Mr. Felton and Miss Hathaway regard Van Zandt apprehensively, and Louise wonders at the pallor of his face and the strange look in his eyes.
“You know where the residence of the consul is. You must follow yonder path through the garden, and strike the trail down the hillside to the sea; it is only a short walk. I will rejoin you there within the hour—if I live,” says Van Zandt, with a significance not understood by his auditors.
Without a word Cyrus Felton rises and, followed by Miss Hathaway, starts off through the garden in the direction indicated by Van Zandt’s outstretched arm.
While all this has taken place Ralph Felton has been leaning in the doorway at the front of the cafe. He looks up when Sanchez, the besotted subaltern, comes in from his encounter with the American girl, and signals to him.
“Sanchez, I have a little affair of honor to settle within the hour,” he says. “If I do not return, you are second in command. You understand?”
“Is it ‘a la mort’?” inquires Sanchez.
Felton nods and turns away, and Sanchez goes back into the cafe in season to hear the last words of the warning extended to Van Zandt by the soldier with the scar.
Felton lights another cigarette and awaits indifferently the appearance of his implacable foe.
“I am ready, sir,” says a stern voice at his elbow.
“And I have been ready for some minutes. Come.” And Felton leads the way across the road and into a path to the woods.