“And this spoiled plate—what does it represent? If Señor Hawley had been successful with his camera what would the plate have shown?”
The Camera Chap smiled. “It seems to me that you’re asking a hypothetical question,” he said. “Yes, decidely hypothetical.”
Lopez shrugged his expressive shoulders again. “It is Señor Hawley’s privilege to answer or not as he sees fit, but,” he added, “I must warn him that if he refuses to tell why he went to the fortress to-night we shall be compelled to draw our own conclusions from his silence.”
“That’ll be all right,” Hawley rejoined cheerfully. “Have you any objections to dropping me a hint as to what those conclusions may be?”
“Not the slightest. Unless the señor is prepared to give us an explanation more favorable to himself we shall assume that he went there to get photographs of the fortifications—that he is a spy in the service of the insurrectos.”
“An insurrecto spy! Well, of all the——” the president’s photographic envoy began. Then he abruptly cut himself short as the advantages of having this interpretation placed upon his act suddenly occurred to him—advantages to others, although possibly not to himself.
“And no doubt Señor Hawley is aware of what happens to those who are convicted on that serious charge,” his visitor suggested quietly.
The prisoner imitated the other’s shrug. “Oh, well, I guess I’ll be able to stand it,” he said optimistically. “I can’t truthfully say that the accommodations of this hostelry are pleasant, but no doubt I shan’t find them so bad after I get used to them.”
“I am afraid the señor is laboring under a slight misapprehension,” he remarked. “In the event of his conviction he would have no chance to get used to these accommodations. He would be tried under martial law, and—under martial law a spy’s punishment is not imprisonment.”
The Camera Chap looked uncomfortable as he caught the significance of this remark, but almost immediately he regained his composure. “Well, you’ve got to convict me first,” he remarked confidently. “You can’t hang a man on suspicion alone—at least, you can’t do it if that man happens to be a citizen of the U. S. A. If you dare to convict me without sufficient proof I venture to predict that something is going to happen to Baracoa.”