第44章

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

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

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

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

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

``I think you've made a mistake,'' the stranger answered, quietly.``My name is--''

``Colonel, perhaps, then,'' said Clay.``I might have known it.

I congratulate you, Colonel.''

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

``Come over here, boys,'' Clay called.``I want you to meet an old friend of mine, Captain Burke.''

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

``We have here,'' said Clay, gayly, but in a low voice, ``the key to the situation.This is the gentleman who supplies Mendoza with the sinews of war.Captain Burke is a brave soldier and a citizen of my own or of any country, indeed, which happens to have the most sympathetic Consul-General.''

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

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

``I thought you were in Chili, Clay,'' he said.

``No, you didn't think I was in Chili,'' Clay replied, kindly.

``I left Chili two years ago.The Captain and I met there,'' he explained to the others, ``when Balmaceda was trying to make himself dictator.The Captain was on the side of the Congressionalists, and was furnishing arms and dynamite.

The Captain is always on the winning side, at least he always has been--up to the present.He is not a creature of sentiment; are you, Burke? The Captain believes with Napoleon that God is on the side that has the heaviest artillery.''

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

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

``Of course not,'' Clay assented, cheerfully.He looked at Burke and laughed, as though the sight of him recalled pleasant memories.``I wish I could give these boys an idea of how clever you are, Captain,'' he said.``The Captain was the first man, for instance, to think of packing cartridges in tubs of lard, and of sending rifles in piano-cases.He represents the Welby revolver people in England, and half a dozen firms in the States, and he has his little stores in Tampa and Mobile and Jamaica, ready to ship off at a moment's notice to any revolution in Central America.When I first met the Captain,'' Clay continued, gleefully, and quite unmindful of the other's continued silence, ``he was starting off to rescue Arabi Pasha from the island of Ceylon.You may remember, boys, that when Dufferin saved Arabi from hanging, the British shipped him to Ceylon as a political prisoner.Well, the Captain was sent by Arabi's followers in Egypt to bring him back to lead a second rebellion.

Burke had everybody bribed at Ceylon, and a fine schooner fitted out and a lot of ruffians to do the fighting, and then the good, kind British Government pardoned Arabi the day before Burke arrived in port.And you never got a cent for it; did you, Burke?''

Burke shook his head and frowned.

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