbish; it'sthe poorest stuff in the mines. "

Hope nodded her head again and crowded her pony on after the movinggroup, but her sister and King did not follow. King looked at her andsmiled. "Hope is very enthusiastic, " he said. "Where did she pick itup?"

"Oh, she and father used to go over it in his study last winter afterTed came down here, " Miss Langham answered, with a touch of impatiencein her tone. "Isn't there some place where we can go to get out ofthis heat?"

Weimer, the Consul, heard her and led her back to Kirkland's bungalow, that hung like an eagle's nest from a projecting cliff. From its porchthey could look down the valley over the greater part of the mines, andbeyond to where the Caribbean Sea lay flashing in the heat. 

"I saw very few Americans down there, Weimer, " said King. "I thoughtClay had imported a lot of them. "

"About three hundred altogether, wild Irishmen and negroes, " said theConsul; "but we use the native soldiers chiefly. They can stand theclimate better, and, besides, " he added, "they act as a reserve in caseof trouble. They are Mendoza's men, and Clay is trying to win themaway from him. "

"I don't understand, " said King. 

Weimer looked around him and waited until Kirkland's servant haddeposited a tray full of bottles and glasses on a table near them, andhad departed. "The talk is, " he said, "that Alvarez means to proclaima dictatorship in his own favor before the spring elections. You'veheard of that, haven't you?" King shook his head. 

"Oh, tell us about it, " said Miss Langham; "I should so like to be inplots and conspiracies. "

"Well, they're rather common down here, " continued the Consul, "butthis one ought to interest you especially, Miss Langham, because it isa woman who is at the head of it. Madame Alvarez, you know, was theCountess Manueleta Hernandez before her marriage. She belongs to oneof the oldest families in Spain. Alvarez married her in Madrid, whenhe was Minister there, and when he returned to run for President, shecame with him. She's a tremendously ambitious woman, and they do sayshe wants to convert the republic into a monarchy, and make her husbandKing, or, more properly speaking, make herself Queen. Of course that'sabsurd, but she is supposed to be plotting to turn Olancho into a sortof dependency of Spain, as it was long ago, and that's why she is sounpopular. "

"Indeed?" interrupted Miss Langham, "I did not know that she wasunpopular. "

"Oh, rather. Why, her party is called the Royalist Party already, andonly a week before you came the Liberals plastered the city withdenunciatory placards against her, calling on the people to drive herout of the country. "

"What cowards--to fight a woman!" exclaimed Miss Langham. 

"Well, she began it first, you see, " said the Consul. 

"Who is the leader of the fight against her?" asked King. 

"General Mendoza; he is commander-in-chief and has the greater part ofthe army with him, but the other candidate, old General Rojas, is thepopular choice and the best of the three. He is Vice-President now, andif the people were ever given a fair chance to vote for the man theywant, he would unquestionably be the next President. The mass of thepeople are sick of revolutions. They've had enough of them, but theywill have to go through another before long, and if it turns againstDr. Alvarez, I'm afraid Mr. Langham will have hard work to hold thesemines. You see, Mendoza has already threatened to seize the wholeplant and turn it into a Government monopoly. "

"And if the other one, General Rojas, gets into power, will he seizethe mines, too?"

"No, he is honest, strange to relate, " laughed Weimer, "but he won'tget in. Alvarez will make himself dictator, or Mendoza will makehimself President. That's why Clay treats the soldiers here so well. He thinks he may need them against Mendoza. You may be turning yoursaluting-gun on the city yet, Commodore, " he added, smiling, "or, whatis more likely, you'll need the yacht to take Miss Langham and the restof the family out of the country. "

King smiled and Miss Langham regarded Weimer with flattering interest. "I've got a quick firing gun below decks, " said King, "that I used inthe Malaysian Peninsula on a junkful of Black Flags, and I think I'llhave it brought up. And there are about thirty of my men on the yachtwho wouldn't ask for their wages in a year if I'd let them go on shoreand mix up in a fight. When do you suppose this--"

A heavy step and the jingle of spurs on the bare floor of the bungalowstartled the conspirators, and they turned and gazed guiltily out atthe mountain-tops above them as Clay came hurrying out upon the porch. 

"They told me you were here, " he said, speaking to Miss Langham. "I'mso sorry it tired you. I should have remembered--it is a rough tripwhen you're not used to it, " he added, remorsefully. "But I'm gladWeimer was here to take care of you. "

"It was just a trifle hot and noisy, " said Miss Langham, smilingsweetly. She put her hand to her forehead with an expression ofpatient suffering. "It made my head ache a little, but it was mostinteresting. " She added, "You are certainly to be congratulated onyour work. "

Clay glanced at her doubtfully with a troubled look, and turned awayhis eyes to the busy scene below him. He was greatly hurt that sheshould have cared so little, and indignant at himself for being sounjust. Why should he expect a woman to find interest in that hive ofnoise and sweating energy? But even as he stood arguing with himselfhis eyes fell on a slight figure sitting erect and graceful on herpony's back, her white habit soiled and stained red with the ore of themines, and green where it had crushed against the leaves. She wascoming slowly up the trail with a body-guard of half a dozen mencrowding closely around her, telling her the difficulties of the work, and explaining their successes, and eager for a share of her quicksympathy. 

Clay's eyes fixed themselves on the picture, and he smiled at itssignificance. Miss Langham noticed the look, and glanced below to seewhat it was that had so interested him, and then back at him again. Hewas still watching the approaching cavalcade intently, and smiling tohimself. Miss Langham drew in her breath and raised her head andshoulders quickly, like a deer that hears a footstep in the forest, andwhen Hope presently stepped out upon the porch, she turned quicklytoward her, and regarded her steadily, as though she were a stranger toher, and as though she were trying to see her with the eyes of one wholooked at her for the first time. 

"Hope!" she said, "do look at your dress!"

Hope's face was glowing with the unusual exercise, and her eyes werebrilliant. Her hair had slipped down beneath the visor of her helmet. 

"I am so tired--and so hungry. " She was laughing and looking directlyat Clay. "It has been a wonderful thing to have seen, " she said, tugging at her heavy gauntlet, "and to have done, " she added. Shepulled off her glove and held out her hand to Clay, moist and scarredwith the pressure of the reins. 

"Thank you, " she said, simply. 

The master of the mines took it with a quick rush of gratitude, andlooking into the girl's eyes, saw something there that startled him, sothat he glanced quickly past her at the circle of booted men grouped inthe door behind her. They were each smiling in appreciation of thetableau; her father and Ted, MacWilliams and Kirkland, and all theothers who had helped him. They seemed to envy, but not to grudge, thewhole credit which the girl had given to him. 

Clay thought, "Why could it not have been the other?" But he saidaloud, "Thank YOU. You have given me my reward. "

Miss Langham looked down impatiently into the valley below, and foundthat it seemed more hot and noisy, and more grimy than before. 

VI

Clay believed that Alice Langham's visit to the mines had opened hiseyes fully to vast differences between them. He laughed and railed athimself for having dared to imagine that he was in a position to carefor her. Confident as he was at times, and sure as he was of hisability in certain directions, he was uneasy and fearful when hematched himself against a man of gentle birth and gentle breeding, andone who, like King, was part of a world of which he knew little, and towhich, in his ignorance concerning it, he attributed many advantagesthat it did not possess. He believed that he would always lack themysterious something which these others held by right of inheritance. He was still young and full of the illusions of youth, and so gavefalse values to his own qualities, and values equally false to thequalities he lacked. For the next week he avoided Miss Langham, unlessthere were other people present, and whenever she showed him specialfavor, he hastily recalled to his mind her failure to sympathize in hiswork, and assured himself that if she could not interest herself in theengineer, he did not care to have her interested in the man. Otherwomen had found him attractive in himself; they had cared for hisstrength of will and mind, and because he was good to look at. But hedetermined that this one must sympathize with his work in the world, nomatter how unpicturesque it might seem to her. His work was the bestof him, he assured himself, and he would stand or fall with it. 

It was a week after the visit to the mines that President Alvarez gavea great ball in honor of the Langhams, to which all of the importantpeople of Olancho, and the Foreign Ministers were invited. MissLangham met Clay on the afternoon of the day set for the ball, as shewas going down the hill to join Hope and her father at dinner on theyacht. 

"Are you not coming, too?" she asked. 

"I wish I could, " Clay answered. "King asked me, but a steamer-load ofnew machinery arrived to-day, and I have to see it through theCustom-House. "

Miss Langham gave an impatient little laugh, and shook her head. "Youmight wait until we were gone before you bother with your machinery, "she said. 

"When you are gone I won't be in a state of mind to attend to machineryor anything else, " Clay answered. 

Miss Langham seemed so far encouraged by this speech that she seatedherself in the boathouse at the end of the wharf. She pushed hermantilla back from her face and looked up at him, smiling brightly. 

"'The time has come, the walrus said, '" she quoted, "'to talk of manythings. '"

Clay laughed and dropped down beside her. "Well?" he said. 

"You have been rather unkind to me this last week, " the girl began, with her eyes fixed steadily on his. "And that day at the mines when Icounted on you so, you acted abominably. "

Clay's face showed so plainly his surprise at this charge, which hethought he only had the right to make, that Miss Langham stopped. 

"I don't understand, " said Clay, quietly. "How did I treat youabominably?"

He had taken her so seriously that Miss Langham dropped her lightertone and spoke in one more kindly:

"I went out there to see your work at its best. I was only interestedin going because it was your work, and because it was you who had doneit all, and I expected that you would try to explain it to me and helpme to understand, but you didn't. You treated me as though I had nointerest in the matter at all, as though I was not capable ofunderstanding it. You did not seem to care whether I was interested ornot. In fact, you forgot me altogether. "

Clay exhibited no evidence of a reproving conscience. "I am sorry youhad a stupid time, " he said, gravely. 

"I did not mean that, and you know I didn't mean that, " the girlanswered. "I wanted to hear about it from you, because you did it. Iwasn't interested so much in what had been done, as I was in the manwho had accomplished it. "

Clay shrugged his shoulders impatiently, and looked across at MissLangham with a troubled smile. 

"But that's just what I don't want, " he said. "Can't you see? Thesemines and other mines like them are all I have in the world. They aremy only excuse for having lived in it so long. I want to feel that I'vedone something outside of myself, and when you say that you like mepersonally, it's as little satisfaction to me as it must be to a womanto be congratulated on her beauty, or on her fine voice. That isnothing she has done herself. I should like you to value what I havedone, not what I happen to be. "

Miss Langham turned her eyes to the harbor, and it was some short timebefore she answered. 

"You are a very difficult person to please, " she said, "and mostexacting. As a rule men are satisfied to be liked for any reason. Iconfess frankly, since you insist upon it, that I do not rise to thepoint of appreciating your work as the others do. I suppose it is afault, " she continued, with an air that plainly said that sheconsidered it, on the contrary, something of a virtue. "And if I knewmore about it technically, I might see more in it to admire. But I amlooking farther on for better things from you. The friends who help usthe most are not always those who consider us perfect, are they?" sheasked, with a kindly smile. She raised her eyes to the great ore-pierthat stretched out across the water, the one ugly blot in the scene ofnatural beauty about them. "I think that is all very well, " she said;"but I certainly expect you to do more than that. I have met manyremarkable men in all parts of the world, and I know what a strong manis, and you have one of the strongest personalities I have known. Butyou can't mean that you are content to stop with this. You should besomething bigger and more wide-reaching and more lasting. Indeed, ithurts me to see you wasting your time here over my father's interests. You should exert that same energy on a broader map. You could makeyourself anything you chose. At home you would be your party's leaderin politics, or you could be a great general, or a great financier. Isay this because I know there are better things in you, and because Iwant you to make the most of your talents. I am anxious to see you putyour powers to something worth while. "

Miss Langham's voice carried with it such a tone of sincerity that shealmost succeeded in deceiving herself. And yet she would have hardlycared to explain just why she had reproached the man before her afterthis fashion. For she knew that when she spoke as she had done, shewas beating about to find some reason that would justify her in notcaring for him, as she knew she could care--as she would not allowherself to care. The man at her side had won her interest from thefirst, and later had occupied her thoughts so entirely, that ittroubled her peace of mind. Yet she would not let her feeling for himwax and grow stronger, but kept it down. And she was trying now topersuade herself that she did this because there was something lackingin him and not in her. 

She was almost angry with him for being so much to her and for notbeing more acceptable in little things, like the other men she knew. So she found this fault with him in order that she might justify herown lack of feeling. 

But Clay, who only heard the words and could not go back of them tofind the motive, could not know this. He sat perfectly still when shehad finished and looked steadily out across the harbor. His eyes fellon the ugly ore-pier, and he winced and uttered a short grim laugh. 

"That's true, what you say, " he began, "I haven't done much. You arequite right. Only--" he looked up at her curiously and smiled--"onlyyou should not have been the one to tell me of it. "

Miss Langham had been so far carried away by her own point of view thatshe had not considered Clay, and now that she saw what mischief she haddone, she gave a quick gasp of regret, and leaned forward as though toadd some explanation to what she had said. But Clay stopped her. "Imean by that, " he said, "that the great part of the inspiration I havehad to do what little I have done came from you. You were a sort ofpromise of something better to me. You were more of a type than anindividual woman, but your picture, the one I carry in my watch, meantall that part of life that I have never known, the sweetness and thenobleness and grace of civilization, --something I hoped I would someday have time to enjoy. So you see, " he added, with an uncertainlaugh, "it's less pleasant to hear that I have failed to make the mostof myself from you than from almost any one else. "

"But, Mr. Clay, " protested the girl, anxiously, "I think you have donewonderfully well. I only said that I wanted you to do more. You areso young and you have--"

Clay did not hear her. He was leaning forward looking moodily outacross the water, with his folded arms clasped across his knees. 

"I have not made the most of myself, " he repeated; "that is what yousaid. " He spoke the words as though she had delivered a sentence. "You don't think well of what I have done, of what I am. "

He drew in his breath and shook his head with a hopeless laugh, andleaned back against the railing of the boat-house with the weariness inhis attitude of a man who has given up after a long struggle. 

"No, " he said with a bitter flippancy in his voice, "I don't amount tomuch. But, my God!" he laughed, and turning his head away, "when youthink what I was! This doesn't seem much to you, and it doesn't seemmuch to me now that I have your point of view on it, but when Iremember!" Clay stopped again and pressed his lips together and shookhis head. His half-closed eyes, that seemed to be looking back intohis past, lighted as they fell on King's white yacht, and he raised hisarm and pointed to it with a wave of the hand. "When I was sixteen Iwas a sailor before the mast, " he said, "the sort of sailor that King'screw out there wouldn't recognize in the same profession. I was of solittle account that I've been knocked the length of the main deck atthe end of the mate's fist, and left to lie bleeding in the scuppersfor dead. I hadn't a thing to my name then but the clothes I wore, andI've had to go aloft in a hurricane and cling to a swinging rope withmy bare toes and pull at a wet sheet until my finger-nails broke andstarted in their sockets; and I've been a cowboy, with no companionsfor six months of the year but eight thousand head of cattle and men asdumb and untamed as the steers themselves. I've sat in my saddle nightafter night, with nothing overhead but the stars, and no sound but thenoise of the steers breathing in their sleep. The women I knew wereIndian squaws, and the girls of the sailors' dance-houses and thegambling-hells of Sioux City and Abilene, and Callao and Port Said. That was what I was and those were my companions. Why!" he laughed, rising and striding across the boat-house with his hands locked behindhim, "I've fought on the mud floor of a Mexican shack, with a nakedknife in my hand, for my last dollar. I was as low and as desperate asthat. And now--" Clay lifted his head and smiled. "Now, " he said, ina lower voice and addressing Miss Langham with a return of his usualgrave politeness, "I am able to sit beside you and talk to you. I haverisen to that. I am quite content. "

He paused and looked at Miss Langham uncertainly for a few moments asthough in doubt as to whether she would understand him if he continued. 

"And though it means nothing to you, " he said, "and though as you say Iam here as your father's employee, there are other places, perhaps, where I am better known. In Edinburgh or Berlin or Paris, if you wereto ask the people of my own profession, they could tell you somethingof me. If I wished it, I could drop this active work tomorrow andcontinue as an adviser, as an expert, but I like the active partbetter. I like doing things myself. I don't say, 'I am a salariedservant of Mr. Langham's;' I put it differently. I say, 'There arefive mountains of iron. You are to take them up and transport them fromSouth America to North America, where they will be turned intorailroads and ironclads. ' That's my way of looking at it. It's betterto bind a laurel to the plough than to call yourself hard names. Itmakes your work easier--almost noble. Cannot you see it that way, too?"

Before Miss Langham could answer, a deprecatory cough from one side ofthe open boat-house startled them, and turning they saw MacWilliamscoming toward them. They had been so intent upon what Clay was sayingthat he had approached them over the soft sand of the beach withouttheir knowing it. Miss Langham welcomed his arrival with evidentpleasure. 

"The launch is waiting for you at the end of the pier, " MacWilliamssaid. Miss Langham rose and the three walked together down the lengthof the wharf, MacWilliams moving briskly in advance in order to enablethem to continue the conversation he had interrupted, but they followedclose behind him, as though neither of them were desirous of such anopportunity. 

Hope and King had both come for Miss Langham, and while the latter washelping her to a place on the cushions, and repeating his regrets thatthe men were not coming also, Hope started the launch, with a briskringing of bells and a whirl of the wheel and a smile over her shoulderat the figures on the wharf. 

"Why didn't you go?" said Clay; "you have no business at theCustom-House. "

"Neither have you, " said MacWilliams. "But I guess we both understand. There's no good pushing your luck too far. "

"What do you mean by that--this time?"

"Why, what have we to do with all of this?" cried MacWilliams. "It'swhat I keep telling you every day. We're not in that class, and you'reonly making it harder for yourself when they've gone. I call itcruelty to animals myself, having women like that around. Up North, where everybody's white, you don't notice it so much, but downhere--Lord!"

"That's absurd, " Clay answered. "Why should you turn your back oncivilization when it comes to you, just because you're not going backto civilization by the next steamer? Every person you meet eitherhelps you or hurts you. Those girls help us, even if they do make thelife here seem bare and mean. "

"Bare and mean!" repeated MacWilliams incredulously. "I think that'sjust what they don't do. I like it all the better because they'remixed up in it. I never took so much interest in your mines until shetook to riding over them, and I didn't think great shakes of my oldore-road, either, but now that she's got to acting as engineer, it'ssort of nickel-plated the whole outfit. I'm going to name the newengine after her--when it gets here--if her old man will let me. "

"What do you mean? Miss Langham hasn't been to the mines but once, hasshe?"

"Miss Langham!" exclaimed MacWilliams. "No, I mean the other, MissHope. She comes out with Ted nearly every day now, and she's learninghow to run a locomotive. Just for fun, you know, " he added, reassuringly. 

"I didn't suppose she had any intention of joining the Brotherhood, "said Clay. "So she's been out every day, has she? I like that, " hecommented, enthusiastically. "She's a fine, sweet girl. "

"Fine, sweet girl!" growled MacWilliams. "I should hope so. She's thebest. They don't make them any better than that, and just think, ifshe's like that now, what will she be when she's grown up, when she'slearned a few things? Now her sister. You can see just what hersister will be at thirty, and at fifty, and at eighty. She'sthoroughbred and she's the most beautiful woman to look at I eversaw--but, my son--she is too careful. She hasn't any illusions, and nosense of humor. And a woman with no illusions and no sense of humor isgoing to be monotonous. You can't teach her anything. You can'timagine yourself telling her anything she doesn't know. The things wethink important don't reach her at all. They're not in her line, andin everything else she knows more than we could ever guess at. Butthat Miss Hope! It's a privilege to show her about. She wants to seeeverything, and learn everything, and she goes poking her head intoopenings and down shafts like a little fox terrier. And she'll sitstill and listen with her eyes wide open and tears in them, too, andshe doesn't know it--until you can't talk yourself for just looking ather. "

Clay rose and moved on to the house in silence. He was glad thatMacWilliams had interrupted him when he did. He wondered whether heunderstood Alice Langham after all. He had seen many fine ladiesbefore during his brief visits to London, and Berlin, and Vienna, andthey had shown him favor. He had known other women not so fine. Spanish-American senoritas through Central and South America, the wivesand daughters of English merchants exiled along the Pacific coast, whose fair skin and yellow hair whitened and bleached under the hottropical suns. He had known many women, and he could have quoted

 "Trials and troubles amany, Have proved me; One or two women, God bless them! Have loved me. "

But the woman he was to marry must have all the things he lacked. 

She must fill out and complete him where he was wanting. This womanpossessed all of these things. She appealed to every ambition and toevery taste he cherished, and yet he knew that he had hesitated andmistrusted her, when he should have declared himself eagerly andvehemently, and forced her to listen with all the strength of his will. 

Miss Langham dropped among the soft cushions of the launch with a senseof having been rescued from herself and of delight in finding refugeagain in her own environment. The sight of King standing in the bowbeside Hope with his cigarette hanging from his lips, and peering withhalf-closed eyes into the fading light, gave her a sense of restfulnessand content. She did not know what she wished from that other strangeyoung man. He was so bold, so handsome, and he looked at life andspoke of it in such a fresh, unhackneyed spirit. He might make himselfanything he pleased. But here was a man who already had everything, orwho could get it as easily as he could increase the speed of thelaunch, by pulling some wire with his finger. 

She recalled one day when they were all on board of this same launch, and the machinery had broken down, and MacWilliams had gone forward tolook at it. He had called Clay to help him, and she remembered howthey had both gone down on their knees and asked the engineer andfireman to pass them wrenches and oil-cans, while King protestedmildly, and the rest sat helplessly in the hot glare of the sea, as theboat rose and fell on the waves. She resented Clay's interest in theaccident, and his pleasure when he had made the machinery right oncemore, and his appearance as he came back to them with oily hands andwith his face glowing from the heat of the furnace, wiping his grimyfingers on a piece of packing. She had resented the equality withwhich he treated the engineer in asking his advice, and it rathersurprised her that the crew saluted him when he stepped into the launchagain that night as though he were the owner. She had expected thatthey would patronize him, and she imagined after this incident that shedetected a shade of difference in the manner of the sailors towardClay, as though he had cheapened himself to them--as he had to her. 

VII

At ten o'clock that same evening Clay began to prepare himself for theball at the Government palace, and MacWilliams, who was not invited, watched him dress with critical approval that showed no sign of envy. 

The better to do honor to the President, Clay had brought out severalforeign orders, and MacWilliams helped him to tie around his neck thecollar of the Red Eagle which the German Emperor had given him, and tofasten the ribbon and cross of the Star of Olancho across his breast, and a Spanish Order and the Legion of Honor to the lapel of his coat. MacWilliams surveyed the effect of the tiny enamelled crosses with hishead on one side, and with the same air of affectionate pride andconcern that a mother shows over her daughter's first ball-dress. 

"Got any more?" he asked, anxiously. 

"I have some war medals, " Clay answered, smiling doubtfully. "But I'mnot in uniform. "

"Oh, that's all right, " declared MacWilliams. "Put 'em on, put 'em allon. Give the girls a treat. Everybody will think they were given forfeats of swimming, anyway; but they will show up well from the front. Now, then, you look like a drum-major or a conjuring chap. "

"I do not, " said Clay. "I look like a French Ambassador, and I hardlyunderstand how you find courage to speak to me at all. "

He went up the hill in high spirits, and found the carriage at the doorand King, Mr. Langham, and Miss Langham sitting waiting for him. Theywere ready to depart, and Miss Langham had but just seated herself inthe carriage when they heard hurrying across the tiled floor a quick, light step and the rustle of silk, and turning they saw Hope standingin the doorway, radiant and smiling. She wore a white frock thatreached to the ground, and that left her arms and shoulders bare. Herhair was dressed high upon her head, and she was pulling vigorously ata pair of long, tan-colored gloves. The transformation was socomplete, and the girl looked so much older and so stately andbeautiful, that the two young men stared at her in silent admirationand astonishment. 

"Why, Hope!" exclaimed her sister. "What does this mean?"

Hope stopped in some alarm, and clasped her hair with both hands. 

"What is it?" she asked; "is anything wrong?"

"Why, my dear child, " said her sister, "you're not thinking of goingwith us, are you?"

"Not going?" echoed the younger sister, in dismay. "Why, Alice, whynot? I was asked. "

"But, Hope-- Father, " said the elder sister, stepping out of thecarriage and turning to Mr. Langham, "you didn't intend that Hopeshould go, did you? She's not out yet. "

"Oh, nonsense, " said Hope, defiantly. But she drew in her breathquickly and blushed, as she saw the two young men moving away out ofhearing of this family crisis. She felt that she was being made tolook like a spoiled child. "It doesn't count down here, " she said, "and I want to go. I thought you knew I was going all the time. Mariemade this frock for me on purpose. "

"I don't think Hope is old enough, " the elder sister said, addressingher father, "and if she goes to dances here, there's no reason why sheshould not go to those at home. "

"But I don't want to go to dances at home, " interrupted Hope. 

Mr. Langham looked exceedingly uncomfortable, and turned appealingly tohis elder daughter. "What do you think, Alice?" he said, doubtfully. 

"I'm sorry, " Miss Langham replied, "but I know it would not be at allproper. I hate to seem horrid about it, Hope, but indeed you are tooyoung, and the men here are not the men a young girl ought to meet. "

"You meet them, Alice, " said Hope, but pulling off her gloves in tokenof defeat. 

"But, my dear child, I'm fifty years older than you are. "

"Perhaps Alice knows best, Hope, " Mr. Langham said. "I'm sorry if youare disappointed. "

Hope held her head a little higher, and turned toward the door. 

"I don't mind if you don't wish it, father, " she said. "Good-night. "She moved away, but apparently thought better of it, and came back andstood smiling and nodding to them as they seated themselves in thecarriage. Mr. Langham leaned forward and said, in a troubled voice, "We will tell you all about it in the morning. I'm very sorry. Youwon't be lonely, will you? I'll stay with you if you wish. "

"Nonsense!" laughed Hope. "Why, it's given to you, father; don'tbother about me. I'll read something or other and go to bed. "

"Good-night, Cinderella, " King called out to her. 

"Good-night, Prince Charming, " Hope answered. 

Both Clay and King felt that the girl would not mind missing the ballso much as she would the fact of having been treated like a child intheir presence, so they refrained from any expression of sympathy orregret, but raised their hats and bowed a little more impressively thanusual as the carriage drove away. 

The picture Hope made, as she stood deserted and forlorn on the stepsof the empty house in her new finery, struck Clay as unnecessarilypathetic. He felt a strong sense of resentment against her sister andher father, and thanked heaven devoutly that he was out of their class, and when Miss Langham continued to express her sorrow that she had beenforced to act as she had done, he remained silent. It seemed to Claysuch a simple thing to give children pleasure, and to remember thattheir woes were always out of all proportion to the cause. Children, dumb animals, and blind people were always grouped together in his mindas objects demanding the most tender and constant consideration. Sothe pleasure of the evening was spoiled for him while he remembered thehurt and disappointed look in Hope's face, and when Miss Langham askedhim why he was so preoccupied, he told her bluntly that he thought shehad been very unkind to Hope, and that her objections were absurd. 

Miss Langham held herself a little more stiffly. "Perhaps you do notquite understand, Mr. Clay, " she said. "Some of us have to conform tocertain rules that the people with whom we best like to associate havelaid down for themselves. If we choose to be conventional, it isprobably because we find it makes life easier for the greater number. You cannot think it was a pleasant task for me. But I have given upthings of much more importance than a dance for the sake ofappearances, and Hope herself will see to-morrow that I acted for thebest. "

Clay said he trusted so, but doubted it, and by way of re-establishinghimself in Miss Langham's good favor, asked her if she could give himthe next dance. But Miss Langham was not to be propitiated. 

"I'm sorry, " she said, "but I believe I am engaged until supper-time. Come and ask me then, and I'll have one saved for you. But there issomething you can do, " she added. "I left my fan in the carriage--doyou think you could manage to get it for me without much trouble?"

"The carriage did not wait. I believe it was sent back, " said Clay, "but I can borrow a horse from one of Stuart's men, and ride back andget it for you, if you like. "

"How absurd!" laughed Miss Langham, but she looked pleased, notwithstanding. 

"Oh, not at all, " Clay answered. He was smiling down at her in someamusement, and was apparently much entertained at his idea. "Will youconsider it an act of devotion?" he asked. 

There was so little of devotion, and so much more of mischief in hiseyes, that Miss Langham guessed he was only laughing at her, and shookher head. 

"You won't go, " she said, turning away. She followed him with hereyes, however, as he crossed the room, his head and shoulders toweringabove the native men and women. She had never seen him so resplendent, and she noted, with an eye that considered trifles, the orders, and hiswell-fitting white gloves, and his manner of bowing in the Continentalfashion, holding his opera-hat on his thigh, as though his hand restedon a sword. She noticed that the little Olanchoans stopped and lookedafter him, as he pushed his way among them, and she could see that themen were telling the women who he was. Sir Julian Pindar, the oldBritish Minister, stopped him, and she watched them as they laughedtogether over the English war medals on the American's breast, whichSir Julian touched with his finger. He called the French Minister andhis pretty wife to look, too, and they all laughed and talked togetherin great spirits, and Miss Langham wondered if Clay was speaking inFrench to them. 

Miss Langham did not enjoy the ball; she felt injured and aggrieved, and she assured herself that she had been hardly used. 

She had only done her duty, and yet all the sympathy had gone to hersister, who had placed her in a trying position. She thought it wasmost inconsiderate. 

Hope walked slowly across the veranda when the others had gone, andwatched the carriage as long as it remained in sight. Then she threwherself into a big arm-chair, and looked down upon her pretty frock andher new dancing-slippers. She, too, felt badly used. 

The moonlight fell all about her, as it had on the first night of theirarrival, a month before, but now it seemed cold and cheerless, and gavean added sense of loneliness to the silent house. She did not goinside to read, as she had promised to do, but sat for the next hourlooking out across the harbor. She could not blame Alice. Sheconsidered that Alice always moved by rules and precedents, like aqueen in a game of chess, and she wondered why. It made life so tameand uninteresting, and yet people invariably admired Alice, and someone had spoken of her as the noblest example of the modern gentlewoman. She was sure she could not grow up to be any thing like that. She wasquite confident that she was going to disappoint her family. Shewondered if people would like her better if she were discreet likeAlice, and less like her brother Ted. If Mr. Clay, for instance, wouldlike her better? She wondered if he disapproved of her riding on theengine with MacWilliams, and of her tearing through the mines on herpony, and spearing with a lance of sugar-cane at the mongrel curs thatran to snap at his flanks. She remembered his look of astonishedamusement the day he had caught her in this impromptu pig-sticking, andshe felt herself growing red at the recollection. She was sure hethought her a tomboy. Probably he never thought of her at all. 

Hope leaned back in the chair and looked up at the stars above themountains and tried to think of any of her heroes and princes infiction who had gone through such interesting experiences as had Mr. Clay. Some of them had done so, but they were creatures in a book andthis hero was alive, and she knew him, and had probably made himdespise her as a silly little girl who was scolded and sent off to bedlike a disobedient child. Hope felt a choking in her throat andsomething like a tear creep to her eyes: but she was surprised to findthat the fact did not make her ashamed of herself. She owned that shewas wounded and disappointed, and to make it harder she could not helppicturing Alice and Clay laughing and talking together in some corneraway from the ball-room, while she, who understood him so well, and whocould not find the words to tell him how much she valued what he wasand what he had done, was forgotten and sitting here alone, likeCinderella, by the empty fireplace. 

The picture was so pathetic as Hope drew it, that for a moment she feltalmost a touch of self-pity, but the next she laughed scornfully at herown foolishness, and rising with an impatient shrug, walked away in thedirection of her room. 

But before she had crossed the veranda she was stopped by the sound ofa horse's hoofs galloping over the hard sun-baked road that led fromthe city, and before she had stepped forward out of the shadow in whichshe stood the horse had reached the steps and his rider had pulled himback on his haunches and swung himself off before the forefeet hadtouched the ground. 

Hope had guessed that it was Clay by his riding, and she feared fromhis haste that some one of her people were ill. So she ran anxiouslyforward and asked if anything were wrong. 

Clay started at her sudden appearance, and gave a short boyish laugh ofpleasure. 

"I'm so glad you're still up, " he said. "No, nothing is wrong. " Hestopped in some embarrassment. He had been moved to return by the factthat the little girl he knew was in trouble, and now that he wassuddenly confronted by this older and statelier young person, hisaction seemed particularly silly, and he was at a loss to explain it inany way that would not give offence. 

"No, nothing is wrong, " he repeated. "I came after something. "

Clay had borrowed one of the cloaks the troopers wore at night from thesame man who had lent him the horse, and as he stood bareheaded beforeher, with the cloak hanging from his shoulders to the floor and thestar and ribbon across his breast, Hope felt very grateful to him forbeing able to look like a Prince or a hero in a book, and to yet remainher Mr. Clay at the same time. 

"I came to get your sister's fan, " Clay explained. "She forgot it. "

The young girl looked at him for a moment in surprise and thenstraightened herself slightly. She did not know whether she was themore indignant with Alice for sending such a man on so foolish anerrand, or with Clay for submitting to such a service. 

"Oh, is that it?" she said at last. "I will go and find you one. " Shegave him a dignified little bow and moved away toward the door, withevery appearance of disapproval. 

"Oh, I don't know, " she heard Clay say, doubtfully; "I don't have to gojust yet, do I? May I not stay here a little while?"

Hope stood and looked at him in some perplexity. 

"Why, yes, " she answered, wonderingly. "But don't you want to go back?You came in a great hurry. And won't Alice want her fan?"

"Oh, she has it by this time. I told Stuart to find it. She left itin the carriage, and the carriage is waiting at the end of the plaza. "

"Then why did you come?" asked Hope, with rising suspicion. 

"Oh, I don't know, " said Clay, helplessly. "I thought I'd just like aride in the moonlight. I hate balls and dances anyway, don't you? Ithink you were very wise not to go. "

Hope placed her hands on the back of the big arm-chair and lookedsteadily at him as he stood where she could see his face in themoonlight. "You came back, " she said, "because they thought I wascrying, and they sent you to see. Is that it? Did Alice send you?"she demanded. 

Clay gave a gasp of consternation. 

"You know that no one sent me, " he said. "I thought they treated youabominably, and I wanted to come and say so. That's all. And I wantedto tell you that I missed you very much, and that your not coming hadspoiled the evening for me, and I came also because I preferred to talkto you than to stay where I was. No one knows that I came to see you. I said I was going to get the fan, and I told Stuart to find it afterI'd left. I just wanted to see you, that's all. But I will go backagain at once. "

While he had been speaking Hope had lowered her eyes from his face andhad turned and looked out across the harbor. There was a strange, happy tumult in her breast, and she was breathing so rapidly that shewas afraid he would notice it. She also felt an absurd inclination tocry, and that frightened her. So she laughed and turned and looked upinto his face again. Clay saw the same look in her eyes that he hadseen there the day when she had congratulated him on his work at themines. He had seen it before in the eyes of other women and ittroubled him. Hope seated herself in the big chair, and Clay tossedhis cloak on the floor at her feet and sat down with his shouldersagainst one of the pillars. He glanced up at her and found that thelook that had troubled him was gone, and that her eyes were now smilingwith excitement and pleasure. 

"And did you bring me something from the ball in your pocket to comfortme, " she asked, mockingly. 

"Yes, I did, " Clay answered, unabashed. "I brought you some bonbons. "

"You didn't, really!" Hope cried, with a shriek of delight. "How absurdof you! The sort you pull?"

"The sort you pull, " Clay repeated, gravely. "And also a dance-card, which is a relic of barbarism still existing in this Southern capital. It has the arms of Olancho on it in gold, and I thought you might liketo keep it as a souvenir. " He pulled the card from his coat-pocket andsaid, "May I have this dance?"

"You may, " Hope answered. "But you wouldn't mind if we sat it out, would you?"

"I should prefer it, " Clay said, as he scrawled his name across thecard. "It is so crowded inside, and the company is rather mixed. "They both laughed lightly at their own foolishness, and Hope smileddown upon him affectionately and proudly. "You may smoke, if youchoose; and would you like something cool to drink?" she asked, anxiously. "After your ride, you know, " she suggested, with hospitableintent. Clay said that he was very comfortable without a drink, butlighted a cigar and watched her covertly through the smoke, as she satsmiling happily and quite unconsciously upon the moonlit world aroundthem. She caught Clay's eye fixed on her, and laughed lightly. 

"What is it?" he said. 

"Oh, I was just thinking, " Hope replied, "that it was much better tohave a dance come to you, than to go to the dance. "

"Does one man and a dance-card and three bonbons constitute your ideaof a ball?"

"Doesn't it? You see, I am not out yet, I don't know. "

"I should think it might depend a good deal upon the man, " Claysuggested. 

"That sounds as though you were hinting, " said Hope, doubtfully. "Nowwhat would I say to that if I were out?"

"I don't know, but don't say it, " Clay answered. "It would probably besomething very unflattering or very forward, and in either case Ishould take you back to your chaperon and leave you there. "

Hope had not been listening. Her eyes were fixed on a level with histie, and Clay raised his hand to it in some trepidation. "Mr. Clay, "she began abruptly and leaning eagerly forward, "would you think mevery rude if I asked you what you did to get all those crosses? I knowthey mean something, and I do so want to know what. Please tell me. "

"Oh, those!" said Clay. "The reason I put them on to-night is becausewearing them is supposed to be a sort of compliment to your host. Igot in the habit abroad--"

"I didn't ask you that, " said Hope, severely. "I asked you what youdid to get them. Now begin with the Legion of Honor on the left, andgo right on until you come to the end, and please don't skip anything. Leave in all the bloodthirsty parts, and please don't be modest. "

"Like Othello, " suggested Clay. 

"Yes, " said Hope; "I will be Desdemona. "

"Well, Desdemona, it was like this, " said Clay, laughing. "I got thatmedal and that star for serving in the Nile campaign, under Wolseley. After I left Egypt, I went up the coast to Algiers, where I tookservice under the French in a most disreputable organization known asthe Foreign Legion--"

"Don't tell me, " exclaimed Hope, in delight, "that you have been aChasseur d'Afrique! Not like the man in 'Under Two Flags'?"

"No, not at all like that man, " said Clay, emphatically. "I was just aplain, common, or garden, sappeur, and I showed the othergood-for-nothings how to dig trenches. Well, I contaminated theForeign Legion for eight months, and then I went to Peru, where I--"

"You're skipping, " said Hope. "How did you get the Legion of Honor?"

"Oh, that?" said Clay. "That was a gallery play I made once when wewere chasing some Arabs. They took the French flag away from ourcolor-bearer, and I got it back again and waved it frantically aroundmy head until I was quite certain the Colonel had seen me doing it, andthen I stopped as soon as I knew that I was sure of promotion. "

"Oh, how can you?" cried Hope. "You didn't do anything of the sort. You probably saved the entire regiment. "

"Well, perhaps I did, " Clay returned. "Though I don't remember it, andnobody mentioned it at the time. "

"Go on about the others, " said Hope. "And do try to be truthful. "

"Well, I got this one from Spain, because I was President of anInternational Congress of Engineers at Madrid. That was the ostensiblereason, but the real reason was because I taught the SpanishCommissioners to play poker instead of baccarat. The German Emperorgave me this for designing a fort, and the Sultan of Zanzibar gave methis, and no one but the Sultan knows why, and he won't tell. Isuppose he's ashamed. He gives them away instead of cigars. He wasout of cigars the day I called. "

"What a lot of places you have seen, " sighed Hope. "I have been inCairo and Algiers, too, but I always had to walk about with agoverness, and she wouldn't go to the mosques because she said theywere full of fleas. We always go to Homburg and Paris in the summer, and to big hotels in London. I love to travel, but I don't love totravel that way, would you?"

"I travel because I have no home, " said Clay. "I'm different from thechap that came home because all the other places were shut. I go toother places because there is no home open. "

"What do you mean?" said Hope, shaking her head. "Why have you nohome?"

"There was a ranch in Colorado that I used to call home, " said Clay, "but they've cut it up into town lots. I own a plot in the cemeteryoutside of the town, where my mother is buried, and I visit thatwhenever I am in the States, and that is the only piece of earthanywhere in the world that I have to go back to. "

Hope leaned forward with her hands clasped in front of her and her eyeswide open. 

"And your father?" she said, softly; "is he--is he there, too--"

Clay looked at the lighted end of his cigar as he turned it between hisfingers. 

"My father, Miss Hope, " he said, "was a filibuster, and went out on the'Virginius' to help free Cuba, and was shot, against a stone wall. Wenever knew where he was buried. "

"Oh, forgive me; I beg your pardon, " said Hope. There was suchdistress in her voice that Clay looked at her quickly and saw the tearsin her eyes. She reached out her hand timidly, and touched for aninstant his own rough, sunburned fist, as it lay clenched on his knee. "I am so sorry, " she said, "so sorry. " For the first time in manyyears the tears came to Clay's eyes and blurred the moonlight and thescene before him, and he sat unmanned and silent before the simpletouch of a young girl's sympathy. 

An hour later, when his pony struck the gravel from beneath his hoofson the race back to the city, and Clay turned to wave his hand to Hopein the doorway, she seemed, as she stood with the moonlight fallingabout her white figure, like a spirit beckoning the way to a newparadise. 

VIII

Clay reached the President's Palace during the supper-hour, and foundMr. Langham and his daughter at the President's table. Madame Alvarezpointed to a place for him beside Alice Langham, who held up her handin welcome. "You were very foolish to rush off like that, " she said. 

"It wasn't there, " said Clay, crowding into the place beside her. 

"No, it was here in the carriage all the time. Captain Stuart found itfor me. "

"Oh, he did, did he?" said Clay; "that's why I couldn't find it. I amhungry, " he laughed, "my ride gave me an appetite. " He looked over andgrinned at Stuart, but that gentleman was staring fixedly at thecandles on the table before him, his eyes filled with concern. Clayobserved that Madame Alvarez was covertly watching the young officer, and frowning her disapproval at his preoccupation. So he stretched hisleg under the table and kicked viciously at Stuart's boots. OldGeneral Rojas, the Vice-President, who sat next to Stuart, movedsuddenly and then blinked violently at the ceiling with an expressionof patient suffering, but the exclamation which had escaped him broughtStuart back to the present, and he talked with the woman next him in aperfunctory manner. 

Miss Langham and her father were waiting for their carriage in thegreat hall of the Palace as Stuart came up to Clay, and putting hishand affectionately on his shoulder, began pointing to somethingfarther back in the hall. To the night-birds of the streets and thenoisy fiacre drivers outside, and to the crowd of guests who stood onthe high marble steps waiting for their turn to depart, he might havebeen relating an amusing anecdote of the ball just over. 

"I'm in great trouble, old man, " was what he said. "I must see youalone to-night. I'd ask you to my rooms, but they watch me all thetime, and I don't want them to suspect you are in this until they must. Go on in the carriage, but get out as you pass the Plaza Bolivar andwait for me by the statue there. "

Clay smiled, apparently in great amusement. "That's very good, " hesaid. 

He crossed over to where King stood surveying the powdered beauties ofOlancho and their gowns of a past fashion, with an intensity ofadmiration which would have been suspicious to those who knew histastes. "When we get into the carriage, " said Clay, in a low voice, "we will both call to Stuart that we will see him to-morrow morning atbreakfast. "

"All right, " assented King. "What's up?"

Stuart helped Miss Langham into her carriage, and as it moved away Kingshouted to him in English to remember that he was breakfasting with himon the morrow, and Clay called out in Spanish, "Until to-morrow atbreakfast, don't forget. " And Stuart answered, steadily, "Good nightuntil to-morrow at one. "

As their carriage jolted through the dark and narrow street, empty nowof all noise or movement, one of Stuart's troopers dashed by it at agallop, with a lighted lantern swinging at his side. He raised it ashe passed each street crossing, and held it high above his head so thatits light fell upon the walls of the houses at the four corners. Theclatter of his horse's hoofs had not ceased before another troopergalloped toward them riding more slowly, and throwing the light of hislantern over the trunks of the trees that lined the pavements. As thecarriage passed him, he brought his horse to its side with a jerk ofthe bridle, and swung his lantern in the faces of its occupants. 

"Who lives?" he challenged. 

"Olancho, " Clay replied. 

"Who answers?"

"Free men, " Clay answered again, and pointed at the star on his coat. 

The soldier muttered an apology, and striking his heels into hishorse's side, dashed noisily away, his lantern tossing from side toside, high in the air, as he drew rein to scan each tree and passedfrom one lamp-post to the next. 

"What does that mean?" said Mr. Langham; "did he take us forhighwaymen?"

"It is the custom, " said Clay. "We are out rather late, you see. "

"If I remember rightly, Clay, " said King, "they gave a ball at Brusselson the eve of Waterloo. "

"I believe they did, " said Clay, smiling. He spoke to the driver tostop the carriage, and stepped down into the street. 

"I have to leave you here, " he said; "drive on quickly, please; I canexplain better in the morning. "

The Plaza Bolivar stood in what had once been the centre of thefashionable life of Olancho, but the town had moved farther up thehill, and it was now far in the suburbs, its walks neglected and itsturf overrun with weeds. The houses about it had fallen into disuse, and the few that were still occupied at the time Clay entered it showedno sign of life. Clay picked his way over the grass-grown paths to thestatue of Bolivar, the hero of the sister republic of Venezuela, whichstill stood on its pedestal in a tangle of underbrush and hangingvines. The iron railing that had once surrounded it was broken down, and the branches of the trees near were black with sleeping buzzards. Two great palms reared themselves in the moonlight at either side, andbeat their leaves together in the night wind, whispering and murmuringtogether like two living conspirators. 

"This ought to be safe enough, " Clay murmured to himself. "It's justthe place for plotting. I hope there are no snakes. " He seatedhimself on the steps of the pedestal, and lighting a cigar, remainedsmoking and peering into the shadows about him, until a shadow blackerthan the darkness rose at his feet, and a voice said, sternly, "Put outthat light. I saw it half a mile away. "

Clay rose and crushed his cigar under his foot. "Now then, old man, "he demanded briskly, "what's up? It's nearly daylight and we musthurry. "

Stuart seated himself heavily on the stone steps, like a man tired inmind and body, and unfolded a printed piece of paper. Its blank sidewas damp and sticky with paste. 

"It is too dark for you to see this, " he began, in a strained voice, "so I will translate it to you. It is an attack on Madame Alvarez andmyself. They put them up during the ball, when they knew my men wouldbe at the Palace. I have had them scouring the streets for the lasttwo hours tearing them down, but they are all over the place, in thecafés and clubs. They have done what they were meant to do. "

Clay took another cigar from his pocket and rolled it between his lips. "What does it say?" he asked. 

"It goes over the old ground first. It says Alvarez has given therichest birthright of his country to aliens--that means the mines andLangham--and has put an alien in command of the army--that is meant forme. I've no more to do with the army than you have--I only wish I had!And then it says that the boundary aggressions of Ecuador and Venezuelahave not been resented in consequence. It asks what can be expected ofa President who is as blind to the dishonor of his country as he is tothe dishonor of his own home?"

Clay muttered under his breath, "Well, go on. Is it explicit? Moreexplicit than that?"

"Yes, " said Stuart, grimly. "I can't repeat it. It is quite clearwhat they mean. "

"Have you got any of them?" Clay asked. "Can you fix it on some onethat you can fight?"

"Mendoza did it, of course, " Stuart answered, "but we cannot prove it. And if we could, we are not strong enough to take him. He has the cityfull of his men now, and the troops are pouring in every hour. "

"Well, Alvarez can stop that, can't he?"

"They are coming in for the annual review. He can't show the peoplethat he is afraid of his own army. "

"What are you going to do?"

"What am I going to do?" Stuart repeated, dully. "That is what I wantyou to tell me. There is nothing I can do now. I've brought troubleand insult on people who have been kinder to me than my own blood havebeen. Who took me in when I was naked and clothed me, when I hadn't afriend or a sixpence to my name. You remember--I came here from thatrow in Colombia with my wound, and I was down with the fever when theyfound me, and Alvarez gave me the appointment. And this is how Ireward them. If I stay I do more harm. If I go away I leave themsurrounded by enemies, and not enemies who fight fair, but damnedthieves and scoundrels, who stab at women and who fight in the dark. Iwouldn't have had it happen, old man, for my right arm! They--they havebeen so kind to me, and I have been so happy here--and now!" The boybowed his face in his hands and sat breathing brokenly while Clayturned his unlit cigar between his teeth and peered at him curiouslythrough the darkness. "Now I have made them both unhappy, and theyhate me, and I hate myself, and I have brought nothing but trouble toevery one. First I made my own people miserable, and now I make mybest friends miserable, and I had better be dead. I wish I were dead. I wish I had never been born. "

Clay laid his hand on the other's bowed shoulder and shook him gently. "Don't talk like that, " he said; "it does no good. Why do you hateyourself?"

"What?" asked Stuart, wearily, without looking up. "What did you say?"

"You said you had made them hate you, and you added that you hatedyourself. Well, I can see why they naturally would be angry for thetime, at least. But why do you hate yourself? Have you reason to?"

"I don't understand, " said Stuart. 

"Well, I can't make it any plainer, " Clay replied. "It isn't aquestion I will ask. But you say you want my advice. Well, my adviceto my friend and to a man who is not my friend, differ. And in thiscase it depends on whether what that thing--" Clay kicked the paperwhich had fallen on the ground--"what that thing says is true. "

The younger man looked at the paper below him and then back at Clay, and sprang to his feet. 

"Why, damn you, " he cried, "what do you mean?"

He stood above Clay with both arms rigid at his side and his head bentforward. The dawn had just broken, and the two men saw each other inthe ghastly gray light of the morning. "If any man, " cried Stuartthickly, "dares to say that that blackguardly lie is true I'll killhim. You or any one else. Is that what you mean, damn you? If it is, say so, and I'll break every bone of your body. "

"Well, that's much better, " growled Clay, sullenly. "The way you wenton wishing you were dead and hating yourself made me almost lose faithin mankind. Now you go make that speech to the President, and thenfind the man who put up those placards, and if you can't find the rightman, take any man you meet and make him eat it, paste and all, and beathim to death if he doesn't. Why, this is no time to whimper--becausethe world is full of liars. Go out and fight them and show them youare not afraid. Confound you, you had me so scared there that I almostthrashed you myself. Forgive me, won't you?" he begged earnestly. Herose and held out his hand and the other took it, doubtfully. "It wasyour own fault, you young idiot, " protested Clay. "You told your storythe wrong way. Now go home and get some sleep and I'll be back in afew hours to help you. Look!" he said. He pointed through the treesto the sun that shot up like a red hot disk of heat above the coolgreen of the mountains. "See, " said Clay, "God has given us anotherday. Seven battles were fought in seven days once in my country. Let's be thankful, old man, that we're NOT dead, but alive to fight ourown and other people's battles. "

The younger man sighed and pressed Clay's hand again before he droppedit. 

"You are very good to me, " he said. "I'm not just quite myself thismorning. I'm a bit nervous, I think. You'll surely come, won't you?"

"By noon, " Clay promised. "And if it does come, " he added, "don'tforget my fifteen hundred men at the mines. "

"Good! I won't, " Stuart replied. "I'll call on you if I need them. "He raised his fingers mechanically to his helmet in salute, andcatching up his sword turned and strode away erect and soldierlythrough the debris and weeds of the deserted plaza. 

Clay remained motionless on the steps of the pedestal and followed theyounger man with his eyes. He drew a long breath and began a leisurelysearch through his pockets for his match-box, gazing about him as hedid so, as though looking for some one to whom he could speak hisfeelings. He lifted his eyes to the stern, smooth-shaven face of thebronze statue above him that seemed to be watching Stuart's departingfigure. 

"General Bolivar, " Clay said, as he lit his cigar, "observe that youngman. He is a soldier and a gallant gentleman. You, sir, were a greatsoldier--the greatest this God-forsaken country will ever know--and youwere, sir, an ardent lover. I ask you to salute that young man as Ido, and to wish him well. " Clay lifted his high hat to the back of theyoung officer as it was hidden in the hanging vines, and once again, with grave respect to the grim features of the great general above him, and then smiling at his own conceit, he ran lightly down the steps anddisappeared among the trees of the plaza. 

IX

Clay slept for three hours. He had left a note on the floorinstructing MacWilliams and young Langham not to go to the mines, butto waken him at ten o'clock, and by eleven the three men were gallopingoff to the city. As they left the Palms they met Hope returning from amorning ride on the Alameda, and Clay begged her, with much concern, not to ride abroad again. There was a difference in his tone towardher. There was more anxiety in it than the occasion seemed to justify, and he put his request in the form of a favor to himself, while the dayprevious he would simply have told her that she must not go ridingalone. 

"Why?" asked Hope, eagerly. "Is there going to be trouble?"

"I hope not, " Clay said, "but the soldiers are coming in from theprovinces for the review, and the roads are not safe. "

"I'd be safe with you, though, " said Hope, smiling persuasively uponthe three men. "Won't you take me with you, please?"

"Hope, " said young Langham in the tone of the elder brother's briefauthority, "you must go home at once. "

Hope smiled wickedly. "I don't want to, " she said. 

"I'll bet you a box of cigars I can beat you to the veranda by fiftyyards, " said MacWilliams, turning his horse's head. 

Hope clasped her sailor hat in one hand and swung her whip with theother. "I think not, " she cried, and disappeared with a flutter ofskirts and a scurry of flying pebbles. 

"At times, " said Clay, "MacWilliams shows an unexpected knowledge ofhuman nature. "

"Yes, he did quite right, " assented Langham, nodding his headmysteriously. "We've no time for girls at present, have we?"

"No, indeed, " said Clay, hiding any sign of a smile. 

Langham breathed deeply at the thought of the part he was to play inthis coming struggle, and remained respectfully silent as they trottedtoward the city. He did not wish to disturb the plots and counterplotsthat he was confident were forming in Clay's brain, and his devotionwould have been severely tried had he known that his hero's mind wasfilled with a picture of a young girl in a blue shirt-waist and awhipcord riding-skirt. 

Clay sent for Stuart to join them at the restaurant, and MacWilliamsarriving at the same time, the four men seated themselves conspicuouslyin the centre of the café and sipped their chocolate as thoughunconscious of any imminent danger, and in apparent freedom from allresponsibilities and care. While MacWilliams and Langham laughed anddisputed over a game of dominoes, the older men exchanged, under coverof their chatter, the few words which they had met to speak. 

The manifestoes, Stuart said, had failed of their purpose. He hadalready called upon the President, and had offered to resign hisposition and leave the country, or to stay and fight his maligners, andtake up arms at once against Mendoza's party. Alvarez had treated himlike a son, and bade him be patient. He held that Caesar's wife wasabove suspicion because she was Caesar's wife, and that no canardsposted at midnight could affect his faith in his wife or in his friend. He refused to believe that any coup d'etat was imminent, save the onewhich he himself meditated when he was ready to proclaim the country ina state of revolution, and to assume a military dictatorship. 

"What nonsense!" exclaimed Clay. "What is a military dictatorshipwithout soldiers? Can't he see that the army is with Mendoza?"

"No, " Stuart replied. "Rojas and I were with him all the morning. Rojas is an old trump, Clay. He's not bright and he's old-fashioned;but he is honest. And the people know it. If I had Rojas for a chiefinstead of Alvarez, I'd arrest Mendoza with my own hand, and I wouldn'tbe afraid to take him to the carcel through the streets. The peoplewouldn't help him. But the President doesn't dare. Not that he hasn'tpluck, " added the young lieutenant, loyally, "for he takes his life inhis hands when he goes to the review tomorrow, and he knows it. Thinkof it, will you, out there alone with a field of five thousand menaround him! Rojas thinks he can hold half of them, as many as Mendozacan, and I have my fifty. But you can't tell what any one of them willdo for a drink or a dollar. They're no more soldiers than thesewaiters. They're bandits in uniform, and they'll kill for the man thatpays best. "

"Then why doesn't Alvarez pay them?" Clay growled. 

Stuart looked away and lowered his eyes to the table. "He hasn't themoney, I suppose, " he said, evasively. "He--he has transferred everycent of it into drafts on Rothschild. They are at the house now, representing five millions of dollars in gold--and her jewels, too--packed ready for flight. "

"Then he does expect trouble?" said Clay. "You told me--"

"They're all alike; you know them, " said Stuart. "They won't believethey're in danger until the explosion comes, but they always have aspecial train ready, and they keep the funds of the government undertheir pillows. He engaged apartments on the Avenue Kleber six monthsago. "

"Bah!" said Clay. "It's the old story. Why don't you quit him?"

Stuart raised his eyes and dropped them again, and Clay sighed. "I'msorry, " he said. 

MacWilliams interrupted them in an indignant stage-whisper. "Say, howlong have we got to keep up this fake game?" he asked. "I don't knowanything about dominoes, and neither does Ted. Tell us what you'vebeen saying. Is there going to be trouble? If there is, Ted and Iwant to be in it. We are looking for trouble. "

Clay had tipped back his chair, and was surveying the restaurant andthe blazing plaza beyond its open front with an expression of cheerfulunconcern. Two men were reading the morning papers near the door, andtwo others were dragging through a game of dominoes in a far corner. The heat of midday had settled on the place, and the waiters dozed, with their chairs tipped back against the walls. Outside, the awningof the restaurant threw a broad shadow across the marble-topped tableson the sidewalk, and half a dozen fiacre drivers slept peacefully intheir carriages before the door. 

The town was taking its siesta, and the brisk step of a stranger whocrossed the tessellated floor and rapped with his knuckles on the topof the cigar-case was the only sign of life. The newcomer turned withone hand on the glass case and swept the room carelessly with his eyes. They were hard blue eyes under straight eyebrows. Their owner wasdressed unobtrusively in a suit of rough tweed, and this and his blackhat, and the fact that he was smooth-shaven, distinguished him as aforeigner. 

As he faced them the forelegs of Clay's chair descended slowly to thefloor, and he began to smile comprehendingly and to nod his head asthough the coming of the stranger had explained something of which hehad been in doubt. His companions turned and followed the direction ofhis eyes, but saw nothing of interest in the newcomer. He looked asthough he might be a concession hunter from the States, or a Manchesterdrummer, prepared to offer six months' credit on blankets and hardware. 

Clay rose and strode across the room, circling the tables in such a waythat he could keep himself between the stranger and the door. At hisapproach the new-comer turned his back and fumbled with his change onthe counter. 

"Captain Burke, I believe?" said Clay. The stranger bit the cigar hehad just purchased, and shook his head. "I am very glad to see you, "Clay continued. "Sit down, won't you? I want to talk with you. "

"I think you've made a mistake, " the stranger answered, quietly. "Myname is--"

"Colonel, perhaps, then, " said Clay. "I might have known it. Icongratulate you, Colonel. "

The man looked at Clay for an instant, with the cigar clenched betweenhis teeth and his blue eyes fixed steadily on the other's face. Claywaved his hand again invitingly toward a table, and the man shruggedhis shoulders and laughed, and, pulling a chair toward him, sat down. 

"Come over here, boys, " Clay called. "I want you to meet an old friendof mine, Captain Burke. "

The man called Burke stared at the three men as they crossed the roomand seated themselves at the table, and nodded to them in silence. 

"We have here, " said Clay, gayly, but in a low voice, "the key to thesituation. This is the gentleman who supplies Mendoza with the sinewsof war. Captain Burke is a brave soldier and a citizen of my own or ofany country, indeed, which happens to have the most sympatheticConsul-General. "

Burke smiled grimly, with a condescending nod, and putting away thecigar, took out a brier pipe and began to fill it from histobacco-pouch. "The Captain is a man of few words and extremely modestabout himself, " Clay continued, lightly; "so I must tell you who he ismyself. He is a promoter of revolutions. That is his business, --aprofessional promoter of revolutions, and that is what makes me so gladto see him again. He knows all about the present crisis here, and heis going to tell us all he knows as soon as he fills his pipe. I oughtto warn you, Burke, " he added, "that this is Captain Stuart, in chargeof the police and the President's cavalry troop. So, you see, whateveryou say, you will have one man who will listen to you. "

Burke crossed one short fat leg over the other, and crowded the tobaccoin the bowl of his pipe with his thumb. 

"I thought you were in Chili, Clay, " he said. 

"No, you didn't think I was in Chili, " Clay replied, kindly. "I leftChili two years ago. The Captain and I met there, " he explained to theothers, "when Balmaceda was trying to make himself dictator. TheCaptain was on the side of the Congressionalists, and was furnishingarms and dynamite. The Captain is always on the winning side, at leasthe always has been--up to the present. He is not a creature ofsentiment; are you, Burke? The Captain believes with Napoleon that Godis on the side that has the heaviest artillery. "

Burke lighted his pipe and drummed absentmindedly on the table with hismatch-box. 

"I can't afford to be sentimental, " he said. "Not in my business. "

"Of course not, " Clay assented, cheerfully. He looked at Burke andlaughed, as though the sight of him recalled pleasant memories. "Iwish I could give these boys an idea of how clever you are, Captain, "he said. "The Captain was the first man, for instance, to think ofpacking cartridges in tubs of lard, and of sending rifles inpiano-cases. He represents the Welby revolver people in England, andhalf a dozen firms in the States, and he has his little stores in Tampaand Mobile and Jamaica, ready to ship off at a moment's notice to anyrevolution in Central America. When I first met the Captain, " Claycontinued, gleefully, and quite unmindful of the other's continuedsilence, "he was starting off to rescue Arabi Pasha from the island ofCeylon. You may remember, boys, that when Dufferin saved Arabi fromhanging, the British shipped him to Ceylon as a political prisoner. Well, the Captain was sent by Arabi's followers in Egypt to bring himback to lead a second rebellion. Burke had everybody bribed at Ceylon, and a fine schooner fitted out and a lot of ruffians to do thefighting, and then the good, kind British Government pardoned Arabi theday before Burke arrived in port. And you never got a cent for it; didyou, Burke?"

Burke shook his head and frowned. 

"Six thousand pounds sterling I was to have got for that, " he said, with a touch of pardonable pride in his voice, "and they set him freethe day before I got there, just as Mr. Clay tells you. "

"And then you headed Granville Prior's expedition for buried treasureoff the island of Cocos, didn't you?" said Clay. "Go on, tell themabout it. Be sociable. You ought to write a book about your differentbusiness ventures, Burke, indeed you ought; but then, " Clay added, smiling, "nobody would believe you. " Burke rubbed his chin, thoughtfully, with his fingers, and looked modestly at the ceiling, andthe two younger boys gazed at him with open-mouthed interest. 

"There ain't anything in buried treasure, " he said, after a pause, "except the money that's sunk in the fitting out. It sounds good, butit's all foolishness. "

"All foolishness, eh?" said Clay, encouragingly. "And what did you doafter Balmaceda was beaten?--after I last saw you?"

"Crespo, " Burke replied, after a pause, during which he pulled gentlyon his pipe. "'Caroline Brewer'--cleared from Key West for Curacao, with cargo of sewing-machines and ploughs--beached belowMaracaibo--thirty-five thousand rounds and two thousand rifles--attwenty bolivars apiece. "

"Of course, " said Clay, in a tone of genuine appreciation. "I mighthave known you'd be in that. He says, " he explained, "that he assistedGeneral Crespo in Venezuela during his revolution against GuzmanBlanco's party, and loaded a tramp steamer called the 'Caroline Brewer'at Key West with arms, which he landed safely at a place for which hehad no clearance papers, and he received forty thousand dollars in ourmoney for the job--and very good pay, too, I should think, " commentedClay. 

"Well, I don't know, " Burke demurred. "You take in the cost of leasingthe boat and provisioning her, and the crew's wages, and the cost ofthe cargo; that cuts into profits. Then I had to stand off shorebetween Trinidad and Curacao for over three weeks before I got thesignal to run in, and after that I was chased by a gun-boat for threedays, and the crazy fool put a shot clean through my engine-room. Costme about twelve hundred dollars in repairs. "

There was a pause, and Clay turned his eyes to the street, and thenasked, abruptly, "What are you doing now?"

"Trying to get orders for smokeless powder, " Burke answered, promptly. He met Clay's look with eyes as undisturbed as his own. "But theywon't touch it down here, " he went on. "It doesn't appeal to 'em. It's too expensive, and they'd rather see the smoke. It makes themthink--"

"How long did you expect to stay here?" Clay interrupted. 

"How long?" repeated Burke, like a man in a witness-box who is tryingto gain time. "Well, I was thinking of leaving by Friday, and taking amule-train over to Bogota instead of waiting for the steamer to Colon. "He blew a mouthful of smoke into the air and watched it drifting towardthe door with apparent interest. 

"The 'Santiago' leaves here Saturday for New York. I guess you hadbetter wait over for her, " Clay said. "I'll engage your passage, and, in the meantime, Captain Stuart here will see that they treat you wellin the cuartel. "

The men around the table started, and sat motionless looking at Clay, but Burke only took his pipe from his mouth and knocked the ashes outon the heel of his boot. "What am I going to the cuartel for?" heasked. 

"Well, the public good, I suppose, " laughed Clay. "I'm sorry, but it'syour own fault. You shouldn't have shown yourself here at all. "

"What have you got to do with it?" asked Burke, calmly, as he began torefill his pipe. He had the air of a man who saw nothing before himbut an afternoon of pleasant discourse and leisurely inactivity. 

"You know what I've got to do with it, " Clay replied. "I've got ourconcession to look after. "

"Well, you're not running the town, too, are you?" asked Burke. 

"No, but I'm going to run you out of it, " Clay answered. "Now, what areyou going to do, --make it unpleasant for us and force our hand, ordrive down quietly with our friend MacWilliams here? He is the bestone to take you, because he's not so well known. "

Burke turned his head and looked over his shoulder at Stuart. 

"You taking orders from Mr. Clay, to-day, Captain Stuart?" he asked. 

"Yes, " Stuart answered, smiling. "I agree with Mr. Clay in whatever hethinks right. "

"Oh, well, in that case, " said Burke, rising reluctantly, with aprotesting sigh, "I guess I'd better call on the American minister. "

"You can't. He's in Ecuador on his annual visit, " said Clay. 

"Indeed! That's bad for me, " muttered Burke, as though in muchconcern. "Well, then, I'll ask you to let me see our consul here. "

"Certainly, " Clay assented, with alacrity. "Mr. Langham, this younggentleman's father, got him his appointment, so I've no doubt he'll beonly too glad to do anything for a friend of ours. "

Burke raised his eyes and looked inquiringly at Clay, as though toassure himself that this was true, and Clay smiled back at him. 

"Oh, very well, " Burke said. "Then, as I happen to be an Irishman bythe name of Burke, and a British subject, I'll try Her Majesty'srepresentative, and we'll see if he will allow me to be locked upwithout a reason or a warrant. "

"That's no good, either, " said Clay, shaking his head. "You fixed yournationality, as far as this continent is concerned, in Rio harbor, whenPeixoto handed you over to the British admiral, and you claimed to bean American citizen, and were sent on board the 'Detroit. ' If there'sany doubt about that we've only got to cable to Rio Janeiro--to eitherlegation. But what's the use? They know me here, and they don't knowyou, and I do. You'll have to go to jail and stay there. "

"Oh, well, if you put it that way, I'll go, " said Burke. "But, " headded, in a lower voice, "it's too late, Clay. "

The expression of amusement on Clay's face, and his ease of manner, fell from him at the words, and he pulled Burke back into the chairagain. "What do you mean?" he asked, anxiously. 

"I mean just that, it's too late, " Burke answered. "I don't mind goingto jail. I won't be there long. My work's all done and paid for. Iwas only staying on to see the fun at the finish, to see you fellowsmade fools of. "

"Oh, you're sure of that, are you?" asked Clay. 

"My dear boy!" exclaimed the American, with a suggestion in his speechof his Irish origin, as his interest rose. "Did you ever know me to gointo anything of this sort for the sentiment of it? Did you ever knowme to back the losing side? No. Well, I tell you that you fellowshave no more show in this than a parcel of Sunday-school children. Ofcourse I can't say when they mean to strike. I don't know, and Iwouldn't tell you if I did. But when they do strike there'll be nostriking back. It'll be all over but the cheering. "

Burke's tone was calm and positive. He held the centre of the stagenow, and he looked from one to the other of the serious faces aroundhim with an expression of pitying amusement. 

"Alvarez may get off, and so may Madame Alvarez, " he added, loweringhis voice and turning his face away from Stuart. "But not if she showsherself in the streets, and not if she tries to take those drafts andjewels with her. "

"Oh, you know that, do you?" interrupted Clay. 

"I know nothing, " Burke replied. "At least, nothing to what the restof them know. That's only the gossip I pick up at headquarters. Itdoesn't concern me. I've delivered my goods and given my receipt forthe money, and that's all I care about. But if it will make an oldfriend feel any more comfortable to have me in jail, why, I'll go, that's all. "

Clay sat with pursed lips looking at Stuart. The two boys leaned withtheir elbows on the tables and stared at Burke, who was searchingleisurely through his pockets for his match-box. From outside came thelazy cry of a vendor of lottery tickets, and the swift, uneven patterof bare feet, as company after company of dust-covered soldiers passedon their way from the provinces, with their shoes swinging from theirbayonets. 

Clay slapped the table with an exclamation of impatience. 

"After all, this is only a matter of business, " he said, "with all ofus. What do you say, Burke, to taking a ride with me to Stuart'srooms, and having a talk there with the President and Mr. Langham?Langham has three millions sunk in these mines, and Alvarez has evenbetter reasons than that for wanting to hold his job. What do you say?That's better than going to jail. Tell us what they mean to do, and whois to do it, and I'll let you name your own figure, and I'll guaranteeyou that they'll meet it. As long as you've no sentiment, you might aswell fight on the side that will pay best. "

Burke opened his lips as though to speak, and then shut them again, closely. If the others thought that he was giving Clay's proposition asecond and more serious thought, he was quick to undeceive them. 

"There ARE men in the business who do that sort of thing, " he said. "They sell arms to one man, and sell the fact that he's got them to thedeputy-marshals, and sell the story of how smart they've been to thenewspapers. And they never make any more sales after that. I'd lookpretty, wouldn't I, bringing stuff into this country, and getting paidfor it, and then telling you where it was hid, and everything else Iknew? I've no sentiment, as you say, but I've got business instinct, and that's not business. No, I've told you enough, and if you thinkI'm not safe at large, why I'm quite ready to take a ride with youryoung friend here. "

MacWilliams rose with alacrity, and beaming with pleasure at theimportance of the duty thrust upon him. 

Burke smiled. "The young 'un seems to like the job, " he said. 

"It's an honor to be associated with Captain Burke in any way, " saidMacWilliams, as he followed him into a cab, while Stuart galloped offbefore them in the direction of the cuartel. 

"You wouldn't think so if you knew better, " said Burke. "My friendshave been watching us while we have been talking in there for the lasthour. They're watching us now, and if I were to nod my head duringthis ride, they'd throw you out into the street and set me free, ifthey had to break the cab into kindling-wood while they were doing it. "

MacWilliams changed his seat to the one opposite his prisoner, andpeered up and down the street in some anxiety. 

"I suppose you know there's an answer to that, don't you?" he asked. "Well, the answer is, that if you nod your head once, you lose the topof it. "

Burke gave an exclamation of disgust, and gazed at his zealous guardianwith an expression of trepidation and unconcealed disapproval. "You'renot armed, are you?" he asked. 

MacWilliams nodded. "Why not?" he said; "these are rather heavyweather times, just at present, thanks to you and your friends. Why, you seem rather afraid of fire-arms, " he added, with the intolerance ofyouth. 

The Irish-American touched the young man on the knee, and lifted hishat. "My son, " he said, "when your hair is as gray as that, and youhave been through six campaigns, you'll be brave enough to own thatyou're afraid of fire-arms, too. "

X

Clay and Langham left MacWilliams and Stuart to look after theirprisoner, and returned to the Palms, where they dined in state, andmade no reference, while the women were present, to the events of theday. 

The moon rose late that night, and as Hope watched it, from where shesat at the dinner-table facing the open windows, she saw the figure ofa man standing outlined in silhouette upon the edge of the cliff. Hewas dressed in the uniform of a sailor, and the moonlight played alongthe barrel of a rifle upon which he leaned, motionless and menacing, like a sentry on a rampart. 

Hope opened her lips to speak, and then closed them again, and smiledwith pleasurable excitement. A moment later King, who sat on herright, called one of the servants to his side and whispered someinstructions, pointing meanwhile at the wine upon the table. And aminute after, Hope saw the white figure of the servant cross the gardenand approach the sentinel. She saw the sentry fling his gun sharply tohis hip, and then, after a moment's parley, toss it up to his shoulderand disappear from sight among the plants of the garden. 

The men did not leave the table with the ladies, as was their custom, but remained in the dining-room, and drew their chairs closer together. 

Mr. Langham would not believe that the downfall of the Government wasas imminent as the others believed it to be. It was only after muchargument, and with great reluctance, that he had even allowed King toarm half of his crew, and to place them on guard around the Palms. Clay warned him that in the disorder that followed every successfulrevolution, the homes of unpopular members of the Cabinet were oftenburned, and that he feared, should Mendoza succeed, and Alvarez fall, that the mob might possibly vent its victorious wrath on the Palmsbecause it was the home of the alien, who had, as they thought, robbedthe country of the iron mines. Mr. Langham said he did not think thepeople would tramp five miles into the country seeking vengeance. 

There was an American man-of-war lying in the harbor of Truxillo, aseaport of the republic that bounded Olancho on the south, and Clay wasin favor of sending to her captain by Weimer, the Consul, and askinghim to anchor off Valencia, to protect American interests. The runwould take but a few hours, and the sight of the vessel's white hull inthe harbor would, he thought, have a salutary effect upon therevolutionists. But Mr. Langham said, firmly, that he would not askfor help until he needed it. 

"Well, I'm sorry, " said Clay. "I should very much like to have thatman-of-war here. However, if you say no, we will try to get alongwithout her. But, for the present, I think you had better imagineyourself back in New York, and let us have an entirely free hand. We've gone too far to drop out, " he went on, laughing at the sight ofMr. Langham's gloomy countenance. "We've got to fight them now. It'sagainst human nature not to do it. "

Mr. Langham looked appealingly at his son and at King. 

They both smiled back at him in unanimous disapproval of his policy ofnon-interference. 

"Oh, very well, " he said, at last. "You gentlemen can go ahead, kill, burn, and destroy if you wish. But, considering the fact that it is myproperty you are all fighting about, I really think I might havesomething to say in the matter. " Mr. Langham gazed about himhelplessly, and shook his head. 

"My doctor sends me down here from a quiet, happy home, " he protested, with humorous pathos, "that I may rest and get away from excitement, and here I am with armed men patrolling my garden-paths, with a lot offilibusters plotting at my own dinner-table, and a civil war likely tobreak out, entirely on my account. And Dr. Winter told me this was theonly place that would cure my nervous prostration!"

Hope joined Clay as soon as the men left the dining-room, and beckonedhim to the farther end of the veranda. "Well, what is it?" she said. 

"What is what?" laughed Clay. He seated himself on the rail of theveranda, with his face to the avenue and the driveway leading to thehouse. They could hear the others from the back of the house, and thevoice of young Langham, who was giving an imitation of MacWilliams, andsinging with peculiar emphasis, "There is no place like Home, SweetHome. "

"Why are the men guarding the Palms, and why did you go to the PlazaBolivar this morning at daybreak? Alice says you left them there. Iwant to know what it means. I am nearly as old as Ted, and he knows. The men wouldn't tell me. "

"What men?"

"King's men from the 'Vesta'. I saw some of them dodging around in thebushes, and I went to find out what they were doing, and I walked intofifteen of them at your office. They have hammocks swung all over theveranda, and a quick-firing gun made fast to the steps, and musketsstacked all about, just like real soldiers, but they wouldn't tell mewhy. "

"We'll put you in the carcel, " said Clay, "if you go spying on ourforces. Your father doesn't wish you to know anything about it, but, since you have found it out for yourself, you might as well know whatlittle there is to know. It's the same story. Mendoza is getting readyto start his revolution, or, rather, he has started it. "

"Why don't you stop him?" asked Hope. 

"You are very flattering, " said Clay. "Even if I could stop him, it'snot my business to do it as yet. I have to wait until he interfereswith me, or my mines, or my workmen. Alvarez is the man who shouldstop him, but he is afraid. We cannot do anything until he makes thefirst move. If I were the President, I'd have Mendoza shot to-morrowmorning and declare martial law. Then I'd arrest everybody I didn'tlike, and levy forced loans on all the merchants, and sail away toParis and live happy ever after. That's what Mendoza would do if hecaught any one plotting against him. And that's what Alvarez shoulddo, too, according to his lights, if he had the courage of hisconvictions, and of his education. I like to see a man play his partproperly, don't you? If you are an emperor, you ought to conductyourself like one, as our German friend does. Or if you are aprize-fighter, you ought to be a human bulldog. There's no such thingas a gentlemanly pugilist, any more than there can be a virtuousburglar. And if you're a South American Dictator, you can't afford tobe squeamish about throwing your enemies into jail or shooting them fortreason. The way to dictate is to dictate, --not to hide indoors allday while your wife plots for you. "

"Does she do that?" asked Hope. "And do you think she will be indanger--any personal danger, if the revolution comes?"

"Well, she is very unpopular, " Clay answered, "and unjustly so, Ithink. But it would be better, perhaps, for her if she went as quietlyas possible, when she does go. "

"Is our Captain Stuart in danger, too?" the girl continued, anxiously. "Alice says they put up placards about him all over the city lastnight. She saw his men tearing them down as she was coming home. Whathas he done?"

"Nothing, " Clay answered, shortly. "He happens to be in a falseposition, that's all. They think he is here because he is not wantedin his own country; that is not so. That is not the reason he remainshere. When he was even younger than he is now, he was wild andfoolish, and spent more money than he could afford, and lent more moneyto his brother-officers, I have no doubt, than they ever paid back. Hehad to leave the regiment because his father wouldn't pay his debts, and he has been selling his sword for the last three years to one oranother king or sultan or party all over the world, in China andMadagascar, and later in Siam. I hope you will be very kind to Stuartand believe well of him, and that you will listen to no evil againsthim. Somewhere in England Stuart has a sister like you--about yourage, I mean, that loves him very dearly, and a father whose heart achesfor him, and there is a certain royal regiment that still drinks hishealth with pride. He is a lonely little chap, and he has no sense ofhumor to help him out of his difficulties, but he is a very bravegentleman. And he is here fighting for men who are not worthy to holdhis horse's bridle, because of a woman. And I tell you this becauseyou will hear many lies about him--and about her. He serves her withthe same sort of chivalric devotion that his ancestors felt for thewoman whose ribbons they tied to their lances, and for whom they foughtin the lists. "

"I understand, " Hope said, softly. "I am glad you told me. I shallnot forget. " She sighed and shook her head. "I wish they'd let youmanage it for them, " she said. 

Clay laughed. "I fear my executive ability is not of so high an order;besides, as I haven't been born to it, my conscience might trouble meif I had to shoot my enemies and rob the worthy merchants. I hadbetter stick to digging holes in the ground. That is all I seem to begood for. "

Hope looked up at him, quickly, in surprise. 

"What do you mean by that?" she demanded. There was a tone of suchsharp reproach in her voice that Clay felt himself put on the defensive. 

"I mean nothing by it, " he said. "Your sister and I had a talk theother day about a man's making the best of himself, and it opened myeyes to--to many things. It was a very healthy lesson. "

"It could not have been a very healthy lesson, " Hope replied, severely, "if it makes you speak of your work slightingly, as you did then. Thatdidn't sound at all natural, or like you. It sounded like Alice. Tellme, did Alice say that?"

The pleasure of hearing Hope take his part against himself was socomforting to Clay that he hesitated in answering in order to enjoy itthe longer. Her enthusiasm touched him deeply, and he wondered if shewere enthusiastic because she was young, or because she was sure shewas right, and that he was in the wrong. 

"It started this way, " Clay began, carefully. He was anxious to bequite fair to Miss Langham, but he found it difficult to give her pointof view correctly, while he was hungering for a word that wouldre-establish him in his own good opinion. "Your sister said she didnot think very much of what I had done, but she explained kindly thatshe hoped for better things from me. But what troubles me is, that Iwill never do anything much better or very different in kind from thework I have done lately, and so I am a bit discouraged about it inconsequence. You see, " said Clay, "when I come to die, and they ask mewhat I have done with my ten fingers, I suppose I will have to say, 'Well, I built such and such railroads, and I dug up so many tons ofore, and opened new countries, and helped make other men rich. ' Ican't urge in my behalf that I happen to have been so fortunate as tohave gained the good-will of yourself or your sister. That is quitereason enough to me, perhaps, for having lived, but it might not appealto them. I want to feel that I have accomplished something outside ofmyself--something that will remain after I go. Even if it is only abreakwater or a patent coupling. When I am dead it will not matter toany one what I personally was, whether I was a bore or a most charmingcompanion, or whether I had red hair or blue. It is the work that willtell. And when your sister, whose judgment is the judgment of theoutside world, more or less, says that the work is not worth while, Inaturally feel a bit discouraged. It meant so much to me, and it hurtme to find it meant so little to others. "

Hope remained silent for some time, but the rigidity of her attitude, and the tightness with which she pressed her lips together, showed thather mind was deeply occupied. They both sat silent for some fewmoments, looking down toward the distant lights of the city. At thefarther end of the double row of bushes that lined the avenue theycould see one of King's sentries passing to and fro across the roadway, a long black shadow on the moonlit road. 

"You are very unfair to yourself, " the girl said at last, "and Alicedoes not represent the opinion of the world, only of a very small partof it--her own little world. She does not know how little it is. Andyou are wrong as to what they will ask you at the end. What will theycare whether you built railroads or painted impressionist pictures?They will ask you 'What have you made of yourself? Have you been fine, and strong, and sincere?' That is what they will ask. And we like youbecause you are all of these things, and because you look at life socheerfully, and are unafraid. We do not like men because they buildrailroads, or because they are prime ministers. We like them for whatthey are themselves. And as to your work!" Hope added, and then pausedin eloquent silence. "I think it is a grand work, and a noble work, full of hardships and self-sacrifices. I do not know of any man whohas done more with his life than you have done with yours. " Shestopped and controlled her voice before she spoke again. "You shouldbe very proud, " she said. 

Clay lowered his eyes and sat silent, looking down the roadway. Thethought that the girl felt what she said so deeply, and that the factthat she had said it meant more to him than anything else in the worldcould mean, left him thrilled and trembling. He wanted to reach out hishand and seize both of hers, and tell her how much she was to him, butit seemed like taking advantage of the truths of a confessional, or ofa child's innocent confidences. 

"No, Miss Hope, " he answered, with an effort to speak lightly, "I wishI could believe you, but I know myself better than any one else can, and I know that while my bridges may stand examination--_I_ can't. "

Hope turned and looked at him with eyes full of such sweet meaning thathe was forced to turn his own away. 

"I could trust both, I think, " the girl said. 

Clay drew a quick, deep breath, and started to his feet, as though hehad thrown off the restraint under which he had held himself. 

It was not a girl, but a woman who had spoken then, but, though heturned eagerly toward her, he stood with his head bowed, and did notdare to read the verdict in her eyes. 

The clatter of horses' hoofs coming toward them at a gallop broke inrudely upon the tense stillness of the moment, but neither noticed it. "How far, " Clay began, in a strained voice, "how far, " he asked, moresteadily, "could you trust me?"

Hope's eyes had closed for an instant, and opened again, and she smiledupon him with a look of perfect confidence and content. The beat of thehorses' hoofs came now from the end of the driveway, and they couldhear the men at the rear of the house pushing back their chairs andhurrying toward them. Hope raised her head, and Clay moved toward hereagerly. The horses were within a hundred yards. Before Hope couldspeak, the sentry's voice rang out in a hoarse, sharp challenge, likean alarm of fire on the silent night. "Halt!" they heard him cry. Andas the horses tore past him, and their riders did not turn to look, heshouted again, "Halt, damn you!" and fired. The flash showed a splashof red and yellow in the moonlight, and the report started into lifehundreds of echoes which carried it far out over the waters of theharbor, and tossed it into sharp angles, and distant corners, and in aninstant a myriad of sounds answered it; the frightened cry ofnight-birds, the barking of dogs in the village below, and thefootsteps of men running. 

Clay glanced angrily down the avenue, and turned beseechingly to Hope. 

"Go, " she said. "See what is wrong, " and moved away as though shealready felt that he could act more freely when she was not near him. 

The two horses fell back on their haunches before the steps, andMacWilliams and Stuart tumbled out of their saddles, and started, running back on foot in the direction from which the shot had come, tugging at their revolvers. 

"Come back, " Clay shouted to them. "That's all right. He was onlyobeying orders. That's one of King's sentries. "

"Oh, is that it?" said Stuart, in matter-of-fact tones, as he turnedagain to the house. "Good idea. Tell him to fire lower next time. And, I say, " he went on, as he bowed curtly to the assembled company onthe veranda, "since you have got a picket out, you had better doubleit. And, Clay, see that no one leaves here without permission--no one. That's more important, even, than keeping them out. "

"King, will you--" Clay began. 

"All right, General, " laughed King, and walked away to meet hissailors, who came running up the hill in great anxiety. 

MacWilliams had not opened his lips, but he was bristling withimportance, and his effort to appear calm and soldierly, like Stuart, told more plainly than speech that he was the bearer of some invaluablesecret. The sight filled young Langham with a disquieting fear that hehad missed something. 

Stuart looked about him, and pulled briskly at his gauntlets. King andhis sailors were grouped together on the grass before the house. Mr. Langham and his daughters, and Clay, were standing on the steps, andthe servants were peering around the corners of the house. 

Stuart saluted Mr. Langham, as though to attract his especialattention, and then addressed himself in a low tone to Clay. 

"It's come, " he said. "We've been in it since dinner-time, and we'vegot a whole night's work cut out for you. " He was laughing withexcitement, and paused for a moment to gain breath. "I'll tell you theworst of it first. Mendoza has sent word to Alvarez that he wants themen at the mines to be present at the review to-morrow. He says theymust take part. He wrote a most insolent letter. Alvarez got out ofit by saying that the men were under contract to you, and that you mustgive your permission first. Mendoza sent me word that if you would notlet the men come, he would go out and fetch them in him self. "

"Indeed!" growled Clay. "Kirkland needs those men to-morrow to loadore-cars for Thursday's steamer. He can't spare them. That is ouranswer, and it happens to be a true one, but if it weren't true, ifto-morrow was All Saints' Day, and the men had nothing to do but to liein the sun and sleep, Mendoza couldn't get them. And if he comes totake them to-morrow, he'll have to bring his army with him to do it. And he couldn't do it then, Mr. Langham, " Clay cried, turning to thatgentleman, "if I had better weapons. The five thousand dollars Iwanted you to spend on rifles, sir, two months ago, might have savedyou several millions to-morrow. "

Clay's words seemed to bear some special significance to Stuart andMacWilliams, for they both laughed, and Stuart pushed Clay up the stepsbefore him. 

"Come inside, " he said. "That is why we are here. MacWilliams hasfound out where Burke hid his shipment of arms. We are going to try andget them to-night. " He hurried into the dining-room, and the othersgrouped themselves about the table. "Tell them about it, MacWilliams, "Stuart commanded. "I will see that no one overhears you. "

MacWilliams was pushed into Mr. Langham's place at the head of the longtable, and the others dragged their chairs up close around him. Kingput the candles at the opposite end of the table, and set somedecanters and glasses in the centre. "To look as though we were justenjoying ourselves, " he explained, pleasantly. 

Mr. Langham, with his fine, delicate fingers beating nervously on thetable, observed the scene as an on-looker, rather than as the personchiefly interested. He smiled as he appreciated the incongruity of thetableau, and the contrast which the actors presented to the situation. He imagined how much it would amuse his contemporaries of the UnionClub, at home, if they could see him then, with the still, tropicalnight outside, the candles reflected on the polished table and on theangles of the decanters, and showing the intent faces of the younggirls and the men leaning eagerly forward around MacWilliams, who satconscious and embarrassed, his hair dishevelled, and his face coveredwith dust, while Stuart paced up and down in the shadow, his sabreclanking as he walked. 

"Well, it happened like this, " MacWilliams began, nervously, andaddressing himself to Clay. "Stuart and I put Burke safely in a cellby himself. It was one of the old ones that face the street. Therewas a narrow window in it, about eight feet above the floor, and nomeans of his reaching it, even if he stood on a chair. We stationedtwo troopers before the door, and sent out to a café across the streetfor our dinners. I finished mine about nine o'clock, and said 'Goodnight' to Stuart, and started to come out here. I went across thestreet first, however, to give the restaurant man some orders aboutBurke's breakfast. It is a narrow street, you know, with a longgarden-wall and a row of little shops on one side, and with thejail-wall taking up all of the other side. The street was empty when Ileft the jail, except for the sentry on guard in front of it, but justas I was leaving the restaurant I saw one of Stuart's police come outand peer up and down the street and over at the shops. He lookedfrightened and anxious, and as I wasn't taking chances on anything, Istepped back into the restaurant and watched him through the window. He waited until the sentry had turned his back, and started away fromhim on his post, and then I saw him drop his sabre so that it rang onthe sidewalk. He was standing, I noticed then, directly under thethird window from the door of the jail. That was the window of Burke'scell. When I grasped that fact I got out my gun and walked to the doorof the restaurant. Just as I reached it a piece of paper shot outthrough the bars of Burke's cell and fell at the policeman's feet, andhe stamped his boot down on it and looked all around again to see ifany one had noticed him. I thought that was my cue, and I ran acrossthe street with my gun pointed, and shouted to him to give me thepaper. He jumped about a foot when he first saw me, but he was game, for he grabbed up the paper and stuck it in his mouth and began to chewon it. I was right up on him then, and I hit him on the chin with myleft fist and knocked him down against the wall, and dropped on himwith both knees and choked him till I made him spit out the paper--andtwo teeth, " MacWilliams added, with a conscientious regard for details. "The sentry turned just then and came at me with his bayonet, but I putmy finger to my lips, and that surprised him, so that he didn't knowjust what to do, and hesitated. You see, I didn't want Burke to hearthe row outside, so I grabbed my policeman by the collar and pointed tothe jail-door, and the sentry ran back and brought out Stuart and theguard. Stuart was pretty mad when he saw his policeman all bloody. Hethought it would prejudice his other men against us, but I explainedout loud that the man had been insolent, and I asked Stuart to take usboth to his private room for a hearing, and, of course, when I told himwhat had happened, he wanted to punch the chap, too. We put himourselves into a cell where he could not communicate with any one, andthen we read the paper. Stuart has it, " said MacWilliams, pushing backhis chair, "and he'll tell you the rest. " There was a pause, in whichevery one seemed to take time to breathe, and then a chorus ofquestions and explanations. 

King lifted his glass to MacWilliams, and nodded. 

"'Well done, Condor, '" he quoted, smiling. 

"Yes, " said Clay, tapping the younger man on the shoulder as he passedhim. "That's good work. Now show us the paper, Stuart. "

Stuart pulled the candles toward him, and spread a slip of paper on thetable. 

"Burke did this up in one of those paper boxes for wax matches, " heexplained, "and weighted it with a twenty-dollar gold piece. MacWilliams kept the gold piece, I believe. "

"Going to use it for a scarf-pin, " explained MacWilliams, inparenthesis. "Sort of war-medal, like the Chief's, " he added, smiling. 

"This is in Spanish, " Stuart explained. "I will translate it. It isnot addressed to any one, and it is not signed, but it was evidentlywritten to Mendoza, and we know it is in Burke's handwriting, for wecompared it with some notes of his that we took from him before he waslocked up. He says, 'I cannot keep the appointment, as I have beenarrested. ' The line that follows here, " Stuart explained, raising hishead, "has been scratched out, but we spent some time over it, and wemade out that it read: 'It was Mr. Clay who recognized me, and orderedmy arrest. He is the best man the others have. Watch him. ' We thinkhe rubbed that out through good feeling toward Clay. There seems to beno other reason. He's a very good sort, this old Burke, I think. "

"Well, never mind him; it was very decent of him, anyway, " said Clay. "Go on. Get to Hecuba. "

"'I cannot keep the appointment, as I have been arrested, '" repeatedStuart. "'I landed the goods last night in safety. I could not comein when first signalled, as the wind and tide were both off shore. Butwe got all the stuff stored away by morning. Your agent paid me infull and got my receipt. Please consider this as the same thing--as theequivalent'--it is difficult to translate it exactly, " commentedStuart--"'as the equivalent of the receipt I was to have given when Imade my report to-night. I sent three of your guards away on my ownresponsibility, for I think more than that number might attractattention to the spot, and they might be seen from the ore-trains. 'That is the point of the note for us, of course, " Stuart interruptedhimself to say. "Burke adds, " he went on, "'that they are to make noeffort to rescue him, as he is quite comfortable, and is willing toremain in the carcel until they are established in power. '"

"Within sight of the ore-trains!" exclaimed Clay. "There are noore-trains but ours. It must be along the line of the road. "

"MacWilliams says he knows every foot of land along the railroad, " saidStuart, "and he is sure the place Burke means is the old fortress onthe Platta inlet, because--"

"It is the only place, " interrupted MacWilliams, "where there is nosurf. They could run small boats up the inlet and unload in smoothwater within twenty feet of the ramparts; and another thing, that isthe only point on the line with a wagon road running direct from it tothe Capital. It's an old road, and hasn't been travelled over foryears, but it could be used. No, " he added, as though answering thedoubt in Clay's mind, "there is no other place. If I had a map here Icould show you in a minute; where the beach is level there is a junglebetween it and the road, and wherever there is open country, there is alimestone formation and rocks between it and the sea, where no boatcould touch. "

"But the fortress is so conspicuous, " Clay demurred; "the nearestrampart is within twenty feet of the road. Don't you remember wemeasured it when we thought of laying the double track?"

"That is just what Burke says, " urged Stuart. "That is the reason hegives for leaving only three men on guard--'I think more than thatnumber might attract attention to the spot, as they might be seen fromthe ore-trains. '"

"Have you told any one of this?" Clay asked. "What have you done sofar?"

"We've done nothing, " said Stuart. "We lost our nerve when we foundout how much we knew, and we decided we'd better leave it to you. "

"Whatever we do must be done at once, " said Clay. "They will come forthe arms to-night, most likely, and we must be there first. I agreewith you entirely about the place. It is only a question now of ourbeing on time. There are two things to do. The first thing is, tokeep them from getting the arms, and the second is, if we are lucky, tosecure them for ourselves. If we can pull it off properly, we ought tohave those rifles in the mines before midnight. If we are hurried orsurprised, we must dump them off the fort into the sea. " Clay laughedand looked about him at the men. "We are only following out GeneralBolivar's saying 'When you want arms take them from the enemy. ' Now, there are three places we must cover. This house, first of all, " hewent on, inclining his head quickly toward the two sisters, "then thecity, and the mines. Stuart's place, of course, is at the Palace. King must take care of this house and those in it, and MacWilliams andLangham and I must look after the arms. We must organize two parties, and they had better approach the fort from here and from the mines atthe same time. I will need you to do some telegraphing for me, Mac;and, King, I must ask you for some more men from the yacht. How manyhave you?"

King answered that there were fifteen men still on board, ten of whomwould be of service. He added that they were all well equipped forfighting. 

"I believe King's a pirate in business hours, " Clay said, smiling. "All right, that's good. Now go tell ten of them to meet me at theround-house in half an hour. I will get MacWilliams to telegraphKirkland to run an engine and flat cars to within a half mile of thefort on the north, and we will come up on it with the sailors and Ted, here, from the south. You must run the engine yourself, MacWilliams, and perhaps it would be better, King, if your men joined us at the footof the grounds here and not at the round-house. None of the workmenmust see our party start. Do you agree with me?" he asked, turning tothose in the group about him. "Has anybody any criticism to make?"

Stuart and King looked at one another ruefully and laughed. "I don'tsee what good I am doing in town, " protested Stuart. "Yes, and I don'tsee where I come in, either, " growled King, in aggrieved tones. "Theseyoungsters can't do it all; besides I ought to have charge of my ownmen. "

"Mutiny, " said Clay, in some perplexity, "rank mutiny. Why, it's onlya picnic. There are but three men there. We don't need sixteen whitemen to frighten off three Olanchoans. "

"I'll tell you what to do, " cried Hope, with the air of havingdiscovered a plan which would be acceptable to every one, "let's allgo. "

"Well, I certainly mean to go, " said Mr. Langham, decidedly. "So someone else must stay here. Ted, you will have to look after yoursisters. "

The son and heir smiled upon his parent with a look of affectionatewonder, and shook his head at him in fond and pitying disapproval. 

"I'll stay, " said King. "I have never seen such ungallant conduct. Ladies, " he said, "I will protect your lives and property, and we'llinvent something exciting to do ourselves, even if we have to bombardthe Capital. "

The men bade the women good-night, and left them with King and Mr. Langham, who had been persuaded to remain overnight, while Stuart rodeoff to acquaint Alvarez and General Rojas with what was going on. 

XI

There was no chance for Clay to speak to Hope again, though he felt thecruelty of having to leave her with everything between them in thisinterrupted state. But their friends stood about her, interested andexcited over this expedition of smuggled arms, unconscious of the greatmiracle that had come into his life and of his need to speak to and totouch the woman who had wrought it. Clay felt how much more bindingthan the laws of life are the little social conventions that must beobserved at times, even though the heart is leaping with joy or rackedwith sorrow. He stood within a few feet of the woman he loved, wantingto cry out at her and to tell her all the wonderful things which he hadlearned were true for the first time that night, but he was forcedinstead to keep his eyes away from her face and to laugh and answerquestions, and at the last to go away content with having held her handfor an instant, and to have heard her say "good-luck. "

MacWilliams called Kirkland to the office at the other end of theCompany's wire, and explained the situation to him. He was instructedto run an engine and freight-cars to a point a quarter of a mile northof the fort, and to wait there until he heard a locomotive whistle orpistol shots, when he was to run on to the fort as quickly and asnoiselessly as possible. He was also directed to bring with him asmany of the American workmen as he could trust to keep silentconcerning the events of the evening. At ten o'clock MacWilliams hadthe steam up in a locomotive, and with his only passenger-car in therear, ran it out of the yard and stopped the train at the point nearestthe cars where ten of the 'Vesta's' crew were waiting. The sailors hadno idea as to where they were going, or what they were to do, but thefact that they had all been given arms filled them with satisfaction, and they huddled together at the bottom of the car smoking andwhispering, and radiant with excitement and satisfaction. 

The train progressed cautiously until it was within a half mile belowthe fort, when Clay stopped it, and, leaving two men on guard, steppedoff the remaining distance on the ties, his little band followingnoiselessly behind him like a procession of ghosts in the moonlight. They halted and listened from time to time as they drew near the ruins, but there was no sound except the beating of the waves on the rocks andthe rustling of the sea-breeze through the vines and creepers aboutthem. 

Clay motioned to the men to sit down, and, beckoning to MacWilliams, directed him to go on ahead and reconnoitre. 

"If you fire we will come up, " he said. "Get back here as soon as youcan. "

"Aren't you going to make sure first that Kirkland is on the other sideof the fort?" MacWilliams whispered. 

Clay replied that he was certain Kirkland had already arrived. "He hada shorter run than ours, and he wired you he was ready to start when wewere, didn't he?" MacWilliams nodded. 

"Well, then, he is there. I can count on Kirk. "

MacWilliams pulled at his heavy boots and hid them in the bushes, withhis helmet over them to mark the spot. "I feel as though I was goingto rob a bank, " he chuckled, as he waved his hand and crept off intothe underbrush. 

For the first few moments the men who were left behind sat silent, butas the minutes wore on, and MacWilliams made no sign, they grewrestless, and shifted their positions, and began to whisper together, until Clay shook his head at them, and there was silence again untilone of them, in trying not to cough, almost strangled, and the otherstittered and those nearest pummelled him on the back. 

Clay pulled out his revolver, and after spinning the cylinder under hisfinger-nail, put it back in its holder again, and the men, taking thisas an encouraging promise of immediate action, began to examine theirweapons again for the twentieth time, and there was a chorus of short, muffled clicks as triggers were drawn back and cautiously lowered andlevers shot into place and caught again. 

One of the men farthest down the track raised his arm, and all turnedand half rose as they saw MacWilliams coming toward them on a run, leaping noiselessly in his stocking feet from tie to tie. He droppedon his knees between Clay and Langham. 

"The guns are there all right, " he whispered, panting, "and there areonly three men guarding them. They are all sitting on the beachsmoking. I hustled around the fort and came across the whole outfit inthe second gallery. It looks like a row of coffins, ten coffins andabout twenty little boxes and kegs. I'm sure that means they arecoming for them to-night. They've not tried to hide them nor to coverthem up. All we've got to do is to walk down on the guards and tellthem to throw up their hands. It's too easy. "

Clay jumped to his feet. "Come on, " he said. 

"Wait till I get my boots on first, " begged MacWilliams. "I wouldn'tgo over those cinders again in my bare feet for all the buried treasurein the Spanish Main. You can make all the noise you want; the waveswill drown it. "

With MacWilliams to show them the way, the men scrambled up the outerwall of the fort and crossed the moss-covered ramparts at the run. Below them, on the sandy beach, were three men sitting around adriftwood fire that had sunk to a few hot ashes. Clay nodded toMacWilliams. "You and Ted can have them, " he said. "Go with him, Langham. "

The sailors levelled their rifles at the three lonely figures on thebeach as the two boys slipped down the wall and fell on their hands andfeet in the sand below, and then crawled up to within a few feet ofwhere the men were sitting. 

As MacWilliams raised his revolver one of the three, who was cookingsomething over the fire, raised his head and with a yell of warningflung himself toward his rifle. 

"Up with your hands!" MacWilliams shouted in Spanish, and Langham, running in, seized the nearest sentry by the neck and shoved his facedown between his knees into the sand. 

There was a great rattle of falling stones and of breaking vines as thesailors tumbled down the side of the fort, and in a half minute's timethe three sentries were looking with angry, frightened eyes at thecircle of armed men around them. 

"Now gag them, " said Clay. "Does anybody here know how to gag a man?"he asked. "I don't. "

"Better make him tell what he knows first, " suggested Langham. 

But the Spaniards were too terrified at what they had done, or at whatthey had failed to do, to further commit themselves. 

"Tie us and gag us, " one of them begged. "Let them find us so. It isthe kindest thing you can do for us. "

"Thank you, sir, " said Clay. "That is what I wanted to know. They arecoming to-night, then. We must hurry. "

The three sentries were bound and hidden at the base of the wall, witha sailor to watch them. He was a young man with a high sense of theimportance of his duties, and he enlivened the prisoners by poking themin the ribs whenever they moved. 

Clay deemed it impossible to signal Kirkland as they had arranged todo, as they could not know now how near those who were coming for thearms might be. So MacWilliams was sent back for his engine, and a fewminutes later they heard it rumble heavily past the fort on its way tobring up Kirkland and the flat cars. Clay explored the lower chambersof the fort and found the boxes as MacWilliams had described them. Tenmen, with some effort, could lift and carry the larger coffin-shapedboxes, and Clay guessed that, granting their contents to be rifles, there must be a hundred pieces in each box, and that there were athousand rifles in all. 

They had moved half of the boxes to the side of the track when thetrain of flat cars and the two engines came crawling and twistingtoward them, between the walls of the jungle, like a great serpent, with no light about it but the glow from the hot ashes as they fellbetween the rails. Thirty men, equally divided between Irish andnegroes, fell off the flat cars before the wheels had ceased torevolve, and, without a word of direction, began loading the heavyboxes on the train and passing the kegs of cartridges from hand to handand shoulder to shoulder. The sailors spread out up the road that ledto the Capital to give warning in case the enemy approached, but theywere recalled before they had reason to give an alarm, and in a halfhour Burke's entire shipment of arms was on the ore-cars, the men whowere to have guarded them were prisoners in the cab of the engine, andboth trains were rushing at full speed toward the mines. On arrivingthere Kirkland's train was switched to the siding that led to themagazine in which was stored the rack-arock and dynamite used in theblasting. By midnight all of the boxes were safely under lock in thezinc building, and the number of the men who always guarded the placefor fear of fire or accident was doubled, while a reserve, composed ofKirkland's thirty picked men, were hidden in the surrounding houses andengine-sheds. 

Before Clay left he had one of the boxes broken open, and found that itheld a hundred Mannlicher rifles. 

"Good!" he said. "I'd give a thousand dollars in gold if I could bringMendoza out here and show him his own men armed with his ownMannlichers and dying for a shot at him. How old Burke will enjoy thiswhen he hears of it!"

The party from the Palms returned to their engine after many promisesof reward to the men for their work "over-time, " and were soon flyingback with their hearts as light as the smoke above them. 

MacWilliams slackened speed as they neared the fort, and moved upcautiously on the scene of their recent victory, but a warning cry fromClay made him bring his engine to a sharp stop. Many lights wereflashing over the ruins and they could see in their reflection thefigures of men running over the same walls on which the lizards hadbasked in undisturbed peace for years. 

"They look like a swarm of hornets after some one has chucked a stonethrough their nest, " laughed MacWilliams. "What shall we do now? Goback, or wait here, or run the blockade?"

"Oh, ride them out, " said Langham; "the family's anxious, and I want totell them what's happened. Go ahead. "

Clay turned to the sailors in the car behind them. "Lie down, men, " hesaid. "And don't any of you fire unless I tell you to. Let them doall the shooting. This isn't our fight yet, and, besides, they can'thit a locomotive standing still, certainly not when it's going at fullspeed. "

"Suppose they've torn the track up?" said MacWilliams, grinning. "We'dlook sort of silly flying through the air. "

"Oh, they've not sense enough to think of that, " said Clay. "Besides, they don't know it was we who took their arms away, yet. "

MacWilliams opened the throttle gently, and the train moved slowlyforward, gaining speed at each revolution of the wheels. 

As the noise of its approach beat louder and louder on the air, a yellof disappointed rage and execration rose into the night from the fort, and a mass of soldiers swarmed upon the track, leaping up and down andshaking the rifles in their hands. 

"That sounds a little as though they thought we had something to dowith it, " said MacWilliams, grimly. "If they don't look out some onewill get hurt. "

There was a flash of fire from where the mass of men stood, followed bya dozen more flashes, and the bullets rattled on the smokestack andupon the boiler of the engine. 

"Low bridge, " cried MacWilliams, with a fierce chuckle. "Now, watchher!"

He threw open the throttle as far as it would go, and the engineanswered to his touch like a race-horse to the whip. It seemed tospring from the track into the air. It quivered and shook like a livething, and as it shot in between the soldiers they fell back on eitherside, and MacWilliams leaned far out of his cab-window shaking his fistat them. 

"You got left, didn't you?" he shouted. "Thank you for theMannlichers. "

As the locomotive rushed out of the jungle, and passed the point on theroad nearest to the Palms, MacWilliams loosened three long triumphantshrieks from his whistle and the sailors stood up and cheered. 

"Let them shout, " cried Clay. "Everybody will have to know now. It'sbegun at last, " he said, with a laugh of relief. 

"And we took the first trick, " said MacWilliams, as he ran his engineslowly into the railroad yard. 

The whistles of the engine and the shouts of the sailors had carriedfar through the silence of the night, and as the men came hurryingacross the lawn to the Palms, they saw all of those who had been leftbehind grouped on the veranda awaiting them. 

"Do the conquering heroes come?" shouted King. 

"They do, " young Langham cried, joyously. "We've got all their arms, and they shot at us. We've been under fire!"

"Are any of you hurt?" asked Miss Langham, anxiously, as she and theothers hurried down the steps to welcome them, while those of the'Vesta's' crew who had been left behind looked at their comrades withenvy. 

"We have been so frightened and anxious about you, " said Miss Langham. 

Hope held out her hand to Clay and greeted him with a quiet, happysmile, that was in contrast to the excitement and confusion thatreigned about them. 

"I knew you would come back safely, " she said. And the pressure of herhand seemed to add "to me. "

XII

The day of the review rose clear and warm, tempered by a light breezefrom the sea. As it was a fete day, the harbor wore an air of unwontedinactivity; no lighters passed heavily from the levees to themerchantmen at anchor, and the warehouses along the wharves were closedand deserted. A thin line of smoke from the funnels of the 'Vesta'showed that her fires were burning, and the fact that she rode on asingle anchor chain seemed to promise that at any moment she might slipaway to sea. 

As Clay was finishing his coffee two notes were brought to him frommessengers who had ridden out that morning, and who sat in theirsaddles looking at the armed force around the office with amusedintelligence. 

One note was from Mendoza, and said he had decided not to call out theregiment at the mines, as he feared their long absence from drill wouldmake them compare unfavorably with their comrades, and do him more harmthan credit. "He is afraid of them since last night, " was Clay'scomment, as he passed the note on to MacWilliams. "He's quite right, they might do him harm. "

The second note was from Stuart. He said the city was already wideawake and restless, but whether this was due to the fact that it was afete day, or to some other cause which would disclose itself later, hecould not tell. Madame Alvarez, the afternoon before, while riding inthe Alameda, had been insulted by a group of men around a café, who hadrisen and shouted after her, one of them throwing a wine-glass into herlap as she rode past. His troopers had charged the sidewalk andcarried off six of the men to the carcel. He and Rojas had urged thePresident to make every preparation for immediate flight, to have thehorses put to his travelling carriage, and had warned him when at thereview to take up his position at the point nearest to his ownbody-guard, and as far as possible from the troops led by Mendoza. Stuart added that he had absolute confidence in the former. Thepoliceman who had attempted to carry Burke's note to Mendoza hadconfessed that he was the only traitor in the camp, and that he hadtried to work on his comrades without success. Stuart begged Clay tojoin him as quickly as possible. Clay went up the hill to the Palms, and after consulting with Mr. Langham, dictated an order to Kirkland, instructing him to call the men together and to point out to them howmuch better their condition had been since they had entered the mines, and to promise them an increase of wages if they remained faithful toMr. Langham's interests, and a small pension to any one who might beinjured "from any cause whatsoever" while serving him. 

"Tell them, if they are loyal, they can live in their shacks rent freehereafter, " wrote Clay. "They are always asking for that. It's acheap generosity, " he added aloud to Mr. Langham, "because we've neverbeen able to collect rent from any of them yet. "

At noon young Langham ordered the best three horses in the stables tobe brought to the door of the Palms for Clay, MacWilliams, and himself. Clay's last words to King were to have the yacht in readiness to put tosea when he telephoned him to do so, and he advised the women to havetheir dresses and more valuable possessions packed ready to be taken onboard. 

"Don't you think I might see the review if I went on horseback?" Hopeasked. "I could get away then, if there should be any trouble. "

Clay answered with a look of such alarm and surprise that Hope laughed. 

"See the review! I should say not, " he exclaimed. "I don't even wantTed to be there. "

"Oh, that's always the way, " said Hope, "I miss everything. I thinkI'll come, however, anyhow. The servants are all going, and I'll gowith them disguised in a turban. "

As the men neared Valencia, Clay turned in his saddle, and askedLangham if he thought his sister would really venture into the town. 

"She'd better not let me catch her, if she does, " the fond brotherreplied. 

The reviewing party left the Government Palace for the Alameda at threeo'clock, President Alvarez riding on horseback in advance, and MadameAlvarez sitting in the State carriage with one of her attendants, andwith Stuart's troopers gathered so closely about her that the men'sboots scraped against the wheels, and their numbers hid her almostentirely from sight. 

The great square in which the evolutions were to take place was linedon its four sides by the carriages of the wealthy Olanchoans, except atthe two gates, where there was a wide space left open to admit thesoldiers. The branches of the trees on the edges of the bare paradeground were black with men and boys, and the balconies and roofs of thehouses that faced it were gay with streamers and flags, and alive withwomen wrapped for the occasion in their colored shawls. Seated on thegrass between the carriages, or surging up and down behind them, werethousands of people, each hurrying to gain a better place of vantage, or striving to hold the one he had, and forming a restless, turbulentaudience in which all individual cries were lost in a great murmur oflaughter, and calls, and cheers. The mass knit together, and pressedforward as the President's band swung jauntily into the square andhalted in one corner, and a shout of expectancy went up from the treesand housetops as the President's body-guard entered at the lower gate, and the broken place in its ranks showed that it was escorting theState carriage. The troopers fell back on two sides, and the carriage, with the President riding at its head, passed on, and took up aposition in front of the other carriages, and close to one of the sidesof the hollow square. At Stuart's orders Clay, MacWilliams, andLangham had pushed their horses into the rear rank of cavalry, andremained wedged between the troopers within twenty feet of where MadameAlvarez was sitting. She was very white, and the powder on her facegave her an added and unnatural pallor. As the people cheered herhusband and herself she raised her head slightly and seemed to betrying to catch any sound of dissent in their greeting, or somepossible undercurrent of disfavor, but the welcome appeared to be bothgenuine and hearty, until a second shout smothered it completely as thefigure of old General Rojas, the Vice-President, and the most dearlyloved by the common people, came through the gate at the head of hisregiment. There was such greeting for him that the welcome to thePresident seemed mean in comparison, and it was with an embarrassmentwhich both felt that the two men drew near together, and each leanedfrom his saddle to grasp the other's hand. Madame Alvarez sank backrigidly on her cushions, and her eyes flashed with anticipation andexcitement. She drew her mantilla a little closer about her shoulders, with a nervous shudder as though she were cold. Suddenly the look ofanxiety in her eyes changed to one of annoyance, and she beckoned Clayimperiously to the side of the carriage. 

"Look, " she said, pointing across the square. "If I am not mistakenthat is Miss Langham, Miss Hope. The one on the black horse--it mustbe she, for none of the native ladies ride. It is not safe for her tobe here alone. Go, " she commanded, "bring her here to me. Put hernext to the carriage, or perhaps she will be safer with you among thetroopers. "

Clay had recognized Hope before Madame Alvarez had finished speaking, and dashed off at a gallop, skirting the line of carriages. Hope hadstopped her horse beside a victoria, and was talking to the nativewomen who occupied it, and who were scandalized at her appearance in apublic place with no one but a groom to attend her. 

"Why, it's the same thing as a polo match, " protested Hope, as Claypulled up angrily beside the victoria. "I always ride over to poloalone at Newport, at least with James, " she added, nodding her headtoward the servant. 

The man approached Clay and touched his hat apologetically, "Miss Hopewould come, sir, " he said, "and I thought I'd better be with her thanto go off and tell Mr. Langham, sir. I knew she wouldn't wait for me. "

"I asked you not to come, " Clay said to Hope, in a low voice. 

"I wanted to know the worst at once, " she answered. "I was anxiousabout Ted--and you. "

"Well, it can't be helped now, " he said. "Come, we must hurry, here isour friend, the enemy. " He bowed to their acquaintances in thevictoria and they trotted briskly off to the side of the President'scarriage, just as a yell arose from the crowd that made all the othershouts which had preceded it sound like the cheers of children atrecess. 

"It reminds me of a football match, " whispered young Langham, excitedly, "when the teams run on the field. Look at Alvarez and Rojaswatching Mendoza. "

Mendoza advanced at the front of his three troops of cavalry, lookingneither to the left nor right, and by no sign acknowledging the fierceuproarious greeting of the people. Close behind him came his chosenband of cowboys and ruffians. They were the best equipped and leastdisciplined soldiers in the army, and were, to the great relief of thepeople, seldom seen in the city, but were kept moving in the mountainpasses and along the coast line, on the lookout for smugglers with whomthey were on the most friendly terms. They were a picturesque body ofblackguards, in their hightopped boots and silver-tipped sombreros andheavy, gaudy saddles, but the shout that had gone up at their advancewas due as much to the fear they inspired as to any great love for themor their chief. 

"Now all the chessmen are on the board, and the game can begin, " saidClay. "It's like the scene in the play, where each man has his swordat another man's throat and no one dares make the first move. " Hesmiled as he noted, with the eye of one who had seen Continental troopsin action, the shuffling steps and slovenly carriage of the half-grownsoldiers that followed Mendoza's cavalry at a quick step. Stuart'spicked men, over whom he had spent many hot and weary hours, lookedlike a troop of Life Guardsmen in comparison. Clay noted theirsuperiority, but he also saw that in numbers they were most woefully ata disadvantage. 

It was a brilliant scene for so modest a capital. The sun flashed onthe trappings of the soldiers, on the lacquer and polished metal workof the carriages; and the Parisian gowns of their occupants and thefluttering flags and banners filled the air with color and movement, while back of all, framing the parade ground with a band of black, wasthe restless mob of people applauding the evolutions, and cheering fortheir favorites, Alvarez, Mendoza, and Rojas, moved by an excitementthat was in disturbing contrast to the easy good-nature of their usualmanner. 

The marching and countermarching of the troops had continued withspirit for some time, and there was a halt in the evolutions which leftthe field vacant, except for the presence of Mendoza's cavalrymen, whowere moving at a walk along one side of the quadrangle. Alvarez andVice-President Rojas, with Stuart, as an adjutant at their side, weresitting their horses within some fifty yards of the State carriage andthe body-guard. Alvarez made a conspicuous contrast in his black coatand high hat to the brilliant greens and reds of his generals'uniforms, but he sat his saddle as well as either of the others, andhis white hair, white imperial and mustache, and the dignity of hisbearing distinguished him above them both. Little Stuart, sitting athis side, with his blue eyes glaring from under his white helmet andhis face burned to almost as red a tint as his curly hair, looked likea fierce little bull-dog in comparison. None of the three men spoke asthey sat motionless and quite alone waiting for the next movement ofthe troops. 

It proved to be one of moment. Even before Mendoza had ridden towardthem with his sword at salute, Clay gave an exclamation ofenlightenment and concern. He saw that the men who were believed to bedevoted to Rojas, had been halted and left standing at the farthestcorner of the plaza, nearly two hundred yards from where the Presidenthad taken his place, that Mendoza's infantry surrounded them on everyside, and that Mendoza's cowboys, who had been walking their horses, had wheeled and were coming up with an increasing momentum, a flyingmass of horses and men directed straight at the President himself. 

Mendoza galloped up to Alvarez with his sword still in salute. His eyeswere burning with excitement and with the light of success. No one butStuart and Rojas heard his words; to the spectators and to the army heappeared as though he was, in his capacity of Commander-in-Chief, delivering some brief report, or asking for instructions. 

"Dr. Alvarez, " he said, "as the head of the army I arrest you for hightreason; you have plotted to place yourself in office without popularelection. You are also accused of large thefts of public funds. Imust ask you to ride with me to the military prison. General Rojas, Iregret that as an accomplice of the President's, you must come with usalso. I will explain my action to the people when you are safe inprison, and I will proclaim martial law. If your troops attempt tointerfere, my men have orders to fire on them and you. "

Stuart did not wait for his sentence. He had heard the heavy beat ofthe cavalry coming up on them at a trot. He saw the ranks open and twomen catch at each bridle rein of both Alvarez and Rojas and drag themon with them, buried in the crush of horses about them, and sweptforward by the weight and impetus of the moving mass behind. Stuartdashed off to the State carriage and seized the nearest of the horsesby the bridle. "To the Palace!" he shouted to his men. "Shoot any onewho tries to stop you. Forward, at a gallop, " he commanded. 

The populace had not discovered what had occurred until it wasfinished. The coup d'etat had been long considered and the manner inwhich it was to be carried out carefully planned. The cavalry hadswept across the parade ground and up the street before the people sawthat they carried Rojas and Alvarez with them. The regiment commandedby Rojas found itself hemmed in before and behind by Mendoza's tworegiments. They were greatly outnumbered, but they fired a scatteringshot, and following their captured leader, broke through the linearound them and pursued the cavalry toward the military prison. 

It was impossible to tell in the uproar which followed how many or howfew had been parties to the plot. The mob, shrieking and shouting andleaping in the air, swarmed across the parade ground, and from a dozendifferent points men rose above the heads of the people and haranguedthem in violent speeches. And while some of the soldiers and thecitizens gathered anxiously about these orators, others ran through thecity calling for the rescue of the President, for an attack on thepalace, and shrieking "Long live the Government!" and "Long live theRevolution!" The State carriage raced through the narrow streets withits body-guard galloping around it, sweeping down in its rush straypedestrians, and scattering the chairs and tables in front of thecafés. As it dashed up the long avenue of the palace, Stuart calledhis men back and ordered them to shut and barricade the great irongates and to guard them against the coming of the mob, whileMacWilliams and young Langham pulled open the carriage door andassisted the President's wife and her terrified companion to alight. Madame Alvarez was trembling with excitement as she leaned on Langham'sarm, but she showed no signs of fear in her face or in her manner. 

"Mr. Clay has gone to bring your travelling carriage to the rear door, "Langham said. "Stuart tells us it is harnessed and ready. You willhurry, please, and get whatever you need to carry with you. We willsee you safely to the coast. "

As they entered the hall, and were ascending the great marble stairway, Hope and her groom, who had followed in the rear of the cavalry, camerunning to meet them. "I got in by the back way, " Hope explained. "The streets there are all deserted. How can I help you?" she asked, eagerly. 

"By leaving me, " cried the older woman. "Good God, child, have I notenough to answer for without dragging you into this? Go home at oncethrough the botanical garden, and then by way of the wharves. Thatpart of the city is still empty. "

"Where are your servants; why are they not here?" Hope demanded withoutheeding her. The palace was strangely empty; no footsteps came runningto greet them, no doors opened or shut as they hurried to MadameAlvarez's apartments. The servants of the household had fled at thefirst sound of the uproar in the city, and the dresses and ornamentsscattered on the floor told that they had not gone empty-handed. Thewoman who had accompanied Madame Alvarez to the review sank weeping onthe bed, and then, as the shouts grew suddenly louder and more near, ran to hide herself in the upper stories of the house. Hope crossed tothe window and saw a great mob of soldiers and citizens sweep aroundthe corner and throw themselves against the iron fence of the palace. "You will have to hurry, " she said. "Remember, you are risking thelives of those boys by your delay. "

There was a large bed in the room, and Madame Alvarez had pulled itforward and was bending over a safe that had opened in the wall, andwhich had been hidden by the head board of the bed. She held up abundle of papers in her hand, wrapped in a leather portfolio. "Do yousee these?" she cried, "they are drafts for five millions of dollars. "She tossed them back into the safe and swung the door shut. 

"You are a witness. I do not take them, " she said. 

"I don't understand, " Hope answered, "but hurry. Have you everythingyou want--have you your jewels?"

"Yes, " the woman answered, as she rose to her feet, "they are mine. "

A yell more loud and terrible than any that had gone before rose fromthe garden below, and there was the sound of iron beating against iron, and cries of rage and execration from a great multitude. 

"I will not go!" the Spanish woman cried, suddenly. "I will not leaveAlvarez to that mob. If they want to kill me, let them kill me. " Shethrew the bag that held her jewels on the bed, and pushing open thewindow stepped out upon the balcony. She was conspicuous in her blackdress against the yellow stucco of the wall, and in an instant the mobsaw her and a mad shout of exultation and anger rose from the mass thatbeat and crushed itself against the high iron railings of the garden. Hope caught the woman by the skirt and dragged her back. "You aremad, " she said. "What good can you do your husband here? Saveyourself and he will come to you when he can. There is nothing you cando for him now; you cannot give your life for him. You are wasting it, and you are risking the lives of the men who are waiting for us below. Come, I tell you. "

MacWilliams left Clay waiting beside the diligence and ran from thestable through the empty house and down the marble stairs to the gardenwithout meeting any one on his way. He saw Stuart helping anddirecting his men to barricade the gates with iron urns and gardenbenches and sentry-boxes. Outside the mob were firing at him withtheir revolvers, and calling him foul names, but Stuart did not seem tohear them. He greeted MacWilliams with a cheerful little laugh. "Well, " he asked, "is she ready?"

"No, but we are. Clay and I've been waiting there for five minutes. We found Miss Hope's groom and sent him back to the Palms with amessage to King. We told him to run the yacht to Los Bocos and lie offshore until we came. He is to take her on down the coast to Truxillo, where our man-of-war is lying, and they will give her shelter as apolitical refugee. "

"Why don't you drive her to the Palms at once?" demanded Stuart, anxiously, "and take her on board the yacht there? It is ten miles toBocos and the roads are very bad. "

"Clay says we could never get her through the city, " MacWilliamsanswered. "We should have to fight all the way. But the city to thesouth is deserted, and by going out by the back roads, we can makeBocos by ten o'clock to-night. The yacht should reach there by seven. "

"You are right; go back. I will call off some of my men. The restmust hold this mob back until you start; then I will follow with theothers. Where is Miss Hope?"

"We don't know. Clay is frantic. Her groom says she is somewhere inthe palace. "

"Hurry, " Stuart commanded. "If Mendoza gets here before Madame Alvarezleaves, it will be too late. "

MacWilliams sprang up the steps of the palace, and Stuart, calling tothe men nearest him to follow, started after him on a run. 

As Stuart entered the palace with his men at his heels, Clay washurrying from its rear entrance along the upper hall, and Hope andMadame Alvarez were leaving the apartments of the latter at its front. They met at the top of the main stairway just as Stuart put his foot onits lower step. The young Englishman heard the clatter of his menfollowing close behind him and leaped eagerly forward. Half way to thetop the noise behind him ceased, and turning his head quickly he lookedback over his shoulder and saw that the men had halted at the foot ofthe stairs and stood huddled together in disorder looking up at him. Stuart glanced over their heads and down the hallway to the gardenbeyond to see if they were followed, but the mob still fought from theouter side of the barricade. He waved his sword impatiently andstarted forward again. "Come on!" he shouted. But the men below himdid not move. Stuart halted once more and this time turned about andlooked down upon them with surprise and anger. There was not one ofthem he could not have called by name. He knew all their littletroubles, their love-affairs, even. They came to him for comfort andadvice, and to beg for money. He had regarded them as his children, and he was proud of them as soldiers because they were the work of hishands. 

So, instead of a sharp command, he asked, "What is it?" in surprise, and stared at them wondering. He could not or would not comprehend, even though he saw that those in the front rank were pushing back andthose behind were urging them forward. The muzzles of their carbineswere directed at every point, and on their faces fear and hate andcowardice were written in varying likenesses. 

"What does this mean?" Stuart demanded, sharply. "What are you waitingfor?"

Clay had just reached the top of the stairs. He saw Madame Alvarez andHope coming toward him, and at the sight of Hope he gave an exclamationof relief. 

Then his eyes turned and fell on the tableau below, on Stuart's back, as he stood confronting the men, and on their scowling upturned facesand half-lifted carbines. Clay had lived for a longer time amongSpanish-Americans than had the English subaltern, or else he was thequicker of the two to believe in evil and ingratitude, for he gave acry of warning, and motioned the women away. 

"Stuart!" he cried. "Come away; for God's sake, what are you doing?Come back!"

The Englishman started at the sound of his friend's voice, but he didnot turn his head. He began to descend the stairs slowly, a step at atime, staring at the mob so fiercely that they shrank back before thelook of wounded pride and anger in his eyes. Those in the rear raisedand levelled their rifles. Without taking his eyes from theirs, Stuartdrew his revolver, and with his sword swinging from its wrist-strap, pointed his weapon at the mass below him. 

"What does this mean?" he demanded. "Is this mutiny?"

A voice from the rear of the crowd of men shrieked: "Death to theSpanish woman. Death to all traitors. Long live Mendoza, " and theothers echoed the cry in chorus. 

Clay sprang down the broad stairs calling, "Come to me;" but before hecould reach Stuart, a woman's voice rang out, in a long terrible cry ofterror, a cry that was neither a prayer nor an imprecation, but whichheld the agony of both. Stuart started, and looked up to where MadameAlvarez had thrown herself toward him across the broad balustrade ofthe stairway. She was silent with fear, and her hand clutched at theair, as she beckoned wildly to him. Stuart stared at her with atroubled smile and waved his empty hand to reassure her. The movementwas final, for the men below, freed from the reproach of his eyes, flung up their carbines and fired, some wildly, without placing theirguns at rest, and others steadily and aiming straight at his heart. 

As the volley rang out and the smoke drifted up the great staircase, the subaltern's hands tossed high above his head, his body sank intoitself and toppled backward, and, like a tired child falling to sleep, the defeated soldier of fortune dropped back into the outstretched armsof his friend. 

Clay lifted him upon his knee, and crushed him closer against hisbreast with one arm, while he tore with his free hand at the stockabout the throat and pushed his fingers in between the buttons of thetunic. They came forth again wet and colored crimson. 

"Stuart!" Clay gasped. "Stuart, speak to me, look at me!" He shook thebody in his arms with fierce roughness, peering into the face thatrested on his shoulder, as though he could command the eyes back againto light and life. "Don't leave me!" he said. "For God's sake, oldman, don't leave me!"

But the head on his shoulder only sank the closer and the bodystiffened in his arms. Clay raised his eyes and saw the soldiers stillstanding, irresolute and appalled at what they had done, and awe-struckat the sight of the grief before them. 

Clay gave a cry as terrible as the cry of a woman who has seen herchild mangled before her eyes, and lowering the body quickly to thesteps, he ran at the scattering mass below him. As he came they fleddown the corridor, shrieking and calling to their friends to throw openthe gates and begging them to admit the mob. When they reached theouter porch they turned, encouraged by the touch of numbers, and haltedto fire at the man who still followed them. 

Clay stopped, with a look in his eyes which no one who knew them hadever seen there, and smiled with pleasure in knowing himself a masterin what he had to do. And at each report of his revolver one ofStuart's assassins stumbled and pitched heavily forward on his face. Then he turned and walked slowly back up the hall to the stairway likea man moving in his sleep. He neither saw nor heard the bullets thatbit spitefully at the walls about him and rattled among the glasspendants of the great chandeliers above his head. When he came to thestep on which the body lay he stooped and picked it up gently, andholding it across his breast, strode on up the stairs. MacWilliams andLangham were coming toward him, and saw the helpless figure in his arms. 

"What is it?" they cried; "is he wounded, is he hurt?"

"He is dead, " Clay answered, passing on with his burden. "Get Hopeaway. "

Madame Alvarez stood with the girl's arms about her, her eyes closedand her figure trembling. 

"Let me be!" she moaned. "Don't touch me; let me die. My God, whathave I to live for now?" She shook off Hope's supporting arm, andstood before them, all her former courage gone, trembling and shiveringin agony. "I do not care what they do to me!" she cried. She tore herlace mantilla from her shoulders and threw it on the floor. "I shallnot leave this place. He is dead. Why should I go? He is dead. Theyhave murdered him; he is dead. "

"She is fainting, " said Hope. Her voice was strained and hard. 

To her brother she seemed to have grown suddenly much older, and helooked to her to tell him what to do. 

"Take hold of her, " she said. "She will fall. " The woman sank backinto the arms of the men, trembling and moaning feebly. 

"Now carry her to the carriage, " said Hope. "She has fainted; it isbetter; she does not know what has happened. "

Clay, still bearing the body in his arms, pushed open the first doorthat stood ajar before him with his foot. It opened into the greatbanqueting hall of the palace, but he could not choose. 

He had to consider now the safety of the living, whose lives were stillin jeopardy. 

The long table in the centre of the hall was laid with places for manypeople, for it had been prepared for the President and the President'sguests, who were to have joined with him in celebrating the successfulconclusion of the review. From outside the light of the sun, which wasjust sinking behind the mountains, shone dimly upon the silver on theboard, on the glass and napery, and the massive gilt centre-piecesfilled with great clusters of fresh flowers. It looked as though theservants had but just left the room. Even the candles had been lit inreadiness, and as their flames wavered and smoked in the evening breezethey cast uncertain shadows on the walls and showed the stern faces ofthe soldier presidents frowning down on the crowded table from theirgilded frames. 

There was a great leather lounge stretching along one side of the hall, and Clay moved toward this quickly and laid his burden down. He wasconscious that Hope was still following him. He straightened the limbsof the body and folded the arms across the breast and pressed his handfor an instant on the cold hands of his friend, and then whisperingsomething between his lips, turned and walked hurriedly away. 

Hope confronted him in the doorway. She was sobbing silently. "Must weleave him, " she pleaded, "must we leave him--like this?"

From the garden there came the sound of hammers ringing on the ironhinges, and a great crash of noises as the gate fell back from itsfastenings, and the mob rushed over the obstacles upon which it hadfallen. It seemed as if their yells of exultation and anger must reacheven the ears of the dead man. 

"They are calling Mendoza, " Clay whispered, "he must be with them. Come, we will have to run for our lives now. "

But before he could guess what Hope was about to do, or could preventher, she had slipped past him and picked up Stuart's sword that hadfallen from his wrist to the floor, and laid it on the soldier's body, and closed his hands upon its hilt. She glanced quickly about her asthough looking for something, and then with a sob of relief ran to thetable, and sweeping it of an armful of its flowers, stepped swiftlyback again to the lounge and heaped them upon it. 

"Come, for God's sake, come!" Clay called to her in a whisper from thedoor. 

Hope stood for an instant staring at the young Englishman as thecandle-light flickered over his white face, and then, dropping on herknees, she pushed back the curly hair from about the boy's forehead andkissed him. Then, without turning to look again, she placed her handin Clay's and he ran with her, dragging her behind him down the lengthof the hall, just as the mob entered it on the floor below them andfilled the palace with their shouts of triumph. 

As the sun sank lower its light fell more dimly on the lonely figure inthe vast dining-hall, and as the gloom deepened there, the candlesburned with greater brilliancy, and the faces of the portraits shonemore clearly. 

They seemed to be staring down less sternly now upon the white mortalface of the brother-in-arms who had just joined them. 

One who had known him among his own people would have seen in theattitude and in the profile of the English soldier a likeness to hisancestors of the Crusades who lay carved in stone in the villagechurch, with their faces turned to the sky, their faithful houndswaiting at their feet, and their hands pressed upward in prayer. 

And when, a moment later, the half-crazed mob of men and boys sweptinto the great room, with Mendoza at their head, something of thepathos of the young Englishman's death in his foreign place of exilemust have touched them, for they stopped appalled and startled, andpressed back upon their fellows, with eager whispers. TheSpanish-American General strode boldly forward, but his eyes loweredbefore the calm, white face, and either because the lighted candles andthe flowers awoke in him some memory of the great Church that hadnursed him, or because the jagged holes in the soldier's tunic appealedto what was bravest in him, he crossed himself quickly, and thenraising his hands slowly to his visor, lifted his hat and pointed withit to the door. And the mob, without once looking back at the richtreasure of silver on the table, pushed out before him, steppingsoftly, as though they had intruded on a shrine. 

XIII

The President's travelling carriage was a double-seated diligencecovered with heavy hoods and with places on the box for two men. Onlyone of the coachmen, the same man who had driven the State carriagefrom the review, had remained at the stables. As he knew the roads toLos Bocos, Clay ordered him up to the driver's seat, and MacWilliamsclimbed into the place beside him after first storing three riflesunder the lap-robe. 

Hope pulled open the leather curtains of the carriage and found MadameAlvarez where the men had laid her upon the cushions, weak andhysterical. The girl crept in beside her, and lifting her in her arms, rested the older woman's head against her shoulder, and soothed andcomforted her with tenderness and sympathy. 

Clay stopped with his foot in the stirrup and looked up anxiously atLangham who was already in the saddle. 

"Is there no possible way of getting Hope out of this and back to thePalms?" he asked. 

"No, it's too late. This is the only way now. " Hope opened theleather curtains and looking out shook her head impatiently at Clay. "I wouldn't go now if there were another way, " she said. "I couldn'tleave her like this. "

"You're delaying the game, Clay, " cried Langham, warningly, as he stuckhis spurs into his pony's side. 

The people in the diligence lurched forward as the horses felt the lashof the whip and strained against the harness, and then plunged ahead ata gallop on their long race to the sea. As they sped through thegardens, the stables and the trees hid them from the sight of those inthe palace, and the turf, upon which the driver had turned the horsesfor greater safety, deadened the sound of their flight. 

They found the gates of the botanical gardens already opened, and Clay, in the street outside, beckoning them on. Without waiting for theothers the two outriders galloped ahead to the first cross street, looked up and down its length, and then, in evident concern at whatthey saw in the distance, motioned the driver to greater speed, andcrossing the street signalled him to follow them. At the next cornerClay flung himself off his pony, and throwing the bridle to Langham, ran ahead into the cross street on foot, and after a quick glancepointed down its length away from the heart of the city to themountains. 

The driver turned as Clay directed him, and when the man found that hisface was fairly set toward the goal he lashed his horses recklesslythrough the narrow street, so that the murmur of the mob behind themgrew perceptibly fainter at each leap forward. 

The noise of the galloping hoofs brought women and children to thebarred windows of the houses, but no men stepped into the road to stoptheir progress, and those few they met running in the direction of thepalace hastened to get out of their way, and stood with their backspressed against the walls of the narrow thoroughfare looking after themwith wonder. 

Even those who suspected their errand were helpless to detain them, forsooner than they could raise the hue and cry or formulate a plan ofaction, the carriage had passed and was disappearing in the distance, rocking from wheel to wheel like a ship in a gale. Two men who were sobold as to start to follow, stopped abruptly when they saw theoutriders draw rein and turn in their saddles as though to await theircoming. 

Clay's mind was torn with doubts, and his nerves were drawn taut likethe strings of a violin. Personal danger exhilarated him, but thischance of harm to others who were helpless, except for him, depressedhis spirit with anxiety. He experienced in his own mind all thenervous fears of a thief who sees an officer in every passing citizen, and at one moment he warned the driver to move more circumspectly, andso avert suspicion, and the next urged him into more desperate burstsof speed. In his fancy every cross street threatened an ambush, and ashe cantered now before and now behind the carriage, he wished that hewas a multitude of men who could encompass it entirely and hide it. 

But the solid streets soon gave way to open places, and low mud cabins, where the horses' hoofs beat on a sun-baked road, and where theinhabitants sat lazily before the door in the fading light, with noknowledge of the changes that the day had wrought in the city, and withonly a moment's curious interest in the hooded carriage, and the grim, white-faced foreigners who guarded it. 

Clay turned his pony into a trot at Langham's side. His face was paleand drawn. 

As the danger of immediate pursuit and capture grew less, the carriagehad slackened its pace, and for some minutes the outriders galloped ontogether side by side in silence. But the same thought was in the mindof each, and when Langham spoke it was as though he were continuingwhere he had but just been interrupted. 

He laid his hand gently on Clay's arm. He did not turn his face towardhim, and his eyes were still peering into the shadows before them. "Tell me?" he asked. 

"He was coming up the stairs, " Clay answered. He spoke in so low avoice that Langham had to lean from his saddle to hear him. "They wereclose behind; but when they saw her they stopped and refused to gofarther. I called to him to come away, but he would not understand. They killed him before he really understood what they meant to do. Hewas dead almost before I reached him. He died in my arms. " There wasa long pause. "I wonder if he knows that?" Clay said. 

Langham sat erect in the saddle again and drew a short breath. "I wishhe could have known how he helped me, " he whispered, "how much justknowing him helped me. "

Clay bowed his head to the boy as though he were thanking him. "His wasthe gentlest soul I ever knew, " he said. 

"That's what I wanted to say, " Langham answered. "We will let that behis epitaph, " and touching his spur to his horse he galloped on aheadand left Clay riding alone. 

Langham had proceeded for nearly a mile when he saw the forest openingbefore them, and at the sight he gave a shout of relief, but almost atthe same instant he pulled his pony back on his haunches and whirlinghim about, sprang back to the carriage with a cry of warning. 

"There are soldiers ahead of us, " he cried. "Did you know it?" hedemanded of the driver. "Did you lie to me? Turn back. "

"He can't turn back, " MacWilliams answered. "They have seen us. Theyare only the custom officers at the city limits. They know nothing. Go on. " He reached forward and catching the reins dragged the horsesdown into a walk. Then he handed the reins back to the driver with ashake of the head. 

"If you know these roads as well as you say you do, you want to keep usout of the way of soldiers, " he said. "If we fall into a trap you'llbe the first man shot on either side. "

A sentry strolled lazily out into the road dragging his gun after himby the bayonet, and raised his hand for them to halt. His captainfollowed him from the post-house throwing away a cigarette as he came, and saluted MacWilliams on the box and bowed to the two riders in thebackground. In his right hand he held one of the long iron rods withwhich the collectors of the city's taxes were wont to pierce thebundles and packs, and even the carriage cushions of those who enteredthe city limits from the coast, and who might be suspected of smuggling. 

"Whose carriage is this, and where is it going?" he asked. 

As the speed of the diligence slackened, Hope put her head out of thecurtains, and as she surveyed the soldier with apparent surprise, sheturned to her brother. 

"What does this mean?" she asked. "What are we waiting for?"

"We are going to the Hacienda of Senor Palacio, " MacWilliams said, inanswer to the officer. "The driver thinks that this is the road, but Isay we should have taken the one to the right. "

"No, this is the road to Senor Palacio's plantation, " the officeranswered, "but you cannot leave the city without a pass signed byGeneral Mendoza. That is the order we received this morning. Have yousuch a pass?"

"Certainly not, " Clay answered, warmly. "This is the carriage of anAmerican, the president of the mines. His daughters are inside and ontheir way to visit the residence of Senor Palacio. They areforeigners--Americans. We are all foreigners, and we have a perfectright to leave the city when we choose. You can only stop us when weenter it. "

The officer looked uncertainly from Clay to Hope and up at the driveron the box. His eyes fell upon the heavy brass mountings of theharness. They bore the arms of Olancho. He wheeled sharply and calledto his men inside the post-house, and they stepped out from the verandaand spread themselves leisurely across the road. 

"Ride him down, Clay, " Langham muttered, in a whisper. The officer didnot understand the words, but he saw Clay gather the reins tighter inhis hands and he stepped back quickly to the safety of the porch, andfrom that ground of vantage smiled pleasantly. 

"Pardon, " he said, "there is no need for blows when one is rich enoughto pay. A little something for myself and a drink for my bravefellows, and you can go where you please. "

"Damned brigands, " growled Langham, savagely. 

"Not at all, " Clay answered. "He is an officer and a gentleman. Ihave no money with me, " he said, in Spanish, addressing the officer, "but between caballeros a word of honor is sufficient. I shall bereturning this way to-morrow morning, and I will bring a few hundredsols from Senor Palacio for you and your men; but if we are followedyou will get nothing, and you must have forgotten in the mean time thatyou have seen us pass. "

There was a murmur inside the carriage, and Hope's face disappearedfrom between the curtains to reappear again almost immediately. Shebeckoned to the officer with her hand, and the men saw that she heldbetween her thumb and little finger a diamond ring of size andbrilliancy. She moved it so that it flashed in the light of the guardlantern above the post-house. 

"My sister tells me you shall be given this tomorrow morning, " Hopesaid, "if we are not followed. "

The man's eyes laughed with pleasure. He swept his sombrero to theground. 

"I am your servant, Senorita, " he said. "Gentlemen, " he cried, gayly, turning to Clay, "if you wish it, I will accompany you with my men. Yes, I will leave word that I have gone in the sudden pursuit ofsmugglers; or I will remain here as you wish, and send those who mayfollow back again. "

"You are most gracious, sir, " said Clay. "It is always a pleasure tomeet with a gentleman and a philosopher. We prefer to travel withoutan escort, and remember, you have seen nothing and heard nothing. " Heleaned from the saddle, and touched the officer on the breast. "Thatring is worth a king's ransom. "

"Or a president's, " muttered the man, smiling. "Let the Americanladies pass, " he commanded. 

The soldiers scattered as the whip fell, and the horses once moreleaped forward, and as the carriage entered the forest, Clay lookedback and saw the officer exhaling the smoke of a fresh cigarette, withthe satisfaction of one who enjoys a clean conscience and a sense ofduty well performed. 

The road through the forest was narrow and uneven, and as the horsesfell into a trot the men on horseback closed up together behind thecarriage. 

"Do you think that road-agent will keep his word?" Langham asked. 

"Yes; he has nothing to win by telling the truth, " Clay answered. "Hecan say he saw a party of foreigners, Americans, driving in thedirection of Palacio's coffee plantation. That lets him out, and inthe morning he knows he can levy on us for the gate money. I am not somuch afraid of being overtaken as I am that King may make a mistake andnot get to Bocos on time. We ought to reach there, if the carriageholds together, by eleven. King should be there by eight o'clock, andthe yacht ought to make the run to Truxillo in three hours. But weshall not be able to get back to the city before five to-morrowmorning. I suppose your family will be wild about Hope. We didn'tknow where she was when we sent the groom back to King. "

"Do you think that driver is taking us the right way?" Langham asked, after a pause. 

"He'd better. He knows it well enough. He was through the lastrevolution, and carried messages from Los Bocos to the city on foot fortwo months. He has covered every trail on the way, and if he goeswrong he knows what will happen to him. "

"And Los Bocos--it is a village, isn't it, and the landing must be insight of the Custom-house?"

"The village lies some distance back from the shore, and the only houseon the beach is the Custom-house itself; but every one will be asleepby the time we get there, and it will take us only a minute to hand herinto the launch. If there should be a guard there, King will havefixed them one way or another by the time we arrive. Anyhow, there isno need of looking for trouble that far ahead. There is enough toworry about in between. We haven't got there yet. "

The moon rose grandly a few minutes later, and flooded the forest withlight so that the open places were as clear as day. It threw strangeshadows across the trail, and turned the rocks and fallen trees intofigures of men crouching or standing upright with uplifted arms. Theywere so like to them that Clay and Langham flung their carbines totheir shoulders again and again, and pointed them at some black objectthat turned as they advanced into wood or stone. From the forest theycame to little streams and broad shallow rivers where the rocks in thefording places churned the water into white masses of foam, and thehorses kicked up showers of spray as they made their way, slipping andstumbling, against the current. It was a silent pilgrim age, and neverfor a moment did the strain slacken or the men draw rein. Sometimes, as they hurried across a broad tableland, or skirted the edge of aprecipice and looked down hundreds of feet below at the shining watersthey had just forded, or up at the rocky points of the mountains beforethem, the beauty of the night overcame them and made them forget thesignificance of their journey. 

They were not always alone, for they passed at intervals throughsleeping villages of mud huts with thatched roofs, where the dogs ranyelping out to bark at them, and where the pine-knots, blazing on theclay ovens, burned cheerily in the moonlight. In the low lands wherethe fever lay, the mist rose above the level of their heads andenshrouded them in a curtain of fog, and the dew fell heavily, penetrating their clothing and chilling their heated bodies so that thesweating horses moved in a lather of steam. 

They had settled down into a steady gallop now, and ten or fifteenmiles had been left behind them. 

"We are making excellent time, " said Clay. "The village of San Lorenzoshould lie beyond that ridge. " He drove up beside the driver andpointed with his whip. "Is not that San Lorenzo?" he asked. 

"Yes, senor, " the man answered, "but I mean to drive around it by theold wagon trail. It is a large town, and people may be awake. Youwill be able to see it from the top of the next hill. "

The cavalcade stopped at the summit of the ridge and the men lookeddown into the silent village. It was like the others they had passed, with a few houses built round a square of grass that could hardly berecognized as a plaza, except for the church on its one side, and thehuge wooden cross planted in its centre. From the top of the hill theycould see that the greater number of the houses were in darkness, butin a large building of two stories lights were shining from everywindow. 

"That is the comandancia, " said the driver, shaking his head. "Theyare still awake. It is a telegraph station. "

"Great Scott!" exclaimed MacWilliams. "We forgot the telegraph. Theymay have sent word to head us off already. "

"Nine o'clock is not so very late, " said Clay. "It may mean nothing. "

"We had better make sure, though, " MacWilliams answered, jumping to theground. "Lend me your pony, Ted, and take my place. I'll run in thereand dust around and see what's up. I'll join you on the other side ofthe town after you get back to the main road. "

"Wait a minute, " said Clay. "What do you mean to do?"

"I can't tell till I get there, but I'll try to find out how much theyknow. Don't you be afraid. I'll run fast enough if there's any signof trouble. And if you come across a telegraph wire, cut it. Themessage may not have gone over yet. "

The two women in the carriage had parted the flaps of the hoods andwere trying to hear what was being said, but could not understand, andLangham explained to them that they were about to make a slight detourto avoid San Lorenzo while MacWilliams was going into it toreconnoitre. He asked if they were comfortable, and assured them thatthe greater part of the ride was over, and that there was a good roadfrom San Lorenzo to the sea. 

MacWilliams rode down into the village along the main trail, and threwhis reins over a post in front of the comandancia. He mounted boldlyto the second floor of the building and stopped at the head of thestairs, in front of an open door. There were three men in the roombefore him, one an elderly man, whom he rightly guessed was thecomandante, and two younger men who were standing behind a railing andbending over a telegraph instrument on a table. As he stamped into theroom, they looked up and stared at him in surprise; their faces showedthat he had interrupted them at a moment of unusual interest. 

MacWilliams saluted the three men civilly, and, according to the nativecustom, apologized for appearing before them in his spurs. 

He had been riding from Los Bocos to the capital, he said, and hishorse had gone lame. Could they tell him if there was any one in thevillage from whom he could hire a mule, as he must push on to thecapital that night?

The comandante surveyed him for a moment, as though still disturbed bythe interruption, and then shook his head impatiently. "You can hire amule from one Pulido Paul, at the corner of the plaza, " he said. Andas MacWilliams still stood uncertainly, he added, "You say you havecome from Los Bocos. Did you meet any one on your way?"

The two younger men looked up at him anxiously, but before he couldanswer, the instrument began to tick out the signal, and they turnedtheir eyes to it again, and one of them began to take its message downon paper. 

The instrument spoke to MacWilliams also, for he was used to sendingtelegrams daily from the office to the mines, and could make it talkfor him in either English or Spanish. So, in his effort to hear whatit might say, he stammered and glanced at it involuntarily, and thecomandante, without suspecting his reason for doing so, turned also andpeered over the shoulder of the man who was receiving the message. Except for the clicking of the instrument, the room was absolutelystill; the three men bent silently over the table, while MacWilliamsstood gazing at the ceiling and turning his hat in his hands. Themessage MacWilliams read from the instrument was this: "They arereported to have left the city by the south, so they are going to Para, or San Pedro, or to Los Bocos. She must be stopped--take an armedforce and guard the roads. If necessary, kill her. She has in thecarriage or hidden on her person, drafts for five million sols. Youwill be held responsible for every one of them. Repeat this message toshow you understand, and relay it to Los Bocos. If you fail--"

MacWilliams could not wait to hear more; he gave a curt nod to the menand started toward the stairs. "Wait, " the comandante called after him. 

MacWilliams paused with one hand on top of the banisters balancinghimself in readiness for instant flight. 

"You have not answered me. Did you meet with any one on your ride herefrom Los Bocos?"

"I met several men on foot, and the mail carrier passed me a league outfrom the coast, and oh, yes, I met a carriage at the cross roads, andthe driver asked me the way of San Pedro Sula. "

"A carriage?--yes--and what did you tell him?"

"I told him he was on the road to Los Bocos, and he turned back and--"

"You are sure he turned back?"

"Certainly, sir. I rode behind him for some distance. He turnedfinally to the right into the trail to San Pedro Sula. "

The man flung himself across the railing. 

"Quick, " he commanded, "telegraph to Morales, Comandante San PedroSula--"

He had turned his back on MacWilliams, and as the younger man bent overthe instrument, MacWilliams stepped softly down the stairs, andmounting his pony rode slowly off in the direction of the capital. Assoon as he had reached the outskirts of the town, he turned andgalloped round it and then rode fast with his head in air, glancing upat the telegraph wire that sagged from tree-trunk to tree-trunk alongthe trail. At a point where he thought he could dismount in safety andtear down the wire, he came across it dangling from the branches and hegave a shout of relief. He caught the loose end and dragged it freefrom its support, and then laying it across a rock pounded the blade ofhis knife upon it with a stone, until he had hacked off a piece somefifty feet in length. Taking this in his hand he mounted again androde off with it, dragging the wire in the road behind him. He held itup as he rejoined Clay, and laughed triumphantly. "They'll have sometrouble splicing that circuit, " he said, "you only half did the work. What wouldn't we give to know all this little piece of copper knows, eh?"

"Do you mean you think they have telegraphed to Los Bocos already?"

"I know that they were telegraphing to San Pedro Sula as I left and toall the coast towns. But whether you cut this down before or after iswhat I should like to know. "

"We shall probably learn that later, " said Clay, grimly. 

The last three miles of the journey lay over a hard, smooth road, wideenough to allow the carriage and its escort to ride abreast. 

It was in such contrast to the tortuous paths they had just followed, that the horses gained a fresh impetus and galloped forward as freelyas though the race had but just begun. 

Madame Alvarez stopped the carriage at one place and asked the men tolower the hood at the back that she might feel the fresh air and seeabout her, and when this had been done, the women seated themselveswith their backs to the horses where they could look out at the moonlitroad as it unrolled behind them. 

Hope felt selfishly and wickedly happy. The excitement had kept herspirits at the highest point, and the knowledge that Clay was guardingand protecting her was in itself a pleasure. She leaned back on thecushions and put her arm around the older woman's waist, and listenedto the light beat of his pony's hoofs outside, now running ahead, nowscrambling and slipping up some steep place, and again coming to a haltas Langham or MacWilliams called, "Look to the right, behind thosetrees, " or "Ahead there! Don't you see what I mean, somethingcrouching?"

She did not know when the false alarms would turn into a genuineattack, but she was confident that when the time came he would takecare of her, and she welcomed the danger because it brought that solacewith it. 

Madame Alvarez sat at her side, rigid, silent, and beyond the help ofcomfort. She tortured herself with thoughts of the ambitions she hadheld, and which had been so cruelly mocked that very morning; of thechivalric love that had been hers, of the life even that had been hers, and which had been given up for her so tragically. When she spoke atall, it was to murmur her sorrow that Hope had exposed herself todanger on her poor account, and that her life, as far as she loved it, was at an end. Only once after the men had parted the curtains andasked concerning her comfort with grave solicitude did she give way totears. 

"Why are they so good to me?" she moaned. "Why are you so good to me?I am a wicked, vain woman, I have brought a nation to war and I havekilled the only man I ever trusted. "

Hope touched her gently with her hand and felt guiltily how selfish sheherself must be not to feel the woman's grief, but she could not. Sheonly saw in it a contrast to her own happiness, a black backgroundbefore which the figure of Clay and his solicitude for her shone out, the only fact in the world that was of value. 

Her thoughts were interrupted by the carriage coming to a halt, and asignificant movement upon the part of the men. MacWilliams haddescended from the box-seat and stepping into the carriage took theplace the women had just left. 

He had a carbine in his hand, and after he was seated Langham handedhim another which he laid across his knees. 

"They thought I was too conspicuous on the box to do any good there, "he explained in a confidential whisper. "In case there is any firingnow, you ladies want to get down on your knees here at my feet, andhide your heads in the cushions. We are entering Los Bocos. "

Langham and Clay were riding far in advance, scouting to the right andleft, and the carriage moved noiselessly behind them through the emptystreets. There was no light in any of the windows, and not even a dogbarked, or a cock crowed. The women sat erect, listening for the firstsignal of an attack, each holding the other's hand and looking atMacWilliams, who sat with his thumb on the trigger of his carbine, glancing to the right and left and breathing quickly. His eyestwinkled, like those of a little fox terrier. The men dropped back, and drew up on a level with the carriage. 

"We are all right, so far, " Clay whispered. "The beach slopes downfrom the other side of that line of trees. What is the matter withyou?" he demanded, suddenly, looking up at the driver, "are you afraid?"

"No, " the man answered, hurriedly, his voice shaking; "it's the cold. "

Langham had galloped on ahead and as he passed through the trees andcame out upon the beach, he saw a broad stretch of moonlit water andthe lights from the yacht shining from a point a quarter of a mile offshore. Among the rocks on the edge of the beach was the "Vesta's"longboat and her crew seated in it or standing about on the beach. Thecarriage had stopped under the protecting shadow of the trees, and heraced back toward it. 

"The yacht is here, " he cried. "The long-boat is waiting and there isnot a sign of light about the Custom-house. Come on, " he cried. "Wehave beaten them after all. "

A sailor, who had been acting as lookout on the rocks, sprang to hisfull height, and shouted to the group around the long-boat, and Kingcame up the beach toward them running heavily through the deep sand. 

Madame Alvarez stepped down from the carriage, and as Hope handed herher jewel case in silence, the men draped her cloak about hershoulders. She put out her hand to them, and as Clay took it in his, she bent her head quickly and kissed his hand. "You were his friend, "she murmured. 

She held Hope in her arms for an instant, and kissed her, and then gaveher hand in turn to Langham and to MacWilliams. 

"I do not know whether I shall ever see you again, " she said, lookingslowly from one to the other, "but I will pray for you every day, andGod will reward you for saving a worthless life. "

As she finished speaking King came up to the group, followed by threeof his men. 

"Is Hope with you, is she safe?" he asked. 

"Yes, she is with me, " Madame Alvarez answered. 

"Thank God, " King exclaimed, breathlessly. "Then we will start atonce, Madame. Where is she? She must come with us!"

"Of course, " Clay-assented, eagerly, "she will be much safer on theyacht. "

But Hope protested. "I must get back to father, " she said. "The yachtwill not arrive until late to-morrow, and the carriage can take me tohim five hours earlier. The family have worried too long about me asit is, and, besides, I will not leave Ted. I am going back as I came. "

"It is most unsafe, " King urged. 

"On the contrary, it is perfectly safe now, " Hope answered. "It was notone of us they wanted. "

"You may be right, " King said. "They don't know what has happened toyou, and perhaps after all it would be better if you went back thequicker way. " He gave his arm to Madame Alvarez and walked with hertoward the shore. As the men surrounded her on every side and movedaway, Clay glanced back at Hope and saw her standing upright in thecarriage looking after them. 

"We will be with you in a minute, " he called, as though in apology forleaving her for even that brief space. And then the shadow of thetrees shut her and the carriage from his sight. His footsteps made nosound in the soft sand, and except for the whispering of the palms andthe sleepy wash of the waves as they ran up the pebbly beach and sankagain, the place was as peaceful and silent as a deserted island, though the moon made it as light as day. 

The long-boat had been drawn up with her stern to the shore, and themen were already in their places, some standing waiting for the orderto shove off, and others seated balancing their oars. 

King had arranged to fire a rocket when the launch left the shore, inorder that the captain of the yacht might run in closer to pick themup. As he hurried down the beach, he called to his boatswain to givethe signal, and the man answered that he understood and stooped tolight a match. King had jumped into the stern and lifted MadameAlvarez after him, leaving her late escort standing with uncoveredheads on the beach behind her, when the rocket shot up into the calmwhite air, with a roar and a rush and a sudden flash of color. At thesame instant, as though in answer to its challenge, the woods back ofthem burst into an irregular line of flame, a volley of rifle shotsshattered the silence, and a score of bullets splashed in the water andon the rocks about them. 

The boatswain in the bow of the long-boat tossed up his arms andpitched forward between the thwarts. 

"Give way, " he shouted as he fell. 

"Pull, " Clay yelled, "pull, all of you. "

He threw himself against the stern of the boat, and Langham andMacWilliams clutched its sides, and with their shoulders against it andtheir bodies half sunk in the water, shoved it off, free of the shore. 

The shots continued fiercely, and two of the crew cried out and fellback upon the oars of the men behind them. 

Madame Alvarez sprang to her feet and stood swaying unsteadily as theboat leaped forward. 

"Take me back. Stop, I command you, " she cried, "I will not leavethose men. Do you hear?"

King caught her by the waist and dragged her down, but she struggled tofree herself. "I will not leave them to be murdered, " she cried. "Youcowards, put me back. "

"Hold her, King, " Clay shouted. "We're all right. They're not firingat us. "

His voice was drowned in the noise of the oars beating in the rowlocks, and the reports of the rifles. The boat disappeared in a mist of sprayand moonlight, and Clay turned and faced about him. Langham andMacWilliams were crouching behind a rock and firing at the flashes inthe woods. 

"You can't stay there, " Clay cried. "We must get back to Hope. "

He ran forward, dodging from side to side and firing as he ran. Heheard shots from the water, and looking back saw that the men in thelongboat had ceased rowing, and were returning the fire from the shore. 

"Come back, Hope is all right, " her brother called to him. "I haven'tseen a shot within a hundred yards of her yet, they're firing from theCustom-house and below. I think Mac's hit. "

"I'm not, " MacWilliams's voice answered from behind a rock, "but I'dlike to see something to shoot at. "

A hot tremor of rage swept over Clay at the thought of a possibly fataltermination to the night's adventure. He groaned at the mockery ofhaving found his life only to lose it now, when it was more precious tohim than it had ever been, and to lose it in a silly brawl withsemi-savages. He cursed himself impotently and rebelliously for asenseless fool. 

"Keep back, can't you?" he heard Langham calling to him from the shore. "You're only drawing the fire toward Hope. She's got away by now. Shehad both the horses. "

Langham and MacWilliams started forward to Clay's side, but the instantthey left the shadow of the rock, the bullets threw up the sand attheir feet and they stopped irresolutely. The moon showed the threemen outlined against the white sand of the beach as clearly as though asearchlight had been turned upon them, even while its shadows shelteredand protected their assailants. At their backs the open sea cut offretreat, and the line of fire in front held them in check. They wereas helpless as chessmen upon a board. 

"I'm not going to stand still to be shot at, " cried MacWilliams. "Let's hide or let's run. This isn't doing anybody any good. " But noone moved. They could hear the singing of the bullets as they passedthem whining in the air like a banjo-string that is being tightened, and they knew they were in equal danger from those who were firing fromthe boat. 

"They're shooting better, " said MacWilliams. "They'll reach us in aminute. "

"They've reached me already, I think, " Langham answered, withsuppressed satisfaction, "in the shoulder. It's nothing. " Hisunconcern was quite sincere; to a young man who had galloped throughtwo long halves of a football match on a strained tendon, a scratchedshoulder was not important, except as an unsought honor. 

But it was of the most importance to MacWilliams. He raised his voiceagainst the men in the woods in impotent fury. "Come out, you cowards, where we can see you, " he cried. "Come out where I can shoot yourblack heads off. "

Clay had fired the last cartridge in his rifle, and throwing it awaydrew his revolver. 

"We must either swim or hide, " he said. "Put your heads down and run. "

But as he spoke, they saw the carriage plunging out of the shadow ofthe woods and the horses galloping toward them down the beach. MacWilliams gave a cheer of welcome. "Hurrah!" he shouted, "it's Jose'coming for us. He's a good man. Well done, Jose'!" he called. 

"That's not Jose', " Langham cried, doubtfully, peering through themoonlight. "Good God! It's Hope, " he exclaimed. He waved his handsfrantically above his head. "Go back, Hope, " he cried, "go back!"

But the carriage did not swerve on its way toward them. They all sawher now distinctly. She was on the driver's box and alone, leaningforward and lashing the horses' backs with the whip and reins, andbending over to avoid the bullets that passed above her head. As shecame down upon them, she stood up, her woman's figure outlined clearlyin the riding habit she still wore. "Jump in when I turn, " she cried. "I'm going to turn slowly, run and jump in. "

She bent forward again and pulled the horses to the right, and as theyobeyed her, plunging and tugging at their bits, as though they knew thedanger they were in, the men threw themselves at the carriage. Claycaught the hood at the back, swung himself up, and scrambled over thecushions and up to the box seat. He dropped down behind Hope, andreaching his arms around her took the reins in one hand, and with theother forced her down to her knees upon the footboard, so that, as sheknelt, his arms and body protected her from the bullets sent afterthem. Langham followed Clay, and tumbled into the carriage over thehood at the back, but MacWilliams endeavored to vault in from the step, and missing his footing fell under the hind wheel, so that the weightof the carriage passed over him, and his head was buried for an instantin the sand. But he was on his feet again before they had noticed thathe was down, and as he jumped for the hood, Langham caught him by thecollar of his coat and dragged him into the seat, panting and gasping, and rubbing the sand from his mouth and nostrils. Clay turned thecarriage at a right angle through the heavy sand, and still standingwith Hope crouched at his knees, he raced back to the woods into theface of the firing, with the boys behind him answering it from eachside of the carriage, so that the horses leaped forward in a frenzy ofterror, and dashing through the woods, passed into the first road thatopened before them. 

The road into which they had turned was narrow, but level, and ranthrough a forest of banana palms that bent and swayed above them. Langham and MacWilliams still knelt in the rear seat of the carriage, watching the road on the chance of possible pursuit. 

"Give me some cartridges, " said Langham. "My belt is empty. What roadis this?"

"It is a private road, I should say, through somebody's bananaplantation. But it must cross the main road somewhere. It doesn'tmatter, we're all right now. I mean to take it easy. " MacWilliamsturned on his back and stretched out his legs on the seat opposite. 

"Where do you suppose those men sprang from? Were they following usall the time?"

"Perhaps, or else that message got over the wire before we cut it, andthey've been lying in wait for us. They were probably watching Kingand his sailors for the last hour or so, but they didn't want him. They wanted her and the money. It was pretty exciting, wasn't it?How's your shoulder?"

"It's a little stiff, thank you, " said Langham. He stood up and bypeering over the hood could just see the top of Clay's sombrero risingabove it where he sat on the back seat. 

"You and Hope all right up there, Clay?" he asked. 

The top of the sombrero moved slightly, and Langham took it as a signthat all was well. He dropped back into his seat beside MacWilliams, and they both breathed a long sigh of relief and content. Langham'swounded arm was the one nearest MacWilliams, and the latter parted thetorn sleeve and examined the furrow across the shoulder withunconcealed envy. 

"I am afraid it won't leave a scar, " he said, sympathetically. 

"Won't it?" asked Langham, in some concern. 

The horses had dropped into a walk, and the beauty of the moonlit nightput its spell upon the two boys, and the rustling of the great leavesabove their heads stilled and quieted them so that they unconsciouslyspoke in whispers. 

Clay had not moved since the horses turned of their own accord into thevalley of the palms. He no longer feared pursuit nor any interruptionto their further progress. His only sensation was one of utterthankfulness that they were all well out of it, and that Hope had beenthe one who had helped them in their trouble, and his dearest thoughtwas that, whether she wished or not, he owed his safety, and possiblyhis life, to her. 

She still crouched between his knees upon the broad footboard, with herhands clasped in front of her, and looking ahead into the vista of softmysterious lights and dark shadows that the moon cast upon the road. Neither of them spoke, and as the silence continued unbroken, it took aweightier significance, and at each added second of time became morefull of meaning. 

The horses had dropped into a tired walk, and drew them smoothly overthe white road; from behind the hood came broken snatches of the boys'talk, and above their heads the heavy leaves of the palms bent andbowed as though in benediction. A warm breeze from the land filled theair with the odor of ripening fruit and pungent smells, and the silenceseemed to envelop them and mark them as the only living creatures awakein the brilliant tropical night. 

Hope sank slowly back, and as she did so, her shoulder touched for aninstant against Clay's knee; she straightened herself and made amovement as though to rise. Her nearness to him and something in herattitude at his feet held Clay in a spell. He bent forward and laidhis hand fearfully upon her shoulder, and the touch seemed to stop theblood in his veins and hushed the words upon his lips. Hope raised herhead slowly as though with a great effort, and looked into his eyes. It seemed to him that he had been looking into those same eyes forcenturies, as though he had always known them, and the soul that lookedout of them into his. He bent his head lower, and stretching out hisarms drew her to him, and the eyes did not waver. He raised her andheld her close against his breast. Her eyes faltered and closed. 

"Hope, " he whispered, "Hope. " He stooped lower and kissed her, and hislips told her what they could not speak--and they were quite alone. 

XIV

An hour later Langham rose with a protesting sigh and shook the hoodviolently. 

"I say!" he called. "Are you asleep up there. We'll never get home atthis rate. Doesn't Hope want to come back here and go to sleep?"

The carriage stopped, and the boys tumbled out and walked around infront of it. Hope sat smiling on the box-seat. She was apparently farfrom sleepy, and she was quite contented where she was, she told him. 

"Do you know we haven't had anything to eat since yesterday atbreakfast?" asked Langham. "MacWilliams and I are fainting. We movethat we stop at the next shack we come to, and waken the people up andmake them give us some supper. "

Hope looked aside at Clay and laughed softly. "Supper?" she said. "They want supper!"

Their suffering did not seem to impress Clay deeply. He sat snappinghis whip at the palm-trees above him, and smiled happily in aninconsequent and irritating manner at nothing. 

"See here! Do you know that we are lost?" demanded Langham, indignantly, "and starving? Have you any idea at all where you are?"

"I have not, " said Clay, cheerfully. "All I know is that a long timeago there was a revolution and a woman with jewels, who escaped in anopen boat, and I recollect playing that I was a target and standing upto be shot at in a bright light. After that I woke up to the reallyimportant things of life--among which supper is not one. "

Langham and MacWilliams looked at each other doubtfully, and Langhamshook his head. 

"Get down off that box, " he commanded. "If you and Hope think this ismerely a pleasant moonlight drive, we don't. You two can sit in thecarriage now, and we'll take a turn at driving, and we'll guarantee toget you to some place soon. "

Clay and Hope descended meekly and seated themselves under the hood, where they could look out upon the moonlit road as it unrolled behindthem. But they were no longer to enjoy their former leisurelyprogress. The new whip lashed his horses into a gallop, and the treesflew past them on either hand. 

"Do you remember that chap in the 'Last Ride Together'?" said Clay. 

 "I and my mistress, side by side, Shall be together--forever ride, And so one more day am I deified. Who knows--the world may end to-night. "

Hope laughed triumphantly, and threw out her arms as though she wouldembrace the whole beautiful world that stretched around them. 

"Oh, no, " she laughed. "To-night the world has just begun. "

The carriage stopped, and there was a confusion of voices on thebox-seat, and then a great barking of dogs, and they beheld MacWilliamsbeating and kicking at the door of a hut. The door opened for an inch, and there was a long debate in Spanish, and finally the door was closedagain, and a light appeared through the windows. A few minutes later aman and woman came out of the hut, shivering and yawning, and made afire in the sun-baked oven at the side of the house. Hope and Clayremained seated in the carriage, and watched the flames springing upfrom the oily fagots, and the boys moving about with flaring torches ofpine, pulling down bundles of fodder for the horses from the roof ofthe kitchen, while two sleepy girls disappeared toward a mountainstream, one carrying a jar on her shoulder, and the other lighting theway with a torch. Hope sat with her chin on her hand, watching theblack figures passing between them and the fire, and standing above itwith its light on their faces, shading their eyes from the heat withone hand, and stirring something in a smoking caldron with the other. Hope felt an overflowing sense of gratitude to these simple strangersfor the trouble they were taking. She felt how good every one was, andhow wonderfully kind and generous was the world that she lived in. 

Her brother came over to the carriage and bowed with mock courtesy. 

"I trust, now that we have done all the work, " he said, "that yourexcellencies will condescend to share our frugal fare, or must we bringit to you here?"

The clay oven stood in the middle of a hut of laced twigs, throughwhich the smoke drifted freely. There was a row of wooden benchesaround it, and they all seated themselves and ate ravenously of riceand fried plantains, while the woman patted and tossed tortillasbetween her hands, eyeing her guests curiously. Her glance fell uponLangham's shoulder, and rested there for so long that Hope followed thedirection of her eyes. She leaped to her feet with a cry of fear andreproach, and ran toward her brother. 

"Ted!" she cried, "you are hurt! you are wounded, and you never toldme! What is it? Is it very bad?" Clay crossed the floor in a stride, his face full of concern. 

"Leave me alone!" cried the stern brother, backing away and wardingthem off with the coffeepot. "It's only scratched. You'll spill thecoffee. "

But at the sight of the blood Hope had turned very white, and throwingher arms around her brother's neck, hid her eyes on his other shoulderand began to cry. 

"I am so selfish, " she sobbed. "I have been so happy and you weresuffering all the time. "

Her brother stared at the others in dismay. "What nonsense, " he said, patting her on the shoulder. "You're a bit tired, and you need rest. That's what you need. The idea of my sister going off in hystericsafter behaving like such a sport--and before these young ladies, too. Aren't you ashamed?"

"I should think they'd be ashamed, " said MacWilliams, severely, as hecontinued placidly with his supper. "They haven't got enough clotheson. "

Langham looked over Hope's shoulder at Clay and nodded significantly. "She's been on a good deal of a strain, " he explained apologetically, "and no wonder; it's been rather an unusual night for her. "

Hope raised her head and smiled at him through her tears. Then sheturned and moved toward Clay. She brushed her eyes with the back ofher hand and laughed. "It has been an unusual night, " she said. "Shall I tell him?" she asked. 

Clay straightened himself unconsciously, and stepped beside her andtook her hand; MacWilliams quickly lowered to the bench the dish fromwhich he was eating, and stood up, too. The people of the house staredat the group in the firelight with puzzled interest, at the beautifulyoung girl, and at the tall, sunburned young man at her side. Langhamlooked from his sister to Clay and back again, and laughed uneasily. 

"Langham, I have been very bold, " said Clay. "I have asked your sisterto marry me--and she has said that she would. "

Langham flushed as red as his sister. He felt himself at adisadvantage in the presence of a love as great and strong as he knewthis must be. It made him seem strangely young and inadequate. Hecrossed over to his sister awkwardly and kissed her, and then tookClay's hand, and the three stood together and looked at one another, and there was no sign of doubt or question in the face of any one ofthem. They stood so for some little time, smiling and exclaimingtogether, and utterly unconscious of anything but their own delight andhappiness. MacWilliams watched them, his face puckered into oddwrinkles and his eyes half-closed. Hope suddenly broke away from theothers and turned toward him with her hands held out. 

"Have you nothing to say to me, Mr. MacWilliams?" she asked. 

MacWilliams looked doubtfully at Clay, as though from force of habit hemust ask advice from his chief first, and then took the hands that sheheld out to him and shook them up and down. His usual confidenceseemed to have forsaken him, and he stood, shifting from one foot tothe other, smiling and abashed. 

"Well, I always said they didn't make them any better than you, " hegasped at last. "I was always telling him that, wasn't I?" He noddedenergetically at Clay. "And that's so; they don't make 'em any betterthan you. "

He dropped her hands and crossed over to Clay, and stood surveying himwith a smile of wonder and admiration. 

"How'd you do it?" he demanded. "How did you do it? I suppose youknow, " he asked sternly, "that you're not good enough for Miss Hope?You know that, don't you?"

"Of course I know that, " said Clay. 

MacWilliams walked toward the door and stood in it for a second, looking back at them over his shoulder. "They don't make them anybetter than that, " he reiterated gravely, and disappeared in thedirection of the horses, shaking his head and muttering hisastonishment and delight. 

"Please give me some money, " Hope said to Clay. "All the money youhave, " she added, smiling at her presumption of authority over him, "and you, too, Ted. " The men emptied their pockets, and Hope pouredthe mass of silver into the hands of the women, who gazed at ituncomprehendingly. 

"Thank you for your trouble and your good supper, " Hope said inSpanish, "and may no evil come to your house. "

The woman and her daughters followed her to the carriage, bowing anduttering good wishes in the extravagant metaphor of their country; andas they drove away, Hope waved her hand to them as she sank closeragainst Clay's shoulder. 

"The world is full of such kind and gentle souls, " she said. 

In an hour they had regained the main road, and a little later thestars grew dim and the moonlight faded, and trees and bushes and rocksbegan to take substance and to grow into form and outline. They saw bythe cool, gray light of the morning the familiar hills around thecapital, and at a cry from the boys on the box-seat, they looked aheadand beheld the harbor of Valencia at their feet, lying as placid andundisturbed as the water in a bath-tub. As they turned up the hillinto the road that led to the Palms, they saw the sleeping capital likea city of the dead below them, its white buildings reddened with thelight of the rising sun. From three places in different parts of thecity, thick columns of smoke rose lazily to the sky. 

"I had forgotten!" said Clay; "they have been having a revolution here. It seems so long ago. "

By five o'clock they had reached the gate of the Palms, and theirappearance startled the sentry on post into a state of undisciplinedjoy. A riderless pony, the one upon which Jose' had made his escapewhen the firing began, had crept into the stable an hour previous, stiff and bruised and weary, and had led the people at the Palms tofear the worst. 

Mr. Langham and his daughter were standing on the veranda as the horsescame galloping up the avenue. They had been awake all the night, andthe face of each was white and drawn with anxiety and loss of sleep. Mr. Langham caught Hope in his arms and held her face close to his insilence. 

"Where have you been?" he said at last. "Why did you treat me likethis? You knew how I would suffer. "

"I could not help it, " Hope cried. "I had to go with Madame Alvarez. "

Her sister had suffered as acutely as had Mr. Langham himself, as longas she was in ignorance of Hope's whereabouts. But now that she sawHope in the flesh again, she felt a reaction against her for theanxiety and distress she had caused them. 

"My dear Hope, " she said, "is every one to be sacrificed for MadameAlvarez? What possible use could you be to her at such a time? It wasnot the time nor the place for a young girl. You were only anotherresponsibility for the men. "

"Clay seemed willing to accept the responsibility, " said Langham, without a smile. "And, besides, " he added, "if Hope had not been withus we might never have reached home alive. "

But it was only after much earnest protest and many explanations thatMr. Langham was pacified, and felt assured that his son's wound was notdangerous, and that his daughter was quite safe. 

Miss Langham and himself, he said, had passed a trying night. There hadbeen much firing in the city, and continual uproar. The houses ofseveral of the friends of Alvarez had been burned and sacked. Alvarezhimself had been shot as soon as he had entered the yard of themilitary prison. It was then given out that he had committed suicide. Mendoza had not dared to kill Rojas, because of the feeling of thepeople toward him, and had even shown him to the mob from behind thebars of one of the windows in order to satisfy them that he was stillliving. The British Minister had sent to the Palace for the body ofCaptain Stuart, and had had it escorted to the Legation, from whence itwould be sent to England. This, as far as Mr. Langham had heard, wasthe news of the night just over. 

"Two native officers called here for you about midnight, Clay, " hecontinued, "and they are still waiting for you below at your office. They came from Rojas's troops, who are encamped on the hills at theother side of the city. They wanted you to join them with the men fromthe mines. I told them I did not know when you would return, and theysaid they would wait. If you could have been here last night, it ispossible that we might have done something, but now that it is allover, I am glad that you saved that woman instead. I should haveliked, though, to have struck one blow at them. But we cannot hope towin against assassins. The death of young Stuart has hurt me terribly, and the murder of Alvarez, coming on top of it, has made me wish I hadnever heard of nor seen Olancho. I have decided to go away at once, onthe next steamer, and I will take my daughters with me, and Ted, too. The State Department at Washington can fight with Mendoza for themines. You made a good stand, but they made a better one, and theyhave beaten us. Mendoza's coup d'etat has passed into history, and therevolution is at an end. "

On his arrival Clay had at once asked for a cigar, and while Mr. Langham was speaking he had been biting it between his teeth, with theserious satisfaction of a man who had been twelve hours without one. He knocked the ashes from it and considered the burning endthoughtfully. Then he glanced at Hope as she stood among the group onthe veranda. She was waiting for his reply and watching him intently. He seemed to be confident that she would approve of the only course hesaw open to him. 

"The revolution is not at an end by any means, Mr. Langham, " he said atlast, simply. "It has just begun. " He turned abruptly and walked awayin the direction of the office, and MacWilliams and Langham stepped offthe veranda and followed him as a matter of course. 

The soldiers in the army who were known to be faithful to General Rojasbelonged to the Third and Fourth regiments, and numbered four thousandon paper, and two thousand by count of heads. When they had seen theirleader taken prisoner, and swept off the parade-ground by Mendoza'scavalry, they had first attempted to follow in pursuit and recapturehim, but the men on horseback had at once shaken off the men on footand left them, panting and breathless, in the dust behind them. Sothey halted uncertainly in the road, and their young officers heldcounsel together. They first considered the advisability of attackingthe military prison, but decided against doing so, as it would lead, they feared, whether it proved successful or not, to the murder ofRojas. It was impossible to return to the city where Mendoza's Firstand Second regiments greatly outnumbered them. Having no leader and noheadquarters, the officers marched the men to the hills above the cityand went into camp to await further developments. 

Throughout the night they watched the illumination of the city and ofthe boats in the harbor below them; they saw the flames bursting fromthe homes of the members of Alvarez's Cabinet, and when the morningbroke they beheld the grounds of the Palace swarming with Mendoza'stroops, and the red and white barred flag of the revolution floatingover it. The news of the assassination of Alvarez and the fact thatRojas had been spared for fear of the people, had been carried to themearly in the evening, and with this knowledge of their General's safetyhope returned and fresh plans were discussed. By midnight they haddefinitely decided that should Mendoza attempt to dislodge them thenext morning, they would make a stand, but that if the fight wentagainst them, they would fall back along the mountain roads to theValencia mines, where they hoped to persuade the fifteen hundredsoldiers there installed to join forces with them against the newDictator. 

In order to assure themselves of this help, a messenger was despatchedby a circuitous route to the Palms, to ask the aid of the residentdirector, and another was sent to the mines to work upon the feelingsof the soldiers themselves. The officer who had been sent to the Palmsto petition Clay for the loan of his soldier-workmen, had decided toremain until Clay returned, and another messenger had been sent afterhim from the camp on the same errand. 

These two lieutenants greeted Clay with enthusiasm, but he at onceinterrupted them, and began plying them with questions as to wheretheir camp was situated and what roads led from it to the Palms. 

"Bring your men at once to this end of our railroad, " he said. "It isstill early, and the revolutionists will sleep late. They are druggedwith liquor and worn out with excitement, and whatever may have beentheir intentions toward you last night, they will be late in puttingthem into practice this morning. I will telegraph Kirkland to come upat once with all of his soldiers and with his three hundred Irishmen. Allowing him a half-hour to collect them and to get his flat carstogether, and another half-hour in which to make the run, he should behere by half-past six--and that's quick mobilization. You ride back nowand march your men here at a double-quick. With your two thousand weshall have in all three thousand and eight hundred men. I must haveabsolute control over my own troops. Otherwise I shall actindependently of you and go into the city alone with my workmen. "

"That is unnecessary, " said one of the lieutenants. "We have noofficers. If you do not command us, there is no one else to do it. Wepromise that our men will follow you and give you every obedience. They have been led by foreigners before, by young Captain Stuart andMajor Fergurson and Colonel Shrevington. They know how highly GeneralRojas thinks of you, and they know that you have led Continental armiesin Europe. "

"Well, don't tell them I haven't until this is over, " said Clay. "Now, ride hard, gentlemen, and bring your men here as quickly as possible. "

The lieutenants thanked him effusively and galloped away, radiant atthe success of their mission, and Clay entered the office whereMacWilliams was telegraphing his orders to Kirkland. He seated himselfbeside the instrument, and from time to time answered the questionsKirkland sent back to him over the wire, and in the intervals ofsilence thought of Hope. It was the first time he had gone into actionfeeling the touch of a woman's hand upon his sleeve, and he was fearfullest she might think he had considered her too lightly. 

He took a piece of paper from the table and wrote a few lines upon it, and then rewrote them several times. The message he finally sent toher was this: "I am sure you understand, and that you would not haveme give up beaten now, when what we do to-day may set us right again. I know better than any one else in the world can know, what I run therisk of losing, but you would not have that fear stop me from going onwith what we have been struggling for so long. I cannot come back tosee you before we start, but I know your heart is with me. With greatlove, Robert Clay. "

He gave the note to his servant, and the answer was brought to himalmost immediately. Hope had not rewritten her message: "I love youbecause you are the sort of man you are, and had you given up as fatherwished you to do, or on my account, you would have been some one else, and I would have had to begin over again to learn to love you for somedifferent reasons. I know that you will come back to me bringing yoursheaves with you. Nothing can happen to you now. Hope. "

He had never received a line from her before, and he read and rereadthis with a sense of such pride and happiness in his face thatMacWilliams smiled covertly and bent his eyes upon his instrument. Clay went back into his room and kissed the page of paper gently, flushing like a boy as he did so, and then folding it carefully, he putit away beneath his jacket. He glanced about him guiltily, although hewas quite alone, and taking out his watch, pried it open and lookeddown into the face of the photograph that had smiled up at him from itfor so many years. He thought how unlike it was to Alice Langham as heknew her. He judged that it must have been taken when she was veryyoung, at the age Hope was then, before the little world she lived inhad crippled and narrowed her and marked her for its own. Heremembered what she had said to him the first night he had seen her. "That is the picture of the girl who ceased to exist four years ago, and whom you have never met. " He wondered if she had ever existed. 

"It looks more like Hope than her sister, " he mused. "It looks verymuch like Hope. " He decided that he would let it remain where it wasuntil Hope gave him a better one; and smiling slightly he snapped thelid fast, as though he were closing a door on the face of Alice Langhamand locking it forever. 

Kirkland was in the cab of the locomotive that brought the soldiersfrom the mine. He stopped the first car in front of the freightstation until the workmen had filed out and formed into a double lineon the platform. Then he moved the train forward the length of thatcar, and those in the one following were mustered out in a similarmanner. As the cars continued to come in, the men at the head of thedouble line passed on through the freight station and on up the road tothe city in an unbroken column. There was no confusion, no crowding, and no haste. 

When the last car had been emptied, Clay rode down the line andappointed a foreman to take charge of each company, stationing hisengineers and the Irish-Americans in the van. It looked more like amob than a regiment. None of the men were in uniform, and the nativesoldiers were barefoot. But they showed a winning spirit, and stood inas orderly an array as though they were drawn up in line to receivetheir month's wages. The Americans in front of the column werehumorously disposed, and inclined to consider the whole affair as apleasant outing. They had been placed in front, not because they werebetter shots than the natives, but because every South American thinksthat every citizen of the United States is a master either of the rifleor the revolver, and Clay was counting on this superstition. Hisassistant engineers and foremen hailed him as he rode on up and downthe line with good-natured cheers, and asked him when they were to gettheir commissions, and if it were true that they were all captains, oronly colonels, as they were at home. 

They had been waiting for a half-hour, when there was the sound ofhorses' hoofs on the road, and the even beat of men's feet, and theadvance guard of the Third and Fourth regiments came toward them at aquickstep. The men were still in the full-dress uniforms they had wornat the review the day before, and in comparison with thesoldier-workmen and the Americans in flannel shirts, they presented somartial a showing that they were welcomed with tumultuous cheers. Claythrew them into a double line on one side of the road, down the lengthof which his own marched until they had reached the end of it nearestto the city, when they took up their position in a close formation, andthe native regiments fell in behind them. Clay selected twenty of thebest shots from among the engineers and sent them on ahead as askirmish line. They were ordered to fall back at once if they saw anysign of the enemy. In this order the column of four thousand menstarted for the city. 

It was a little after seven when they advanced, and the air was mildand peaceful. Men and women came crowding to the doors and windows ofthe huts as they passed, and stood watching them in silence, notknowing to which party the small army might belong. In order toenlighten them, Clay shouted, "Viva Rojas. " And his men took it up, and the people answered gladly. 

They had reached the closely built portion of the city when theskirmish line came running back to say that it had been met by adetachment of Mendoza's cavalry, who had galloped away as soon as theysaw them. There was then no longer any doubt that the fact of theircoming was known at the Palace, and Clay halted his men in a bare plazaand divided them into three columns. Three streets ran parallel withone another from this plaza to the heart of the city, and openeddirectly upon the garden of the Palace where Mendoza had fortifiedhimself. Clay directed the columns to advance up these streets, keeping the head of each column in touch with the other two. At theword they were to pour down the side streets and rally to each other'sassistance. 

As they stood, drawn up on the three sides of the plaza, he rode outbefore them and held up his hat for silence. They were there with armsin their hands, he said, for two reasons: the greater one, and the onewhich he knew actuated the native soldiers, was their desire topreserve the Constitution of the Republic. According to their own laws, the Vice-President must succeed when the President's term of office hadexpired, or in the event of his death. President Alvarez had beenassassinated, and the Vice-President, General Rojas, was, inconsequence, his legal successor. It was their duty, as soldiers ofthe Republic, to rescue him from prison, to drive the man who hadusurped his place into exile, and by so doing uphold the laws whichthey had themselves laid down. The second motive, he went on, was aless worthy and more selfish one. The Olancho mines, which now gavework to thousands and brought millions of dollars into the country, were coveted by Mendoza, who would, if he could, convert them into amonopoly of his government. If he remained in power all foreignerswould be driven out of the country, and the soldiers would be forced towork in the mines without payment. Their condition would be littlebetter than that of the slaves in the salt mines of Siberia. Not onlywould they no longer be paid for their labor, but the people as a wholewould cease to receive that share of the earnings of the mines whichhad hitherto been theirs. 

"Under President Rojas you will have liberty, justice, and prosperity, "Clay cried. "Under Mendoza you will be ruled by martial law. He willrob and overtax you, and you will live through a reign of terror. Between them--which will you choose?"

The native soldiers answered by cries of "Rojas, " and breaking ranksrushed across the plaza toward him, crowding around his horse andshouting, "Long live Rojas, " "Long live the Constitution, " "Death toMendoza. " The Americans stood as they were and gave three cheers forthe Government. 

They were still cheering and shouting as they advanced upon the Palace, and the noise of their coming drove the people indoors, so that theymarched through deserted streets and between closed doors and sightlesswindows. No one opposed them, and no one encouraged them. But theycould now see the facade of the Palace and the flag of theRevolutionists hanging from the mast in front of it. 

Three blocks distant from the Palace they came upon the buildings ofthe United States and English Legations, where the flags of the twocountries had been hung out over the narrow thoroughfare. 

The windows and the roofs of each legation were crowded with women andchildren who had sought refuge there, and the column halted as Weimer, the Consul, and Sir Julian Pindar, the English Minister, came out, bare-headed, into the street and beckoned to Clay to stop. 

"As our Minister was not here, " Weimer said, "I telegraphed to Truxillofor the man-of-war there. She started some time ago, and we have justheard that she is entering the lower harbor. She should have herblue-jackets on shore in twenty minutes. Sir Julian and I think youought to wait for them. "

The English Minister put a detaining hand on Clay's bridle. "If youattack Mendoza at the Palace with this mob, " he remonstrated, "riotingand lawlessness generally will break out all over the city. I ask youto keep them back until we get your sailors to police the streets andprotect property. "

Clay glanced over his shoulder at the engineers and the Irish workmenstanding in solemn array behind him. "Oh, you can hardly call this amob, " he said. "They look a little rough and ready, but I will answerfor them. The two other columns that are coming up the streetsparallel to this are Government troops and properly engaged in drivinga usurper out of the Government building. The best thing you can do isto get down to the wharf and send the marines and blue-jackets whereyou think they will do the most good. I can't wait for them. And theycan't come too soon. "

The grounds of the Palace occupied two entire blocks; the BotanicalGardens were in the rear, and in front a series of low terraces randown from its veranda to the high iron fence which separated thegrounds from the chief thoroughfare of the city. 

Clay sent word to the left and right wing of his little army to make adetour one street distant from the Palace grounds and form in thestreet in the rear of the Botanical Gardens. When they heard thefiring of his men from the front they were to force their way throughthe gates at the back and attack the Palace in the rear. 

"Mendoza has the place completely barricaded, " Weimer warned him, "andhe has three field pieces covering each of these streets. You and yourmen are directly in line of one of them now. He is only waiting foryou to get a little nearer before he lets loose. "

From where he sat Clay could count the bars of the iron fence in frontof the grounds. But the boards that backed them prevented his formingany idea of the strength or the distribution of Mendoza's forces. Hedrew his staff of amateur officers to one side and explained thesituation to them. 

"The Theatre National and the Club Union, " he said, "face the Palacefrom the opposite corners of this street. You must get into them andbarricade the windows and throw up some sort of shelter for yourselvesalong the edge of the roofs and drive the men behind that fence back tothe Palace. Clear them away from the cannon first, and keep them awayfrom it. I will be waiting in the street below. When you have driventhem back, we will charge the gates and have it out with them in thegardens. The Third and Fourth regiments ought to take them in the rearabout the same time. You will continue to pick them off from the roof. "

The two supporting columns had already started on their roundabout wayto the rear of the Palace. Clay gathered up his reins, and telling hismen to keep close to the walls, started forward, his soldiers followingon the sidewalks and leaving the middle of the street clear. As theyreached a point a hundred yards below the Palace, a part of the woodenshield behind the fence was thrown down, there was a puff of whitesmoke and a report, and a cannon-ball struck the roof of a house whichthey were passing and sent the tiles clattering about their heads. Butthe men in the lead had already reached the stage-door of the theatreand were opposite one of the doors to the club. They drove these inwith the butts of their rifles, and raced up the stairs of each of thedeserted buildings until they reached the roof. Langham was swept by aweight of men across a stage, and jumped among the music racks in theorchestra. He caught a glimpse of the early morning sun shining on thetawdry hangings of the boxes and the exaggerated perspective of thescenery. He ran through corridors between two great statues of Comedyand Tragedy, and up a marble stair case to a lobby in which he saw thewhite faces about him multiplied in long mirrors, and so out to an ironbalcony from which he looked down, panting and breathless, upon thePalace Gardens, swarming with soldiers and white with smoke. Menpoured through the windows of the club opposite, dragging sofas andchairs out to the balcony and upon the flat roof. The men near himwere tearing down the yellow silk curtains in the lobby and drapingthem along the railing of the balcony to better conceal their movementsfrom the enemy below. Bullets spattered the stucco about their heads, and panes of glass broke suddenly and fell in glittering particles upontheir shoulders. The firing had already begun from the roofs nearthem. Beyond the club and the theatre and far along the street on eachside of the Palace the merchants were slamming the iron shutters oftheir shops, and men and women were running for refuge up the highsteps of the church of Santa Maria. Others were gathered in blackmasses on the balconies and roofs of the more distant houses, wherethey stood outlined against the soft blue sky in gigantic silhouette. Their shouts of encouragement and anger carried clearly in the morningair, and spurred on the gladiators below to greater effort. In thePalace Gardens a line of Mendoza's men fought from behind the firstbarricade, while others dragged tables and bedding and chairs acrossthe green terraces and tumbled them down to those below, who seizedthem and formed them into a second line of defence. 

Two of the assistant engineers were kneeling at Langham's feet with thebarrels of their rifles resting on the railing of the balcony. Theireyes had been trained for years to judge distances and to measurespace, and they glanced along the sights of their rifles as though theywere looking through the lens of a transit, and at each report theirfaces grew more earnest and their lips pressed tighter together. Oneof them lowered his gun to light a cigarette, and Langham handed himhis match-box, with a certain feeling of repugnance. 

"Better get under cover, Mr. Langham, " the man said, kindly. "There'sno use our keeping your mines for you if you're not alive to enjoythem. Take a shot at that crew around the gun. "

"I don't like this long range business, " Langham answered. "I am goingdown to join Clay. I don't like the idea of hitting a man when heisn't looking at you. "

The engineer gave an incredulous laugh. 

"If he isn't looking at you, he's aiming at the man next to you. 'Liveand let Live' doesn't apply at present. "

As Langham reached Clay's side triumphant shouts arose from theroof-tops, and the men posted there stood up and showed themselvesabove the barricades and called to Clay that the cannon were deserted. 

Kirkland had come prepared for the barricade, and, running across thestreet, fastened a dynamite cartridge to each gate post and lit thefuses. The soldiers scattered before him as he came leaping back, andin an instant later there was a racking roar, and the gates werepitched out of their sockets and thrown forward, and those in thestreet swept across them and surrounded the cannon. 

Langham caught it by the throat as though it were human, and did notfeel the hot metal burning the palms of his hands as he choked it andpointed its muzzle toward the Palace, while the others dragged at thespokes of the wheel. It was fighting at close range now, close enoughto suit even Langham. He found himself in the front rank of it withoutknowing exactly how he got there. Every man on both sides was playinghis own hand, and seemed to know exactly what to do. He felt neglectedand very much alone, and was somewhat anxious lest his valor might bewasted through his not knowing how to put it to account. He saw theenemy in changing groups of scowling men, who seemed to eye him for aninstant down the length of a gun-barrel and then disappear behind apuff of smoke. He kept thinking that war made men take strangeliberties with their fellow-men, and it struck him as being most absurdthat strangers should stand up and try to kill one another, men who hadso little in common that they did not even know one another's names. The soldiers who were fighting on his own side were equally unknown tohim, and he looked in vain for Clay. He saw MacWilliams for a momentthrough the smoke, jabbing at a jammed cartridge with his pen-knife, and hacking the lead away to make it slip. He was remonstrating withthe gun and swearing at it exactly as though it were human, and asLangham ran toward him he threw it away and caught up another from theground. Kneeling beside the wounded man who had dropped it and pickingthe cartridges from his belt, he assured him cheerfully that he was notso badly hurt as he thought. 

"You all right?" Langham asked. 

"I'm all right. I'm trying to get a little laddie hiding behind thatblue silk sofa over there. He's taken an unnatural dislike to me, andhe's nearly got me three times. I'm knocking horse-hair out of hisrampart, though. "

The men of Stuart's body-guard were fighting outside of the breastworksand mattresses. They were using their swords as though they weremachetes, and the Irishmen were swinging their guns around theirshoulders like sledge-hammers, and beating their foes over the head andbreast. The guns at his own side sounded close at Langham's ear, anddeafened him, and those of the enemy exploded so near to his face thathe was kept continually winking and dodging, as though he were beingtaken by a flashlight photograph. When he fired he aimed where themass was thickest, so that he might not see what his bullet did, but heremembered afterward that he always reloaded with the most anxiousswiftness in order that he might not be killed before he had hadanother shot, and that the idea of being killed was of no concern tohim except on that account. Then the scene before him changed, andapparently hundreds of Mendoza's soldiers poured out from the Palaceand swept down upon him, cheering as they came, and he felt himselffalling back naturally and as a matter of course, as he would havestepped out of the way of a locomotive, or a runaway horse, or anyother unreasoning thing. His shoulders pushed against a mass ofshouting, sweating men, who in turn pressed back upon others, until themass reached the iron fence and could move no farther. He heard Clay'svoice shouting to them, and saw him run forward, shooting rapidly as heran, and he followed him, even though his reason told him it was auseless thing to do, and then there came a great shout from the rear ofthe Palace, and more soldiers, dressed exactly like the others, rushedthrough the great doors and swarmed around the two wings of thebuilding, and he recognized them as Rojas's men and knew that the fightwas over. 

He saw a tall man with a negro's face spring out of the first mass ofsoldiers and shout to them to follow him. Clay gave a yell of welcomeand ran at him, calling upon him in Spanish to surrender. The negrostopped and stood at bay, glaring at Clay and at the circle of soldiersclosing in around him. He raised his revolver and pointed it steadily. It was as though the man knew he had only a moment to live, and meantto do that one thing well in the short time left him. 

Clay sprang to one side and ran toward him, dodging to the right andleft, but Mendoza followed his movements carefully with his revolver. 

It lasted but an instant. Then the Spaniard threw his arm suddenlyacross his face, drove the heel of his boot into the turf, and spinningabout on it fell forward. 

"If he was shot where his sash crosses his heart, I know the man whodid it, " Langham heard a voice say at his elbow, and turning sawMacWilliams wetting his fingers at his lips and touching them gingerlyto the heated barrel of his Winchester. 

The death of Mendoza left his followers without a leader and without acause. They threw their muskets on the ground and held their handsabove their heads, shrieking for mercy. Clay and his officers answeredthem instantly by running from one group to another, knocking up thebarrels of the rifles and calling hoarsely to the men on the roofs tocease firing, and as they were obeyed the noise of the last few randomshots was drowned in tumultuous cheering and shouts of exultation, that, starting in the gardens, were caught up by those in the streetsand passed on quickly as a line of flame along the swaying housetops. 

The native officers sprang upon Clay and embraced him after theirfashion, hailing him as the Liberator of Olancho, as the Preserver ofthe Constitution, and their brother patriot. Then one of them climbedto the top of a gilt and marble table and proclaimed him militaryPresident. 

"You'll proclaim yourself an idiot, if you don't get down from there, "Clay said, laughing. "I thank you for permitting me to serve with you, gentlemen. I shall have great pleasure in telling our President howwell you acquitted yourself in this row--battle, I mean. And now Iwould suggest that you store the prisoners' weapons in the Palace andput a guard over them, and then conduct the men themselves to themilitary prison, where you can release General Rojas and escort himback to the city in a triumphal procession. You'd like that, wouldn'tyou?"

But the natives protested that that honor was for him alone. Claydeclined it, pleading that he must look after his wounded. 

"I can hardly believe there are any dead, " he said to Kirkland. 

"For, if it takes two thousand bullets to kill a man in Europeanwarfare, it must require about two hundred thousand to kill a man inSouth America. "

He told Kirkland to march his men back to the mines and to see thatthere were no stragglers. "If they want to celebrate, let themcelebrate when they get to the mines, but not here. They have made agood record to-day and I won't have it spoiled by rioting. They shallhave their reward later. Between Rojas and Mr. Langham they should allbe rich men. "

The cheering from the housetops since the firing ceased had changedsuddenly into hand-clappings, and the cries, though stillundistinguishable, were of a different sound. Clay saw that theAmericans on the balconies of the club and of the theatre had thrownthemselves far over the railings and were all looking in the samedirection and waving their hats and cheering loudly, and he heard abovethe shouts of the people the regular tramp of men's feet marching instep, and the rattle of a machine gun as it bumped and shook over therough stones. He gave a shout of pleasure, and Kirkland and the twoboys ran with him up the slope, crowding each other to get a betterview. The mob parted at the Palace gates, and they saw two lines ofblue-jackets, spread out like the sticks of a fan, dragging the gunbetween them, the middies in their tight-buttoned tunics and gaiters, and behind them more blue-jackets with bare, bronzed throats, and withthe swagger and roll of the sea in their legs and shoulders. AnAmerican flag floated above the white helmets of the marines. Itspresence and the sense of pride which the sight of these men from homeawoke in them made the fight just over seem mean and petty, and theytook off their hats and cheered with the others. 

A first lieutenant, who felt his importance and also a sense ofdisappointment at having arrived too late to see the fighting, left hismen at the gate of the Palace, and advanced up the terrace, stopping toask for information as he came. Each group to which he addressedhimself pointed to Clay. The sight of his own flag had reminded Claythat the banner of Mendoza still hung from the mast beside which he wasstanding, and as the officer approached he was busily engaged inuntwisting its halyards and pulling it down. 

The lieutenant saluted him doubtfully. 

"Can you tell me who is in command here?" he asked. He spoke somewhatsharply, for Clay was not a military looking personage, covered as hewas with dust and perspiration, and with his sombrero on the back ofhis head. 

"Our Consul here told us at the landing-place, " continued thelieutenant in an aggrieved tone, "that a General Mendoza was in power, and that I had better report to him, and then ten minutes later I hearthat he is dead and that a General Rojas is President, but that a mannamed Clay has made himself Dictator. My instructions are to recognizeno belligerents, but to report to the Government party. Now, who isthe Government party?"

Clay brought the red-barred flag down with a jerk, and ripped it freefrom the halyards. Kirkland and the two boys were watching him withamused smiles. 

"I appreciate your difficulty, " he said. "President Alvarez is dead, and General Mendoza, who tried to make himself Dictator, is also dead, and the real President, General Rojas, is still in jail. So at presentI suppose that I represent the Government party, at least I am the mannamed Clay. It hadn't occurred to me before, but, until Rojas is free, I guess I am the Dictator of Olancho. Is Madame Alvarez on board yourship?"

"Yes, she is with us, " the officer replied, in some confusion. "Excuseme--are you the three gentlemen who took her to the yacht? I am afraidI spoke rather hastily just now, but you are not in uniform, and theGovernment seems to change so quickly down here that a stranger findsit hard to keep up with it. "

Six of the native officers had approached as the lieutenant wasspeaking and saluted Clay gravely. "We have followed yourinstructions, " one of them said, "and the regiments are ready to marchwith the prisoners. Have you any further orders for us--can we deliverany messages to General Rojas?"

"Present my congratulations to General Rojas, and best wishes, " saidClay. "And tell him for me, that it would please me greatly if hewould liberate an American citizen named Burke, who is at present inthe cuartel. And that I wish him to promote all of you gentlemen onegrade and give each of you the Star of Olancho. Tell him that in myopinion you have deserved even higher reward and honor at his hands. "

The boy-lieutenants broke out into a chorus of delighted thanks. Theyassured Clay that he was most gracious; that he overwhelmed them, andthat it was honor enough for them that they had served under him. ButClay laughed, and drove them off with a paternal wave of the hand. 

The officer from the man-of-war listened with an uncomfortable sense ofhaving blundered in his manner toward this powder-splashed young manwho set American citizens at liberty, and created captains by thehalf-dozen at a time. 

"Are you from the States?" he asked as they moved toward theman-of-war's men. 

"I am, thank God. Why not?"

"I thought you were, but you saluted like an Englishman. "

"I was an officer in the English army once in the Soudan, when theywere short of officers. " Clay shook his head and looked wistfully atthe ranks of the blue-jackets drawn up on either side of them. Thehorses had been brought out and Langham and MacWilliams were waitingfor him to mount. "I have worn several uniforms since I was a boy, "said Clay. "But never that of my own country. "

The people were cheering him from every part of the square. Women wavedtheir hands from balconies and housetops, and men climbed to awningsand lampposts and shouted his name. The officers and men of thelanding party took note of him and of this reception out of the cornerof their eyes, and wondered. 

"And what had I better do?" asked the commanding officer. 

"Oh, I would police the Palace grounds, if I were you, and picket thatstreet at the right, where there are so many wine shops, and preserveorder generally until Rojas gets here. He won't be more than an hour, now. We shall be coming over to pay our respects to your captainto-morrow. Glad to have met you. "

"Well, I'm glad to have met you, " answered the officer, heartily. "Hold on a minute. Even if you haven't worn our uniform, you're asgood, and better, than some I've seen that have, and you're a sort of acommander-in-chief, anyway, and I'm damned if I don't give you a sortof salute. "

Clay laughed like a boy as he swung himself into the saddle. Theofficer stepped back and gave the command; the middies raised theirswords and Clay passed between massed rows of his countrymen with theirmuskets held rigidly toward him. The housetops rocked again at thesight, and as he rode out into the brilliant sunshine, his eyes werewet and winking. 

The two boys had drawn up at his side, but MacWilliams had turned inthe saddle and was still looking toward the Palace, with his handresting on the hindquarters of his pony. 

"Look back, Clay, " he said. "Take a last look at it, you'll never seeit after to-day. Turn again, turn again, Dictator of Olancho. "

The men laughed and drew rein as he bade them, and looked back up thenarrow street. They saw the green and white flag of Olancho creepingto the top of the mast before the Palace, the blue-jackets driving backthe crowd, the gashes in the walls of the houses, where Mendoza'scannonballs had dug their way through the stucco, and the silkcurtains, riddled with bullets, flapping from the balconies of theopera-house. 

"You had it all your own way an hour ago, " MacWilliams said, mockingly. "You could have sent Rojas into exile, and made us all CabinetMinisters--and you gave it up for a girl. Now, you're Dictator ofOlancho. What will you be to-morrow? To-morrow you will be AndrewLangham's son-in-law--Benedict, the married man. Andrew Langham'sson-in-law cannot ask his wife to live in such a hole as this, so--Goodbye, Mr. Clay. We have been long together. "

Clay and Langham looked curiously at the boy to see if he were inearnest, but MacWilliams would not meet their eyes. 

"There were three of us, " he said, "and one got shot, and one gotmarried, and the third--? You will grow fat, Clay, and live on FifthAvenue and wear a high silk hat, and some day when you're sitting inyour club you'll read a paragraph in a newspaper with a queer Spanishdate-line to it, and this will all come back to you, --this heat, andthe palms, and the fever, and the days when you lived on plantains andwe watched our trestles grow out across the canons, and you'll bewilling to give your hand to sleep in a hammock again, and to feel thesweat running down your back, and you'll want to chuck your gun upagainst your chin and shoot into a line of men, and the policemen won'tlet you, and your wife won't let you. That's what you're giving up. There it is. Take a good look at it. You'll never see it again. "

XV

The steamer "Santiago, " carrying "passengers, bullion, and coffee, " washeaded to pass Porto Rico by midnight, when she would be free of landuntil she anchored at the quarantine station of the green hills ofStaten Island. She had not yet shaken off the contamination of theearth; a soft inland breeze still tantalized her with odors of tree andsoil, the smell of the fresh coat of paint that had followed hercoaling rose from her sides, and the odor of spilt coffee-grains thathung around the hatches had yet to be blown away by a jealous oceanbreeze, or washed by a welcoming cross sea. 

The captain stopped at the open entrance of the Social Hall. "If any ofyou ladies want to take your last look at Olancho you've got to comenow, " he said. "We'll lose the Valencia light in the next quarterhour. "

Miss Langham and King looked up from their novels and smiled, and MissLangham shook her head. "I've taken three final farewells of Olanchoalready, " she said: "before we went down to dinner, and when the sunset, and when the moon rose. I have no more sentiment left to draw on. Do you want to go?" she asked. 

"I'm very comfortable, thank you, " King said, and returned to theconsideration of his novel. 

But Clay and Hope arose at the captain's suggestion with suspiciousalacrity, and stepped out upon the empty deck, and into theencompassing darkness, with a little sigh of relief. 

Alice Langham looked after them somewhat wistfully and bit the edges ofher book. She sat for some time with her brows knitted, glancingoccasionally and critically toward King and up with unseeing eyes atthe swinging lamps of the saloon. He caught her looking at him oncewhen he raised his eyes as he turned a page, and smiled back at her, and she nodded pleasantly and bent her head over her reading. Sheassured herself that after all King understood her and she him, andthat if they never rose to certain heights, they never sank below ahigh level of mutual esteem, and that perhaps was the best in the end. 

King had placed his yacht at the disposal of Madame Alvarez, and shehad sailed to Colon, where she could change to the steamers for Lisbon, while he accompanied the Langhams and the wedding party to New York. 

Clay recognized that the time had now arrived in his life when he couldgraduate from the position of manager-director and become theengineering expert, and that his services in Olancho were no longerneeded. 

With Rojas in power Mr. Langham had nothing further to fear from theGovernment, and with Kirkland in charge and young Langham returningafter a few months' absence to resume his work, he felt himself free toenjoy his holiday. 

They had taken the first steamer out, and the combined efforts of allhad been necessary to prevail upon MacWilliams to accompany them; andeven now the fact that he was to act as Clay's best man and, as Langhamassured him cheerfully, was to wear a frock coat and see his name inall the papers, brought on such sudden panics of fear that thefast-fading coast line filled his soul with regret, and a wilful desireto jump overboard and swim back. 

Clay and Hope stopped at the door of the chief engineer's cabin andsaid they had come to pay him a visit. The chief had but just comefrom the depths where the contamination of the earth was most evidentin the condition of his stokers; but his chin was now cleanly shaven, and his pipe was drawing as well as his engine fires, and he hadwrapped himself in an old P. & O. White duck jacket to show what he hadbeen before he sank to the level of a coasting steamer. They admiredthe clerk-like neatness of the report he had just finished, and inreturn he promised them the fastest run on record, and showed them theportrait of his wife, and of their tiny cottage on the Isle of Wight, and his jade idols from Corea, and carved cocoanut gourds from Brazil, and a picture from the "Graphic" of Lord Salisbury, tacked to thepartition and looking delightedly down between two highly coloredlithographs of Miss Ellen Terry and the Princess May. 

Then they called upon the captain, and Clay asked him why captainsalways hung so much lace about their beds when they invariably slept ona red velvet sofa with their boots on, and the captain ordered hisChinese steward to mix them a queer drink and offered them the choiceof a six months' accumulation of paper novels, and free admittance tohis bridge at all hours. And then they passed on to the door of thesmoking-room and beckoned MacWilliams to come out and join them. Hismanner as he did so bristled with importance, and he drew them eagerlyto the rail. 

"I've just been having a chat with Captain Burke, " he said, in anundertone. "He's been telling Langham and me about a new game that'sbetter than running railroads. He says there's a country calledMacedonia that's got a native prince who wants to be free from Turkey, and the Turks won't let him, and Burke says if we'll each put up athousand dollars, he'll guarantee to get the prince free in six months. He's made an estimate of the cost and submitted it to the RussianEmbassy at Washington, and he says they will help him secretly, and heknows a man who has just patented a new rifle, and who will supply himwith a thousand of them for the sake of the advertisement. He saysit's a mountainous country, and all you have to do is to stand on thepasses and roll rocks down on the Turks as they come in. It soundseasy, doesn't it?"

"Then you're thinking of turning professional filibuster yourself?"said Clay. 

"Well, I don't know. It sounds more interesting than engineering. Burke says I beat him on his last fight, and he'd like to have me withhim in the next one--sort of young-blood-in-the-firm idea--and hecalculates that we can go about setting people free and upsettinggovernments for some time to come. He says there is always somethingto fight about if you look for it. And I must say the condition ofthose poor Macedonians does appeal to me. Think of them all alone downthere bullied by that Sultan of Turkey, and wanting to be free andindependent. That's not right. You, as an American citizen, ought tobe the last person in the world to throw cold water on an undertakinglike that. In the name of Liberty now?"

"I don't object; set them free, of course, " laughed Clay. "But how longhave you entertained this feeling for the enslaved Macedonians, Mac?"

"Well, I never heard of them until a quarter of an hour ago, but theyoughtn't to suffer through my ignorance. "

"Certainly not. Let me know when you're going to do it, and Hope and Iwill run over and look on. I should like to see you and Burke and thePrince of Macedonia rolling rocks down on the Turkish Empire. "

Hope and Clay passed on up the deck laughing, and MacWilliams lookedafter them with a fond and paternal smile. The lamp in the wheelhousethrew a broad belt of light across the forward deck as they passedthrough it into the darkness of the bow, where the lonely lookoutturned and stared at them suspiciously, and then resumed his sternwatch over the great waters. 

They leaned upon the rail and breathed the soft air which the rush ofthe steamer threw in their faces, and studied in silence the stars thatlay so low upon the horizon line that they looked like the harborlights of a great city. 

"Do you see that long line of lamps off our port bow?" asked Clay. 

Hope nodded. 

"Those are the electric lights along the ocean drive at Long Branch andup the Rumson Road, and those two stars a little higher up are fixed tothe mast-heads of the Scotland Lightship. And that mass of light thatyou think is the Milky Way, is the glare of the New York street lampsthrown up against the sky. "

"Are we so near as that?" said Hope, smiling. "And what lies overthere?" she asked, pointing to the east. 

"Over there is the coast of Africa. Don't you see the lighthouse onCape Bon? If it wasn't for Gibraltar being in the way, I could showyou the harbor lights of Bizerta, and the terraces of Algiers shininglike a café chantant in the night. "

"Algiers, " sighed Hope, "where you were a soldier of Africa, and rodeacross the deserts. Will you take me there?"

"There, of course, but to Gibraltar first, where we will drive alongthe Alameda by moonlight. I drove there once coming home from a messdinner with the Colonel. The drive lies between broad whitebalustrades, and the moon shone down on us between the leaves of theSpanish bayonet. It was like an Italian garden. But he did not seeit, and he would talk to me about the Watkins range finder on the lowerramparts, and he puffed on a huge cigar. I tried to imagine I wasthere on my honeymoon, but the end of his cigar would light up and Iwould see his white mustache and the glow on his red jacket, so I vowedI would go over that drive again with the proper person. And we won'ttalk of range finders, will we?

"There to the North is Paris; your Paris, and my Paris, with Londononly eight hours away. If you look very closely, you can see thethousands of hansom cab lamps flashing across the asphalt, and the opentheatres, and the fairy lamps in the gardens back of the houses inMayfair, where they are giving dances in your honor, in honor of thebeautiful American bride, whom every one wants to meet. And you willwear the finest tiara we can get on Bond Street, but no one will lookat it; they will only look at you. And I will feel very miserable andtease you to come home. "

Hope put her hand in his, and he held her finger-tips to his lips foran instant and closed his other hand upon hers. 

"And after that?" asked Hope. 

"After that we will go to work again, and take long journeys to Mexicoand Peru or wherever they want me, and I will sit in judgment on thework other chaps have done. And when we get back to our car at night, or to the section house, for it will be very rough sometimes, "--Hopepressed his hand gently in answer, --"I will tell you privately how verydifferently your husband would have done it, and you, knowing all aboutit, will say that had it been left to me, I would certainly haveaccomplished it in a vastly superior manner. "

"Well, so you would, " said Hope, calmly. 

"That's what I said you'd say, " laughed Clay. "Dearest, " he begged, "promise me something. Promise me that you are going to be very happy. "

Hope raised her eyes and looked up at him in silence, and had the manin the wheelhouse been watching the stars, as he should have been, noone but the two foolish young people on the bow of the boat would haveknown her answer. 

The ship's bell sounded eight times, and Hope moved slightly. 

"So late as that, " she sighed. "Come. We must be going back. "

A great wave struck the ship's side a friendly slap, and the windcaught up the spray and tossed it in their eyes, and blew a strand ofher hair loose so that it fell across Clay's face, and they laughedhappily together as she drew it back and he took her hand again tosteady her progress across the slanting deck. 

As they passed hand in hand out of the shadow into the light from thewheelhouse, the lookout in the bow counted the strokes of the bell tohimself, and then turned and shouted back his measured cry to thebridge above them. His voice seemed to be a part of the murmuring seaand the welcoming winds. 

"Listen, " said Clay. 

"Eight bells, " the voice sang from the darkness. "The for'ard light'sshining bright--and all's well. "