RICHARD HARDING DAVIS (continued 4)

"Indeed!" growled Clay. "Kirkland needs those men to-morrow to load ore-cars for Thursday's steamer. He can't spare them. That is our answer, and it happens to be a true one, but if it weren't true, if to-morrow was All Saints' Day, and the men had nothing to do but to lie in the sun and sleep, Mendoza couldn't get them. And if he comes to take 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 that gentleman, "if I had better weapons. The five thousand dollars I wanted you to spend on rifles, sir, two months ago, might have saved you several millions to-morrow."

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

"Come inside," he said. "That is why we are here. MacWilliams has found out where Burke hid his shipment of arms. We are going to try and get them to-night." He hurried into the dining-room, and the others grouped 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 long table, and the others dragged their chairs up close around him. King put the candles at the opposite end of the table, and set some decanters and glasses in the centre. "To look as though we were just enjoying ourselves," he explained, pleasantly.

Mr. Langham, with his fine, delicate fingers beating nervously on the table, observed the scene as an on-looker, rather than as the person chiefly interested. He smiled as he appreciated the incongruity of the tableau, and the contrast which the actors presented to the situation. He imagined how much it would amuse his contemporaries of the Union Club, at home, if they could see him then, with the still, tropical night outside, the candles reflected on the polished table and on the angles of the decanters, and showing the intent faces of the young girls and the men leaning eagerly forward around MacWilliams, who sat conscious and embarrassed, his hair dishevelled, and his face covered with dust, while Stuart paced up and down in the shadow, his sabre clanking as he walked.

"Well, it happened like this," MacWilliams began, nervously, and addressing himself to Clay. "Stuart and I put Burke safely in a cell by himself. It was one of the old ones that face the street. There was a narrow window in it, about eight feet above the floor, and no means of his reaching it, even if he stood on a chair. We stationed two troopers before the door, and sent out to a café across the street for our dinners. I finished mine about nine o'clock, and said 'Good night' to Stuart, and started to come out here. I went across the street first, however, to give the restaurant man some orders about Burke's breakfast. It is a narrow street, you know, with a long garden-wall and a row of little shops on one side, and with the jail-wall taking up all of the other side. The street was empty when I left the jail, except for the sentry on guard in front of it, but just as I was leaving the restaurant I saw one of Stuart's police come out and peer up and down the street and over at the shops. He looked frightened and anxious, and as I wasn't taking chances on anything, I stepped back into the restaurant and watched him through the window. He waited until the sentry had turned his back, and started away from him on his post, and then I saw him drop his sabre so that it rang on the sidewalk. He was standing, I noticed then, directly under the third window from the door of the jail. That was the window of Burke's cell. When I grasped that fact I got out my gun and walked to the door of the restaurant. Just as I reached it a piece of paper shot out through the bars of Burke's cell and fell at the policeman's feet, and he stamped his boot down on it and looked all around again to see if any one had noticed him. I thought that was my cue, and I ran across the street with my gun pointed, and shouted to him to give me the paper. 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 chew on it. I was right up on him then, and I hit him on the chin with my left fist and knocked him down against the wall, and dropped on him with both knees and choked him till I made him spit out the paper—and two teeth," MacWilliams added, with a conscientious regard for details. "The sentry turned just then and came at me with his bayonet, but I put my finger to my lips, and that surprised him, so that he didn't know just what to do, and hesitated. You see, I didn't want Burke to hear the row outside, so I grabbed my policeman by the collar and pointed to the jail-door, and the sentry ran back and brought out Stuart and the guard. Stuart was pretty mad when he saw his policeman all bloody. He thought it would prejudice his other men against us, but I explained out loud that the man had been insolent, and I asked Stuart to take us both to his private room for a hearing, and, of course, when I told him what had happened, he wanted to punch the chap, too. We put him ourselves into a cell where he could not communicate with any one, and then we read the paper. Stuart has it," said MacWilliams, pushing back his chair, "and he'll tell you the rest." There was a pause, in which every one seemed to take time to breathe, and then a chorus of questions 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 passed him. "That's good work. Now show us the paper, Stuart."

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

"Burke did this up in one of those paper boxes for wax matches," he explained, "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, in parenthesis. "Sort of war-medal, like the Chief's," he added, smiling.

"This is in Spanish," Stuart explained. "I will translate it. It is not addressed to any one, and it is not signed, but it was evidently written to Mendoza, and we know it is in Burke's handwriting, for we compared it with some notes of his that we took from him before he was locked up. He says, 'I cannot keep the appointment, as I have been arrested.' The line that follows here," Stuart explained, raising his head, "has been scratched out, but we spent some time over it, and we made out that it read: 'It was Mr. Clay who recognized me, and ordered my arrest. He is the best man the others have. Watch him.' We think he rubbed that out through good feeling toward Clay. There seems to be no 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,'" repeated Stuart. "'I landed the goods last night in safety. I could not come in when first signalled, as the wind and tide were both off shore. But we got all the stuff stored away by morning. Your agent paid me in full and got my receipt. Please consider this as the same thing—as the equivalent'—it is difficult to translate it exactly," commented Stuart—"'as the equivalent of the receipt I was to have given when I made my report to-night. I sent three of your guards away on my own responsibility, for I think more than that number might attract attention to the spot, and they might be seen from the ore-trains.' That is the point of the note for us, of course," Stuart interrupted himself to say. "Burke adds," he went on, "'that they are to make no effort to rescue him, as he is quite comfortable, and is willing to remain in the carcel until they are established in power.'"

"Within sight of the ore-trains!" exclaimed Clay. "There are no ore-trains but ours. It must be along the line of the road."

"MacWilliams says he knows every foot of land along the railroad," said Stuart, "and he is sure the place Burke means is the old fortress on the Platta inlet, because—"

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

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

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

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

"We've done nothing," said Stuart. "We lost our nerve when we found out 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 for the arms to-night, most likely, and we must be there first. I agree with you entirely about the place. It is only a question now of our being on time. There are two things to do. The first thing is, to keep them from getting the arms, and the second is, if we are lucky, to secure them for ourselves. If we can pull it off properly, we ought to have those rifles in the mines before midnight. If we are hurried or surprised, we must dump them off the fort into the sea." Clay laughed and looked about him at the men. "We are only following out General Bolivar's saying 'When you want arms take them from the enemy.' Now, there are three places we must cover. This house, first of all," he went on, inclining his head quickly toward the two sisters, "then the city, 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 and Langham 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 at the 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 many have you?"

King answered that there were fifteen men still on board, ten of whom would be of service. He added that they were all well equipped for fighting.

"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 the round-house in half an hour. I will get MacWilliams to telegraph Kirkland to run an engine and flat cars to within a half mile of the fort 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 foot of the grounds here and not at the round-house. None of the workmen must see our party start. Do you agree with me?" he asked, turning to those in the group about him. "Has anybody any criticism to make?"

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

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

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

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

The son and heir smiled upon his parent with a look of affectionate wonder, 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'll invent something exciting to do ourselves, even if we have to bombard the 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 rode off 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 the cruelty of having to leave her with everything between them in this interrupted state. But their friends stood about her, interested and excited over this expedition of smuggled arms, unconscious of the great miracle that had come into his life and of his need to speak to and to touch the woman who had wrought it. Clay felt how much more binding than the laws of life are the little social conventions that must be observed at times, even though the heart is leaping with joy or racked with sorrow. He stood within a few feet of the woman he loved, wanting to cry out at her and to tell her all the wonderful things which he had learned were true for the first time that night, but he was forced instead to keep his eyes away from her face and to laugh and answer questions, and at the last to go away content with having held her hand for an instant, and to have heard her say "good-luck."

MacWilliams called Kirkland to the office at the other end of the Company's wire, and explained the situation to him. He was instructed to run an engine and freight-cars to a point a quarter of a mile north of the fort, and to wait there until he heard a locomotive whistle or pistol shots, when he was to run on to the fort as quickly and as noiselessly as possible. He was also directed to bring with him as many of the American workmen as he could trust to keep silent concerning the events of the evening. At ten o'clock MacWilliams had the steam up in a locomotive, and with his only passenger-car in the rear, ran it out of the yard and stopped the train at the point nearest the cars where ten of the 'Vesta's' crew were waiting. The sailors had no idea as to where they were going, or what they were to do, but the fact that they had all been given arms filled them with satisfaction, and they huddled together at the bottom of the car smoking and whispering, and radiant with excitement and satisfaction.

The train progressed cautiously until it was within a half mile below the fort, when Clay stopped it, and, leaving two men on guard, stepped off the remaining distance on the ties, his little band following noiselessly 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 and the rustling of the sea-breeze through the vines and creepers about them.

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 you can."

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

Clay replied that he was certain Kirkland had already arrived. "He had a shorter run than ours, and he wired you he was ready to start when we were, 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, with his helmet over them to mark the spot. "I feel as though I was going to rob a bank," he chuckled, as he waved his hand and crept off into the underbrush.

For the first few moments the men who were left behind sat silent, but as the minutes wore on, and MacWilliams made no sign, they grew restless, and shifted their positions, and began to whisper together, until Clay shook his head at them, and there was silence again until one of them, in trying not to cough, almost strangled, and the others tittered and those nearest pummelled him on the back.

Clay pulled out his revolver, and after spinning the cylinder under his finger-nail, put it back in its holder again, and the men, taking this as an encouraging promise of immediate action, began to examine their weapons again for the twentieth time, and there was a chorus of short, muffled clicks as triggers were drawn back and cautiously lowered and levers shot into place and caught again.

One of the men farthest down the track raised his arm, and all turned and half rose as they saw MacWilliams coming toward them on a run, leaping noiselessly in his stocking feet from tie to tie. He dropped on his knees between Clay and Langham.

"The guns are there all right," he whispered, panting, "and there are only three men guarding them. They are all sitting on the beach smoking. I hustled around the fort and came across the whole outfit in the second gallery. It looks like a row of coffins, ten coffins and about twenty little boxes and kegs. I'm sure that means they are coming for them to-night. They've not tried to hide them nor to cover them up. All we've got to do is to walk down on the guards and tell them 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't go over those cinders again in my bare feet for all the buried treasure in the Spanish Main. You can make all the noise you want; the waves will drown it."

With MacWilliams to show them the way, the men scrambled up the outer wall of the fort and crossed the moss-covered ramparts at the run. Below them, on the sandy beach, were three men sitting around a driftwood fire that had sunk to a few hot ashes. Clay nodded to MacWilliams. "You and Ted can have them," he said. "Go with him, Langham."

The sailors levelled their rifles at the three lonely figures on the beach as the two boys slipped down the wall and fell on their hands and feet in the sand below, and then crawled up to within a few feet of where the men were sitting.

As MacWilliams raised his revolver one of the three, who was cooking something over the fire, raised his head and with a yell of warning flung 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 face down between his knees into the sand.

There was a great rattle of falling stones and of breaking vines as the sailors tumbled down the side of the fort, and in a half minute's time the three sentries were looking with angry, frightened eyes at the circle 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 what they had failed to do, to further commit themselves.

"Tie us and gag us," one of them begged. "Let them find us so. It is the kindest thing you can do for us."

"Thank you, sir," said Clay. "That is what I wanted to know. They are coming to-night, then. We must hurry."

The three sentries were bound and hidden at the base of the wall, with a sailor to watch them. He was a young man with a high sense of the importance of his duties, and he enlivened the prisoners by poking them in the ribs whenever they moved.

Clay deemed it impossible to signal Kirkland as they had arranged to do, as they could not know now how near those who were coming for the arms might be. So MacWilliams was sent back for his engine, and a few minutes later they heard it rumble heavily past the fort on its way to bring up Kirkland and the flat cars. Clay explored the lower chambers of the fort and found the boxes as MacWilliams had described them. Ten men, with some effort, could lift and carry the larger coffin-shaped boxes, and Clay guessed that, granting their contents to be rifles, there must be a hundred pieces in each box, and that there were a thousand rifles in all.

They had moved half of the boxes to the side of the track when the train of flat cars and the two engines came crawling and twisting toward 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 fell between the rails. Thirty men, equally divided between Irish and negroes, fell off the flat cars before the wheels had ceased to revolve, and, without a word of direction, began loading the heavy boxes on the train and passing the kegs of cartridges from hand to hand and shoulder to shoulder. The sailors spread out up the road that led to the Capital to give warning in case the enemy approached, but they were recalled before they had reason to give an alarm, and in a half hour Burke's entire shipment of arms was on the ore-cars, the men who were to have guarded them were prisoners in the cab of the engine, and both trains were rushing at full speed toward the mines. On arriving there Kirkland's train was switched to the siding that led to the magazine in which was stored the rack-arock and dynamite used in the blasting. By midnight all of the boxes were safely under lock in the zinc building, and the number of the men who always guarded the place for fear of fire or accident was doubled, while a reserve, composed of Kirkland's thirty picked men, were hidden in the surrounding houses and engine-sheds.

Before Clay left he had one of the boxes broken open, and found that it held a hundred Mannlicher rifles.

"Good!" he said. "I'd give a thousand dollars in gold if I could bring Mendoza out here and show him his own men armed with his own Mannlichers and dying for a shot at him. How old Burke will enjoy this when he hears of it!"

The party from the Palms returned to their engine after many promises of reward to the men for their work "over-time," and were soon flying back with their hearts as light as the smoke above them.

MacWilliams slackened speed as they neared the fort, and moved up cautiously on the scene of their recent victory, but a warning cry from Clay made him bring his engine to a sharp stop. Many lights were flashing over the ruins and they could see in their reflection the figures of men running over the same walls on which the lizards had basked in undisturbed peace for years.

"They look like a swarm of hornets after some one has chucked a stone through their nest," laughed MacWilliams. "What shall we do now? Go back, or wait here, or run the blockade?"

"Oh, ride them out," said Langham; "the family's anxious, and I want to tell them what's happened. Go ahead."

Clay turned to the sailors in the car behind them. "Lie down, men," he said. "And don't any of you fire unless I tell you to. Let them do all the shooting. This isn't our fight yet, and, besides, they can't hit a locomotive standing still, certainly not when it's going at full speed."

"Suppose they've torn the track up?" said MacWilliams, grinning. "We'd look 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 slowly forward, gaining speed at each revolution of the wheels.

As the noise of its approach beat louder and louder on the air, a yell of disappointed rage and execration rose into the night from the fort, and a mass of soldiers swarmed upon the track, leaping up and down and shaking the rifles in their hands.

"That sounds a little as though they thought we had something to do with it," said MacWilliams, grimly. "If they don't look out some one will get hurt."

There was a flash of fire from where the mass of men stood, followed by a dozen more flashes, and the bullets rattled on the smokestack and upon the boiler of the engine.

"Low bridge," cried MacWilliams, with a fierce chuckle. "Now, watch her!"

He threw open the throttle as far as it would go, and the engine answered to his touch like a race-horse to the whip. It seemed to spring from the track into the air. It quivered and shook like a live thing, and as it shot in between the soldiers they fell back on either side, and MacWilliams leaned far out of his cab-window shaking his fist at them.

"You got left, didn't you?" he shouted. "Thank you for the Mannlichers."

As the locomotive rushed out of the jungle, and passed the point on the road nearest to the Palms, MacWilliams loosened three long triumphant shrieks from his whistle and the sailors stood up and cheered.

"Let them shout," cried Clay. "Everybody will have to know now. It's begun at last," he said, with a laugh of relief.

"And we took the first trick," said MacWilliams, as he ran his engine slowly into the railroad yard.

The whistles of the engine and the shouts of the sailors had carried far through the silence of the night, and as the men came hurrying across the lawn to the Palms, they saw all of those who had been left behind 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 the others hurried down the steps to welcome them, while those of the 'Vesta's' crew who had been left behind looked at their comrades with envy.

"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, happy smile, that was in contrast to the excitement and confusion that reigned about them.

"I knew you would come back safely," she said. And the pressure of her hand seemed to add "to me."

XII

The day of the review rose clear and warm, tempered by a light breeze from the sea. As it was a fete day, the harbor wore an air of unwonted inactivity; no lighters passed heavily from the levees to the merchantmen at anchor, and the warehouses along the wharves were closed and 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 a single anchor chain seemed to promise that at any moment she might slip away to sea.

As Clay was finishing his coffee two notes were brought to him from messengers who had ridden out that morning, and who sat in their saddles looking at the armed force around the office with amused intelligence.

One note was from Mendoza, and said he had decided not to call out the regiment at the mines, as he feared their long absence from drill would make them compare unfavorably with their comrades, and do him more harm than credit. "He is afraid of them since last night," was Clay's comment, 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 wide awake and restless, but whether this was due to the fact that it was a fete day, or to some other cause which would disclose itself later, he could not tell. Madame Alvarez, the afternoon before, while riding in the Alameda, had been insulted by a group of men around a café, who had risen and shouted after her, one of them throwing a wine-glass into her lap as she rode past. His troopers had charged the sidewalk and carried off six of the men to the carcel. He and Rojas had urged the President to make every preparation for immediate flight, to have the horses put to his travelling carriage, and had warned him when at the review to take up his position at the point nearest to his own body-guard, and as far as possible from the troops led by Mendoza. Stuart added that he had absolute confidence in the former. The policeman who had attempted to carry Burke's note to Mendoza had confessed that he was the only traitor in the camp, and that he had tried to work on his comrades without success. Stuart begged Clay to join 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 how much better their condition had been since they had entered the mines, and to promise them an increase of wages if they remained faithful to Mr. Langham's interests, and a small pension to any one who might be injured "from any cause whatsoever" while serving him.

"Tell them, if they are loyal, they can live in their shacks rent free hereafter," wrote Clay. "They are always asking for that. It's a cheap generosity," he added aloud to Mr. Langham, "because we've never been able to collect rent from any of them yet."

At noon young Langham ordered the best three horses in the stables to be 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 to sea when he telephoned him to do so, and he advised the women to have their dresses and more valuable possessions packed ready to be taken on board.

"Don't you think I might see the review if I went on horseback?" Hope asked. "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 want Ted to be there."

"Oh, that's always the way," said Hope, "I miss everything. I think I'll come, however, anyhow. The servants are all going, and I'll go with them disguised in a turban."

As the men neared Valencia, Clay turned in his saddle, and asked Langham if he thought his sister would really venture into the town.

"She'd better not let me catch her, if she does," the fond brother replied.

The reviewing party left the Government Palace for the Alameda at three o'clock, President Alvarez riding on horseback in advance, and Madame Alvarez sitting in the State carriage with one of her attendants, and with Stuart's troopers gathered so closely about her that the men's boots scraped against the wheels, and their numbers hid her almost entirely from sight.

The great square in which the evolutions were to take place was lined on its four sides by the carriages of the wealthy Olanchoans, except at the two gates, where there was a wide space left open to admit the soldiers. The branches of the trees on the edges of the bare parade ground were black with men and boys, and the balconies and roofs of the houses that faced it were gay with streamers and flags, and alive with women wrapped for the occasion in their colored shawls. Seated on the grass between the carriages, or surging up and down behind them, were thousands of people, each hurrying to gain a better place of vantage, or striving to hold the one he had, and forming a restless, turbulent audience in which all individual cries were lost in a great murmur of laughter, and calls, and cheers. The mass knit together, and pressed forward as the President's band swung jauntily into the square and halted in one corner, and a shout of expectancy went up from the trees and housetops as the President's body-guard entered at the lower gate, and the broken place in its ranks showed that it was escorting the State carriage. The troopers fell back on two sides, and the carriage, with the President riding at its head, passed on, and took up a position in front of the other carriages, and close to one of the sides of the hollow square. At Stuart's orders Clay, MacWilliams, and Langham had pushed their horses into the rear rank of cavalry, and remained wedged between the troopers within twenty feet of where Madame Alvarez was sitting. She was very white, and the powder on her face gave her an added and unnatural pallor. As the people cheered her husband and herself she raised her head slightly and seemed to be trying to catch any sound of dissent in their greeting, or some possible undercurrent of disfavor, but the welcome appeared to be both genuine and hearty, until a second shout smothered it completely as the figure of old General Rojas, the Vice-President, and the most dearly loved by the common people, came through the gate at the head of his regiment. There was such greeting for him that the welcome to the President seemed mean in comparison, and it was with an embarrassment which both felt that the two men drew near together, and each leaned from his saddle to grasp the other's hand. Madame Alvarez sank back rigidly on her cushions, and her eyes flashed with anticipation and excitement. She drew her mantilla a little closer about her shoulders, with a nervous shudder as though she were cold. Suddenly the look of anxiety in her eyes changed to one of annoyance, and she beckoned Clay imperiously to the side of the carriage.

"Look," she said, pointing across the square. "If I am not mistaken that is Miss Langham, Miss Hope. The one on the black horse—it must be she, for none of the native ladies ride. It is not safe for her to be here alone. Go," she commanded, "bring her here to me. Put her next to the carriage, or perhaps she will be safer with you among the troopers."

Clay had recognized Hope before Madame Alvarez had finished speaking, and dashed off at a gallop, skirting the line of carriages. Hope had stopped her horse beside a victoria, and was talking to the native women who occupied it, and who were scandalized at her appearance in a public place with no one but a groom to attend her.

"Why, it's the same thing as a polo match," protested Hope, as Clay pulled up angrily beside the victoria. "I always ride over to polo alone at Newport, at least with James," she added, nodding her head toward the servant.

The man approached Clay and touched his hat apologetically, "Miss Hope would come, sir," he said, "and I thought I'd better be with her than to 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 anxious about Ted—and you."

"Well, it can't be helped now," he said. "Come, we must hurry, here is our friend, the enemy." He bowed to their acquaintances in the victoria and they trotted briskly off to the side of the President's carriage, just as a yell arose from the crowd that made all the other shouts which had preceded it sound like the cheers of children at recess.

"It reminds me of a football match," whispered young Langham, excitedly, "when the teams run on the field. Look at Alvarez and Rojas watching Mendoza."

Mendoza advanced at the front of his three troops of cavalry, looking neither to the left nor right, and by no sign acknowledging the fierce uproarious greeting of the people. Close behind him came his chosen band of cowboys and ruffians. They were the best equipped and least disciplined soldiers in the army, and were, to the great relief of the people, seldom seen in the city, but were kept moving in the mountain passes and along the coast line, on the lookout for smugglers with whom they were on the most friendly terms. They were a picturesque body of blackguards, in their hightopped boots and silver-tipped sombreros and heavy, gaudy saddles, but the shout that had gone up at their advance was due as much to the fear they inspired as to any great love for them or their chief.

"Now all the chessmen are on the board, and the game can begin," said Clay. "It's like the scene in the play, where each man has his sword at another man's throat and no one dares make the first move." He smiled as he noted, with the eye of one who had seen Continental troops in action, the shuffling steps and slovenly carriage of the half-grown soldiers that followed Mendoza's cavalry at a quick step. Stuart's picked men, over whom he had spent many hot and weary hours, looked like a troop of Life Guardsmen in comparison. Clay noted their superiority, but he also saw that in numbers they were most woefully at a disadvantage.

It was a brilliant scene for so modest a capital. The sun flashed on the trappings of the soldiers, on the lacquer and polished metal work of the carriages; and the Parisian gowns of their occupants and the fluttering flags and banners filled the air with color and movement, while back of all, framing the parade ground with a band of black, was the restless mob of people applauding the evolutions, and cheering for their favorites, Alvarez, Mendoza, and Rojas, moved by an excitement that was in disturbing contrast to the easy good-nature of their usual manner.

The marching and countermarching of the troops had continued with spirit for some time, and there was a halt in the evolutions which left the field vacant, except for the presence of Mendoza's cavalrymen, who were moving at a walk along one side of the quadrangle. Alvarez and Vice-President Rojas, with Stuart, as an adjutant at their side, were sitting their horses within some fifty yards of the State carriage and the body-guard. Alvarez made a conspicuous contrast in his black coat and high hat to the brilliant greens and reds of his generals' uniforms, but he sat his saddle as well as either of the others, and his white hair, white imperial and mustache, and the dignity of his bearing distinguished him above them both. Little Stuart, sitting at his side, with his blue eyes glaring from under his white helmet and his face burned to almost as red a tint as his curly hair, looked like a fierce little bull-dog in comparison. None of the three men spoke as they sat motionless and quite alone waiting for the next movement of the troops.

It proved to be one of moment. Even before Mendoza had ridden toward them with his sword at salute, Clay gave an exclamation of enlightenment and concern. He saw that the men who were believed to be devoted to Rojas, had been halted and left standing at the farthest corner of the plaza, nearly two hundred yards from where the President had taken his place, that Mendoza's infantry surrounded them on every side, and that Mendoza's cowboys, who had been walking their horses, had wheeled and were coming up with an increasing momentum, a flying mass of horses and men directed straight at the President himself.

Mendoza galloped up to Alvarez with his sword still in salute. His eyes were burning with excitement and with the light of success. No one but Stuart and Rojas heard his words; to the spectators and to the army he appeared 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 high treason; you have plotted to place yourself in office without popular election. You are also accused of large thefts of public funds. I must ask you to ride with me to the military prison. General Rojas, I regret that as an accomplice of the President's, you must come with us also. I will explain my action to the people when you are safe in prison, and I will proclaim martial law. If your troops attempt to interfere, my men have orders to fire on them and you."

Stuart did not wait for his sentence. He had heard the heavy beat of the cavalry coming up on them at a trot. He saw the ranks open and two men catch at each bridle rein of both Alvarez and Rojas and drag them on with them, buried in the crush of horses about them, and swept forward by the weight and impetus of the moving mass behind. Stuart dashed off to the State carriage and seized the nearest of the horses by the bridle. "To the Palace!" he shouted to his men. "Shoot any one who tries to stop you. Forward, at a gallop," he commanded.

The populace had not discovered what had occurred until it was finished. The coup d'etat had been long considered and the manner in which it was to be carried out carefully planned. The cavalry had swept across the parade ground and up the street before the people saw that they carried Rojas and Alvarez with them. The regiment commanded by Rojas found itself hemmed in before and behind by Mendoza's two regiments. They were greatly outnumbered, but they fired a scattering shot, and following their captured leader, broke through the line around them and pursued the cavalry toward the military prison.

It was impossible to tell in the uproar which followed how many or how few had been parties to the plot. The mob, shrieking and shouting and leaping in the air, swarmed across the parade ground, and from a dozen different points men rose above the heads of the people and harangued them in violent speeches. And while some of the soldiers and the citizens gathered anxiously about these orators, others ran through the city calling for the rescue of the President, for an attack on the palace, and shrieking "Long live the Government!" and "Long live the Revolution!" The State carriage raced through the narrow streets with its body-guard galloping around it, sweeping down in its rush stray pedestrians, and scattering the chairs and tables in front of the cafés. As it dashed up the long avenue of the palace, Stuart called his men back and ordered them to shut and barricade the great iron gates and to guard them against the coming of the mob, while MacWilliams and young Langham pulled open the carriage door and assisted the President's wife and her terrified companion to alight. Madame Alvarez was trembling with excitement as she leaned on Langham's arm, 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 will hurry, please, and get whatever you need to carry with you. We will see 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, came running 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 not enough to answer for without dragging you into this? Go home at once through the botanical garden, and then by way of the wharves. That part of the city is still empty."

"Where are your servants; why are they not here?" Hope demanded without heeding her. The palace was strangely empty; no footsteps came running to greet them, no doors opened or shut as they hurried to Madame Alvarez's apartments. The servants of the household had fled at the first sound of the uproar in the city, and the dresses and ornaments scattered on the floor told that they had not gone empty-handed. The woman who had accompanied Madame Alvarez to the review sank weeping on the 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 to the window and saw a great mob of soldiers and citizens sweep around the corner and throw themselves against the iron fence of the palace. "You will have to hurry," she said. "Remember, you are risking the lives of those boys by your delay."

There was a large bed in the room, and Madame Alvarez had pulled it forward and was bending over a safe that had opened in the wall, and which had been hidden by the head board of the bed. She held up a bundle of papers in her hand, wrapped in a leather portfolio. "Do you see 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 everything you 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 from the 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 leave Alvarez to that mob. If they want to kill me, let them kill me." She threw the bag that held her jewels on the bed, and pushing open the window stepped out upon the balcony. She was conspicuous in her black dress against the yellow stucco of the wall, and in an instant the mob saw her and a mad shout of exultation and anger rose from the mass that beat and crushed itself against the high iron railings of the garden. Hope caught the woman by the skirt and dragged her back. "You are mad," she said. "What good can you do your husband here? Save yourself and he will come to you when he can. There is nothing you can do 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 the stable through the empty house and down the marble stairs to the garden without meeting any one on his way. He saw Stuart helping and directing his men to barricade the gates with iron urns and garden benches and sentry-boxes. Outside the mob were firing at him with their revolvers, and calling him foul names, but Stuart did not seem to hear 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 a message to King. We told him to run the yacht to Los Bocos and lie off shore 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 a political 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 to Bocos and the roads are very bad."

"Clay says we could never get her through the city," MacWilliams answered. "We should have to fight all the way. But the city to the south is deserted, and by going out by the back roads, we can make Bocos 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 rest must hold this mob back until you start; then I will follow with the others. Where is Miss Hope?"

"We don't know. Clay is frantic. Her groom says she is somewhere in the palace."

"Hurry," Stuart commanded. "If Mendoza gets here before Madame Alvarez leaves, it will be too late."

MacWilliams sprang up the steps of the palace, and Stuart, calling to the men nearest him to follow, started after him on a run.

As Stuart entered the palace with his men at his heels, Clay was hurrying from its rear entrance along the upper hall, and Hope and Madame 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 on its lower step. The young Englishman heard the clatter of his men following close behind him and leaped eagerly forward. Half way to the top the noise behind him ceased, and turning his head quickly he looked back over his shoulder and saw that the men had halted at the foot of the stairs and stood huddled together in disorder looking up at him. Stuart glanced over their heads and down the hallway to the garden beyond to see if they were followed, but the mob still fought from the outer side of the barricade. He waved his sword impatiently and started forward again. "Come on!" he shouted. But the men below him did not move. Stuart halted once more and this time turned about and looked down upon them with surprise and anger. There was not one of them he could not have called by name. He knew all their little troubles, their love-affairs, even. They came to him for comfort and advice, 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 his hands.

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 and those behind were urging them forward. The muzzles of their carbines were directed at every point, and on their faces fear and hate and cowardice were written in varying likenesses.

"What does this mean?" Stuart demanded, sharply. "What are you waiting for?"

Clay had just reached the top of the stairs. He saw Madame Alvarez and Hope coming toward him, and at the sight of Hope he gave an exclamation of 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 faces and half-lifted carbines. Clay had lived for a longer time among Spanish-Americans than had the English subaltern, or else he was the quicker of the two to believe in evil and ingratitude, for he gave a cry 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 did not turn his head. He began to descend the stairs slowly, a step at a time, staring at the mob so fiercely that they shrank back before the look of wounded pride and anger in his eyes. Those in the rear raised and levelled their rifles. Without taking his eyes from theirs, Stuart drew 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 the Spanish woman. Death to all traitors. Long live Mendoza," and the others echoed the cry in chorus.

Clay sprang down the broad stairs calling, "Come to me;" but before he could reach Stuart, a woman's voice rang out, in a long terrible cry of terror, a cry that was neither a prayer nor an imprecation, but which held the agony of both. Stuart started, and looked up to where Madame Alvarez had thrown herself toward him across the broad balustrade of the stairway. She was silent with fear, and her hand clutched at the air, as she beckoned wildly to him. Stuart stared at her with a troubled smile and waved his empty hand to reassure her. The movement was final, for the men below, freed from the reproach of his eyes, flung up their carbines and fired, some wildly, without placing their guns 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 into itself and toppled backward, and, like a tired child falling to sleep, the defeated soldier of fortune dropped back into the outstretched arms of his friend.

Clay lifted him upon his knee, and crushed him closer against his breast with one arm, while he tore with his free hand at the stock about the throat and pushed his fingers in between the buttons of the tunic. They came forth again wet and colored crimson.

"Stuart!" Clay gasped. "Stuart, speak to me, look at me!" He shook the body in his arms with fierce roughness, peering into the face that rested on his shoulder, as though he could command the eyes back again to light and life. "Don't leave me!" he said. "For God's sake, old man, don't leave me!"

But the head on his shoulder only sank the closer and the body stiffened in his arms. Clay raised his eyes and saw the soldiers still standing, irresolute and appalled at what they had done, and awe-struck at the sight of the grief before them.

Clay gave a cry as terrible as the cry of a woman who has seen her child mangled before her eyes, and lowering the body quickly to the steps, he ran at the scattering mass below him. As he came they fled down the corridor, shrieking and calling to their friends to throw open the gates and begging them to admit the mob. When they reached the outer porch they turned, encouraged by the touch of numbers, and halted to fire at the man who still followed them.

Clay stopped, with a look in his eyes which no one who knew them had ever seen there, and smiled with pleasure in knowing himself a master in what he had to do. And at each report of his revolver one of Stuart's assassins stumbled and pitched heavily forward on his face. Then he turned and walked slowly back up the hall to the stairway like a man moving in his sleep. He neither saw nor heard the bullets that bit spitefully at the walls about him and rattled among the glass pendants of the great chandeliers above his head. When he came to the step on which the body lay he stooped and picked it up gently, and holding it across his breast, strode on up the stairs. MacWilliams and Langham 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 Hope away."

Madame Alvarez stood with the girl's arms about her, her eyes closed and her figure trembling.

"Let me be!" she moaned. "Don't touch me; let me die. My God, what have I to live for now?" She shook off Hope's supporting arm, and stood before them, all her former courage gone, trembling and shivering in agony. "I do not care what they do to me!" she cried. She tore her lace mantilla from her shoulders and threw it on the floor. "I shall not leave this place. He is dead. Why should I go? He is dead. They have 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 he looked to her to tell him what to do.

"Take hold of her," she said. "She will fall." The woman sank back into the arms of the men, trembling and moaning feebly.

"Now carry her to the carriage," said Hope. "She has fainted; it is better; she does not know what has happened."

Clay, still bearing the body in his arms, pushed open the first door that stood ajar before him with his foot. It opened into the great banqueting hall of the palace, but he could not choose.

He had to consider now the safety of the living, whose lives were still in jeopardy.

The long table in the centre of the hall was laid with places for many people, for it had been prepared for the President and the President's guests, who were to have joined with him in celebrating the successful conclusion of the review. From outside the light of the sun, which was just sinking behind the mountains, shone dimly upon the silver on the board, on the glass and napery, and the massive gilt centre-pieces filled with great clusters of fresh flowers. It looked as though the servants had but just left the room. Even the candles had been lit in readiness, and as their flames wavered and smoked in the evening breeze they cast uncertain shadows on the walls and showed the stern faces of the soldier presidents frowning down on the crowded table from their gilded 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 was conscious that Hope was still following him. He straightened the limbs of the body and folded the arms across the breast and pressed his hand for an instant on the cold hands of his friend, and then whispering something between his lips, turned and walked hurriedly away.

Hope confronted him in the doorway. She was sobbing silently. "Must we leave him," she pleaded, "must we leave him—like this?"

From the garden there came the sound of hammers ringing on the iron hinges, and a great crash of noises as the gate fell back from its fastenings, and the mob rushed over the obstacles upon which it had fallen. It seemed as if their yells of exultation and anger must reach even 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 prevent her, she had slipped past him and picked up Stuart's sword that had fallen 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 as though looking for something, and then with a sob of relief ran to the table, and sweeping it of an armful of its flowers, stepped swiftly back again to the lounge and heaped them upon it.

"Come, for God's sake, come!" Clay called to her in a whisper from the door.

Hope stood for an instant staring at the young Englishman as the candle-light flickered over his white face, and then, dropping on her knees, she pushed back the curly hair from about the boy's forehead and kissed him. Then, without turning to look again, she placed her hand in Clay's and he ran with her, dragging her behind him down the length of the hall, just as the mob entered it on the floor below them and filled the palace with their shouts of triumph.

As the sun sank lower its light fell more dimly on the lonely figure in the vast dining-hall, and as the gloom deepened there, the candles burned with greater brilliancy, and the faces of the portraits shone more clearly.

They seemed to be staring down less sternly now upon the white mortal face of the brother-in-arms who had just joined them.

One who had known him among his own people would have seen in the attitude and in the profile of the English soldier a likeness to his ancestors of the Crusades who lay carved in stone in the village church, with their faces turned to the sky, their faithful hounds waiting at their feet, and their hands pressed upward in prayer.

And when, a moment later, the half-crazed mob of men and boys swept into the great room, with Mendoza at their head, something of the pathos of the young Englishman's death in his foreign place of exile must have touched them, for they stopped appalled and startled, and pressed back upon their fellows, with eager whispers. The Spanish-American General strode boldly forward, but his eyes lowered before the calm, white face, and either because the lighted candles and the flowers awoke in him some memory of the great Church that had nursed him, or because the jagged holes in the soldier's tunic appealed to what was bravest in him, he crossed himself quickly, and then raising his hands slowly to his visor, lifted his hat and pointed with it to the door. And the mob, without once looking back at the rich treasure of silver on the table, pushed out before him, stepping softly, as though they had intruded on a shrine.

XIII

The President's travelling carriage was a double-seated diligence covered with heavy hoods and with places on the box for two men. Only one of the coachmen, the same man who had driven the State carriage from the review, had remained at the stables. As he knew the roads to Los Bocos, Clay ordered him up to the driver's seat, and MacWilliams climbed into the place beside him after first storing three rifles under the lap-robe.

Hope pulled open the leather curtains of the carriage and found Madame Alvarez where the men had laid her upon the cushions, weak and hysterical. The girl crept in beside her, and lifting her in her arms, rested the older woman's head against her shoulder, and soothed and comforted her with tenderness and sympathy.

Clay stopped with his foot in the stirrup and looked up anxiously at Langham who was already in the saddle.

"Is there no possible way of getting Hope out of this and back to the Palms?" he asked.

"No, it's too late. This is the only way now." Hope opened the leather curtains and looking out shook her head impatiently at Clay. "I wouldn't go now if there were another way," she said. "I couldn't leave her like this."

"You're delaying the game, Clay," cried Langham, warningly, as he stuck his spurs into his pony's side.

The people in the diligence lurched forward as the horses felt the lash of the whip and strained against the harness, and then plunged ahead at a gallop on their long race to the sea. As they sped through the gardens, the stables and the trees hid them from the sight of those in the palace, and the turf, upon which the driver had turned the horses for 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 the others the two outriders galloped ahead to the first cross street, looked up and down its length, and then, in evident concern at what they saw in the distance, motioned the driver to greater speed, and crossing the street signalled him to follow them. At the next corner Clay flung himself off his pony, and throwing the bridle to Langham, ran ahead into the cross street on foot, and after a quick glance pointed down its length away from the heart of the city to the mountains.

The driver turned as Clay directed him, and when the man found that his face was fairly set toward the goal he lashed his horses recklessly through the narrow street, so that the murmur of the mob behind them grew perceptibly fainter at each leap forward.

The noise of the galloping hoofs brought women and children to the barred windows of the houses, but no men stepped into the road to stop their progress, and those few they met running in the direction of the palace hastened to get out of their way, and stood with their backs pressed against the walls of the narrow thoroughfare looking after them with wonder.

Even those who suspected their errand were helpless to detain them, for sooner than they could raise the hue and cry or formulate a plan of action, 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 so bold as to start to follow, stopped abruptly when they saw the outriders draw rein and turn in their saddles as though to await their coming.

Clay's mind was torn with doubts, and his nerves were drawn taut like the strings of a violin. Personal danger exhilarated him, but this chance of harm to others who were helpless, except for him, depressed his spirit with anxiety. He experienced in his own mind all the nervous fears of a thief who sees an officer in every passing citizen, and at one moment he warned the driver to move more circumspectly, and so avert suspicion, and the next urged him into more desperate bursts of speed. In his fancy every cross street threatened an ambush, and as he cantered now before and now behind the carriage, he wished that he was 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 the inhabitants sat lazily before the door in the fading light, with no knowledge of the changes that the day had wrought in the city, and with only 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 pale and drawn.

As the danger of immediate pursuit and capture grew less, the carriage had slackened its pace, and for some minutes the outriders galloped on together side by side in silence. But the same thought was in the mind of each, and when Langham spoke it was as though he were continuing where he had but just been interrupted.

He laid his hand gently on Clay's arm. He did not turn his face toward him, 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 a voice that Langham had to lean from his saddle to hear him. "They were close behind; but when they saw her they stopped and refused to go farther. I called to him to come away, but he would not understand. They killed him before he really understood what they meant to do. He was dead almost before I reached him. He died in my arms." There was a long pause. "I wonder if he knows that?" Clay said.

Langham sat erect in the saddle again and drew a short breath. "I wish he could have known how he helped me," he whispered, "how much just knowing him helped me."

Clay bowed his head to the boy as though he were thanking him. "His was the gentlest soul I ever knew," he said.

"That's what I wanted to say," Langham answered. "We will let that be his epitaph," and touching his spur to his horse he galloped on ahead and left Clay riding alone.

Langham had proceeded for nearly a mile when he saw the forest opening before them, and at the sight he gave a shout of relief, but almost at the same instant he pulled his pony back on his haunches and whirling him about, sprang back to the carriage with a cry of warning.

"There are soldiers ahead of us," he cried. "Did you know it?" he demanded of the driver. "Did you lie to me? Turn back."

"He can't turn back," MacWilliams answered. "They have seen us. They are only the custom officers at the city limits. They know nothing. Go on." He reached forward and catching the reins dragged the horses down into a walk. Then he handed the reins back to the driver with a shake of the head.

"If you know these roads as well as you say you do, you want to keep us out of the way of soldiers," he said. "If we fall into a trap you'll be the first man shot on either side."

A sentry strolled lazily out into the road dragging his gun after him by the bayonet, and raised his hand for them to halt. His captain followed 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 the background. In his right hand he held one of the long iron rods with which the collectors of the city's taxes were wont to pierce the bundles and packs, and even the carriage cushions of those who entered the 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 the curtains, and as she surveyed the soldier with apparent surprise, she turned 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, in answer to the officer. "The driver thinks that this is the road, but I say we should have taken the one to the right."

"No, this is the road to Senor Palacio's plantation," the officer answered, "but you cannot leave the city without a pass signed by General Mendoza. That is the order we received this morning. Have you such a pass?"

"Certainly not," Clay answered, warmly. "This is the carriage of an American, the president of the mines. His daughters are inside and on their way to visit the residence of Senor Palacio. They are foreigners—Americans. We are all foreigners, and we have a perfect right to leave the city when we choose. You can only stop us when we enter it."

The officer looked uncertainly from Clay to Hope and up at the driver on the box. His eyes fell upon the heavy brass mountings of the harness. They bore the arms of Olancho. He wheeled sharply and called to his men inside the post-house, and they stepped out from the veranda and spread themselves leisurely across the road.

"Ride him down, Clay," Langham muttered, in a whisper. The officer did not understand the words, but he saw Clay gather the reins tighter in his hands and he stepped back quickly to the safety of the porch, and from that ground of vantage smiled pleasantly.

"Pardon," he said, "there is no need for blows when one is rich enough to pay. A little something for myself and a drink for my brave fellows, and you can go where you please."

"Damned brigands," growled Langham, savagely.

"Not at all," Clay answered. "He is an officer and a gentleman. I have no money with me," he said, in Spanish, addressing the officer, "but between caballeros a word of honor is sufficient. I shall be returning this way to-morrow morning, and I will bring a few hundred sols from Senor Palacio for you and your men; but if we are followed you will get nothing, and you must have forgotten in the mean time that you have seen us pass."

There was a murmur inside the carriage, and Hope's face disappeared from between the curtains to reappear again almost immediately. She beckoned to the officer with her hand, and the men saw that she held between her thumb and little finger a diamond ring of size and brilliancy. She moved it so that it flashed in the light of the guard lantern above the post-house.

"My sister tells me you shall be given this tomorrow morning," Hope said, "if we are not followed."

The man's eyes laughed with pleasure. He swept his sombrero to the ground.

"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 of smugglers; or I will remain here as you wish, and send those who may follow back again."

"You are most gracious, sir," said Clay. "It is always a pleasure to meet with a gentleman and a philosopher. We prefer to travel without an escort, and remember, you have seen nothing and heard nothing." He leaned from the saddle, and touched the officer on the breast. "That ring is worth a king's ransom."

"Or a president's," muttered the man, smiling. "Let the American ladies pass," he commanded.

The soldiers scattered as the whip fell, and the horses once more leaped forward, and as the carriage entered the forest, Clay looked back and saw the officer exhaling the smoke of a fresh cigarette, with the satisfaction of one who enjoys a clean conscience and a sense of duty well performed.

The road through the forest was narrow and uneven, and as the horses fell into a trot the men on horseback closed up together behind the carriage.

"Do you think that road-agent will keep his word?" Langham asked.

"Yes; he has nothing to win by telling the truth," Clay answered. "He can say he saw a party of foreigners, Americans, driving in the direction of Palacio's coffee plantation. That lets him out, and in the morning he knows he can levy on us for the gate money. I am not so much afraid of being overtaken as I am that King may make a mistake and not get to Bocos on time. We ought to reach there, if the carriage holds together, by eleven. King should be there by eight o'clock, and the yacht ought to make the run to Truxillo in three hours. But we shall not be able to get back to the city before five to-morrow morning. I suppose your family will be wild about Hope. We didn't know 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 last revolution, and carried messages from Los Bocos to the city on foot for two months. He has covered every trail on the way, and if he goes wrong he knows what will happen to him."

"And Los Bocos—it is a village, isn't it, and the landing must be in sight of the Custom-house?"

"The village lies some distance back from the shore, and the only house on the beach is the Custom-house itself; but every one will be asleep by the time we get there, and it will take us only a minute to hand her into the launch. If there should be a guard there, King will have fixed them one way or another by the time we arrive. Anyhow, there is no need of looking for trouble that far ahead. There is enough to worry about in between. We haven't got there yet."

The moon rose grandly a few minutes later, and flooded the forest with light so that the open places were as clear as day. It threw strange shadows across the trail, and turned the rocks and fallen trees into figures of men crouching or standing upright with uplifted arms. They were so like to them that Clay and Langham flung their carbines to their shoulders again and again, and pointed them at some black object that turned as they advanced into wood or stone. From the forest they came to little streams and broad shallow rivers where the rocks in the fording places churned the water into white masses of foam, and the horses kicked up showers of spray as they made their way, slipping and stumbling, against the current. It was a silent pilgrimage, and never for a moment did the strain slacken or the men draw rein. Sometimes, as they hurried across a broad tableland, or skirted the edge of a precipice and looked down hundreds of feet below at the shining waters they had just forded, or up at the rocky points of the mountains before them, the beauty of the night overcame them and made them forget the significance of their journey.

They were not always alone, for they passed at intervals through sleeping villages of mud huts with thatched roofs, where the dogs ran yelping out to bark at them, and where the pine-knots, blazing on the clay ovens, burned cheerily in the moonlight. In the low lands where the fever lay, the mist rose above the level of their heads and enshrouded them in a curtain of fog, and the dew fell heavily, penetrating their clothing and chilling their heated bodies so that the sweating horses moved in a lather of steam.

They had settled down into a steady gallop now, and ten or fifteen miles had been left behind them.

"We are making excellent time," said Clay. "The village of San Lorenzo should lie beyond that ridge." He drove up beside the driver and pointed with his whip. "Is not that San Lorenzo?" he asked.

"Yes, senor," the man answered, "but I mean to drive around it by the old wagon trail. It is a large town, and people may be awake. You will be able to see it from the top of the next hill."

The cavalcade stopped at the summit of the ridge and the men looked down 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 be recognized as a plaza, except for the church on its one side, and the huge wooden cross planted in its centre. From the top of the hill they could see that the greater number of the houses were in darkness, but in a large building of two stories lights were shining from every window.

"That is the comandancia," said the driver, shaking his head. "They are still awake. It is a telegraph station."

"Great Scott!" exclaimed MacWilliams. "We forgot the telegraph. They may 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 the ground. "Lend me your pony, Ted, and take my place. I'll run in there and dust around and see what's up. I'll join you on the other side of the 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 they know. Don't you be afraid. I'll run fast enough if there's any sign of trouble. And if you come across a telegraph wire, cut it. The message may not have gone over yet."

The two women in the carriage had parted the flaps of the hoods and were trying to hear what was being said, but could not understand, and Langham explained to them that they were about to make a slight detour to avoid San Lorenzo while MacWilliams was going into it to reconnoitre. He asked if they were comfortable, and assured them that the greater part of the ride was over, and that there was a good road from San Lorenzo to the sea.

MacWilliams rode down into the village along the main trail, and threw his reins over a post in front of the comandancia. He mounted boldly to the second floor of the building and stopped at the head of the stairs, in front of an open door. There were three men in the room before him, one an elderly man, whom he rightly guessed was the comandante, and two younger men who were standing behind a railing and bending over a telegraph instrument on a table. As he stamped into the room, they looked up and stared at him in surprise; their faces showed that he had interrupted them at a moment of unusual interest.

MacWilliams saluted the three men civilly, and, according to the native custom, apologized for appearing before them in his spurs.

He had been riding from Los Bocos to the capital, he said, and his horse had gone lame. Could they tell him if there was any one in the village from whom he could hire a mule, as he must push on to the capital that night?

The comandante surveyed him for a moment, as though still disturbed by the interruption, and then shook his head impatiently. "You can hire a mule from one Pulido Paul, at the corner of the plaza," he said. And as MacWilliams still stood uncertainly, he added, "You say you have come from Los Bocos. Did you meet any one on your way?"

The two younger men looked up at him anxiously, but before he could answer, the instrument began to tick out the signal, and they turned their eyes to it again, and one of them began to take its message down on paper.

The instrument spoke to MacWilliams also, for he was used to sending telegrams daily from the office to the mines, and could make it talk for him in either English or Spanish. So, in his effort to hear what it might say, he stammered and glanced at it involuntarily, and the comandante, without suspecting his reason for doing so, turned also and peered over the shoulder of the man who was receiving the message. Except for the clicking of the instrument, the room was absolutely still; the three men bent silently over the table, while MacWilliams stood gazing at the ceiling and turning his hat in his hands. The message MacWilliams read from the instrument was this: "They are reported 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 armed force and guard the roads. If necessary, kill her. She has in the carriage or hidden on her person, drafts for five million sols. You will be held responsible for every one of them. Repeat this message to show 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 men and started toward the stairs. "Wait," the comandante called after him.

MacWilliams paused with one hand on top of the banisters balancing himself in readiness for instant flight.

"You have not answered me. Did you meet with any one on your ride here from Los Bocos?"

"I met several men on foot, and the mail carrier passed me a league out from the coast, and oh, yes, I met a carriage at the cross roads, and the 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 turned finally 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 Pedro Sula—"

He had turned his back on MacWilliams, and as the younger man bent over the instrument, MacWilliams stepped softly down the stairs, and mounting his pony rode slowly off in the direction of the capital. As soon as he had reached the outskirts of the town, he turned and galloped round it and then rode fast with his head in air, glancing up at the telegraph wire that sagged from tree-trunk to tree-trunk along the trail. At a point where he thought he could dismount in safety and tear down the wire, he came across it dangling from the branches and he gave a shout of relief. He caught the loose end and dragged it free from its support, and then laying it across a rock pounded the blade of his knife upon it with a stone, until he had hacked off a piece some fifty feet in length. Taking this in his hand he mounted again and rode off with it, dragging the wire in the road behind him. He held it up as he rejoined Clay, and laughed triumphantly. "They'll have some trouble 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 to all the coast towns. But whether you cut this down before or after is what 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, wide enough 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 freely as though the race had but just begun.

Madame Alvarez stopped the carriage at one place and asked the men to lower the hood at the back that she might feel the fresh air and see about her, and when this had been done, the women seated themselves with their backs to the horses where they could look out at the moonlit road as it unrolled behind them.

Hope felt selfishly and wickedly happy. The excitement had kept her spirits at the highest point, and the knowledge that Clay was guarding and protecting her was in itself a pleasure. She leaned back on the cushions and put her arm around the older woman's waist, and listened to the light beat of his pony's hoofs outside, now running ahead, now scrambling and slipping up some steep place, and again coming to a halt as Langham or MacWilliams called, "Look to the right, behind those trees," or "Ahead there! Don't you see what I mean, something crouching?"

She did not know when the false alarms would turn into a genuine attack, but she was confident that when the time came he would take care of her, and she welcomed the danger because it brought that solace with it.

Madame Alvarez sat at her side, rigid, silent, and beyond the help of comfort. She tortured herself with thoughts of the ambitions she had held, and which had been so cruelly mocked that very morning; of the chivalric 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 at all, it was to murmur her sorrow that Hope had exposed herself to danger 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 and asked concerning her comfort with grave solicitude did she give way to tears.

"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 have killed the only man I ever trusted."

Hope touched her gently with her hand and felt guiltily how selfish she herself must be not to feel the woman's grief, but she could not. She only saw in it a contrast to her own happiness, a black background before 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 a significant movement upon the part of the men. MacWilliams had descended from the box-seat and stepping into the carriage took the place the women had just left.

He had a carbine in his hand, and after he was seated Langham handed him 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 firing now, you ladies want to get down on your knees here at my feet, and hide your heads in the cushions. We are entering Los Bocos."

Langham and Clay were riding far in advance, scouting to the right and left, and the carriage moved noiselessly behind them through the empty streets. There was no light in any of the windows, and not even a dog barked, or a cock crowed. The women sat erect, listening for the first signal of an attack, each holding the other's hand and looking at MacWilliams, who sat with his thumb on the trigger of his carbine, glancing to the right and left and breathing quickly. His eyes twinkled, 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 down from the other side of that line of trees. What is the matter with you?" 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 and came out upon the beach, he saw a broad stretch of moonlit water and the lights from the yacht shining from a point a quarter of a mile off shore. 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. The carriage had stopped under the protecting shadow of the trees, and he raced back toward it.

"The yacht is here," he cried. "The long-boat is waiting and there is not a sign of light about the Custom-house. Come on," he cried. "We have beaten them after all."

A sailor, who had been acting as lookout on the rocks, sprang to his full height, and shouted to the group around the long-boat, and King came up the beach toward them running heavily through the deep sand.

Madame Alvarez stepped down from the carriage, and as Hope handed her her jewel case in silence, the men draped her cloak about her shoulders. 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 gave her hand in turn to Langham and to MacWilliams.

"I do not know whether I shall ever see you again," she said, looking slowly from one to the other, "but I will pray for you every day, and God will reward you for saving a worthless life."

As she finished speaking King came up to the group, followed by three of 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 at once, Madame. Where is she? She must come with us!"

"Of course," Clay-assented, eagerly, "she will be much safer on the yacht."

But Hope protested. "I must get back to father," she said. "The yacht will not arrive until late to-morrow, and the carriage can take me to him five hours earlier. The family have worried too long about me as it 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 not one of us they wanted."