For a few minutes the two women stood chatting together in the plaza in front of the steamship pier, Celeste, the señora’s maid, hanging respectfully in the background. Then, followed by the latter, they made their way toward a touring car standing near by, which they entered. The girl in pink gave some instructions to the liveried negro at the wheel, and the car dashed up one of the steep roads which led to the capital.
Not once since she had come ashore had the señora appeared to notice the Camera Chap—he suspected that she studiously refrained from doing so for reasons which he fully appreciated—but just before the automobile started she whispered something to her fair companion, and the latter turned in her seat and looked deliberately toward where he was standing. There were several other persons in his vicinity, and it might have been any of these at whom her glance was directed, but Hawley, modest man though he was, felt positive that he was the object of her scrutiny, and somehow the thought afforded him much satisfaction.
He was not left long in ignorance as to the identity of this prepossessing young woman, for, as the car started off, the conversation of two natives standing near him supplied him with that information.
“Is it not somewhat surprising that the daughter of the American minister should be on such friendly terms with the wife of the abominable Felix?” Hawley overheard one of them remark in Spanish. To which the other responded, with a shrug: “Nothing is surprising about those Yankees.”
The Camera Chap was too much absorbed in the information he had gleaned even to feel like resenting the slur upon his countrymen. So the girl in pink was Miss Throgmorton, the daughter of the American minister to Baracoa! And she was on such intimate terms with Señora Felix that she alone had come to welcome the latter back to her native land! Here was an interesting discovery, indeed.
At that moment there flashed through his mind what his friend and managing editor, Tom Paxton, had said about the sentiments of the United States minister to Baracoa toward the Sentinel, and all men connected with it. He devoutly hoped that the daughter did not share her father’s prejudices in that respect, for he had already fully decided that if it were possible he was going to make Miss Throgmorton’s acquaintance before he had been many days in Baracoa.
CHAPTER X.
AN UNPLEASANT SURPRISE.
The Camera Chap did not linger long at Puerto Cabero. He had decided to make Santa Barbara, the capital, his headquarters, that city being only ten miles away from the seaport. It is situated on a highland three thousand feet above the sea level, and, as Hawley traveled on the antiquated railroad, he marveled at the manner in which the line twisted and turned like a huge corkscrew.
When he arrived at his journey’s end he found the city in gala attire. The streets and shops were decorated with flags and bunting, and a band was playing in the plaza. At the Hotel Nacional, where he registered, he inquired whether he had struck town on a national holiday, and was informed that the festivities were the result of the extraordinary scene he had witnessed at Puerto Guerra the previous day.
“You see, señor,” explained the hotel clerk, who spoke very good English, “President Portiforo has ordered a day of public rejoicing because of the defeat of General Rodriguez.”