“Excellency,” I said, “you owe me thirty thousand dollars. We'll stop at the bank.”
“Just at present, senor, the public's balance is low, but——”
“On the contrary—or rather, we'll step in and see.”
“To-morrow, senor——”
“Excellency,” I said, “I don't care one little bit at all whether it's out of the city's deposit, or your private account, or whether there's any difference between them. But there won't be a light till every dollar is paid. Moreover, this mob is nervous. Moreover, here's the bank.”
We got down, and left the pink and white officer in the carriage with the two other officials. The Mayor stalked grimly ahead of me into the bank, and the thirty thousand was paid.
I made the plant in a carriage in ten minutes. Three scared furnace tenders were there, in charge of a company of pink soldiers. Among them they had two dynamos more or less mutilated trying to switch them on with a pick-axe. At last I got things running, turned on the main switch, and saw the nearby streets leap into brightness.
When Hagan and I came back through the town about eight o'clock, the band was playing in the Plaza, the people rejoicing among the palm trees, which were done up in bunting, and the Mayor was making a speech from the balcony of magistrates to the effect that Portate was a centre of civilisation, a second Paris.
It occurred to me that I was carrying thirty thousand dollars in my pocket, and wasn't a steel vault. The lights were going anyway for to-night, and maybe some public functionary's private bandit might be looking for me. I ought to have deposited before going to the plant, or perhaps—but there was the Violetta, which would be safer still.
We dodged the Plaza, and went down to the docks. Not a boatman was about. I untied a row boat, and we rowed out, looking for the Violetta. It was easy to distinguish her, clean and white, glimmering with bright port-holes. As we drew near we could see the polished brasses shining under the stars. The cool sea wind on the bay and the soft lapping of waves against the boat were pleasant to feel and hear, after the heat and noise of Portate. The sight of the Violetta, neat and compact, made me homesick for the temperate zone and my own people of the North, gray-eyed level-headed people, steady and reasonable. I felt like a carrier pigeon come home.