第40章

Clay reached the President's Palace during the supper-hour, and found Mr.Langham and his daughter at the President's table.

Madame Alvarez pointed to a place for him beside Alice Langham, who held up her hand in 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 it for me.''

``Oh, he did, did he?'' said Clay; ``that's why I couldn't find it.I am hungry,'' he laughed, ``my ride gave me an appetite.''

He looked over and grinned at Stuart, but that gentleman was staring fixedly at the candles on the table before him, his eyes filled with concern.Clay observed that Madame Alvarez was covertly watching the young officer, and frowning her disapproval at his preoccupation.So he stretched his leg under the table and kicked viciously at Stuart's boots.Old General Rojas, the Vice-President, who sat next to Stuart, moved suddenly and then blinked violently at the ceiling with an expression of patient suffering, but the exclamation which had escaped him brought Stuart back to the present, and he talked with the woman next him in a perfunctory manner.

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

``I'm in great trouble, old man,'' was what he said.``I must see you alone to-night.I'd ask you to my rooms, but they watch me all the time, 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 and wait for me by the statue there.''

Clay smiled, apparently in great amusement.``That's very good,'' he said.

He crossed over to where King stood surveying the powdered beauties of Olancho and their gowns of a past fashion, with an intensity of admiration which would have been suspicious to those who knew his tastes.``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 at breakfast.''

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

Stuart helped Miss Langham into her carriage, and as it moved away King shouted to him in English to remember that he was breakfasting with him on the morrow, and Clay called out in Spanish, ``Until to-morrow at breakfast, don't forget.'' And Stuart answered, steadily, ``Good night until to-morrow at one.''

As their carriage jolted through the dark and narrow street, empty now of all noise or movement, one of Stuart's troopers dashed by it at a gallop, with a lighted lantern swinging at his side.He raised it as he passed each street crossing, and held it high above his head so that its light fell upon the walls of the houses at the four corners.The clatter of his horse's hoofs had not ceased before another trooper galloped toward them riding more slowly, and throwing the light of his lantern over the trunks of the trees that lined the pavements.As the carriage passed him, he brought his horse to its side with a jerk of the 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 his horse's side, dashed noisily away, his lantern tossing from side to side, high in the air, as he drew rein to scan each tree and passed from one lamp-post to the next.

``What does that mean?'' said Mr.Langham; ``did he take us for highwaymen?''

``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 Brussels on the eve of Waterloo.''

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

``I have to leave you here,'' he said; ``drive on quickly, please; I can explain better in the morning.''

The Plaza Bolivar stood in what had once been the centre of the fashionable life of Olancho, but the town had moved farther up the hill, and it was now far in the suburbs, its walks neglected and its turf overrun with weeds.The houses about it had fallen into disuse, and the few that were still occupied at the time Clay entered it showed no sign of life.Clay picked his way over the grass-grown paths to the statue of Bolivar, the hero of the sister republic of Venezuela, which still stood on its pedestal in a tangle of underbrush and hanging vines.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, and beat their leaves together in the night wind, whispering and murmuring together like two living conspirators.

``This ought to be safe enough,'' Clay murmured to himself.

``It's just the place for plotting.I hope there are no snakes.'' He seated himself on the steps of the pedestal, and lighting a cigar, remained smoking and peering into the shadows about him, until a shadow blacker than the darkness rose at his feet, and a voice said, sternly, ``Put out that 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 must hurry.''

Stuart seated himself heavily on the stone steps, like a man tired in mind and body, and unfolded a printed piece of paper.

Its blank side was damp and sticky with paste.