Cartagena awoke to experience another thrill. And then the ripple of excitement gave place to anger. The rabble had lost one of its victims, and that one the chief. Moreover, the presence of that graceful yacht, sleeping so quietly out there in the sunlit harbor, could not but be associated with that most daring deed of the preceding night, which had given liberty to the excommunicated priest and political malefactor, Josè de Rincón. Crowds of chattering, gesticulating citizens gathered along the harbor shores, and loudly voiced their disappointment and threats. But the boat lay like a thing asleep. Not even a wisp of smoke rose from its yellow funnels.
Then came the Alcalde, and the Departmental Governor, grave and sedate, with their aids and secretaries, their books and documents, their mandates and red-sealed processes, and were rowed out to confront the master whom they believed to have dared to thwart the hand of justice and remain to taunt them with his egregious presence. This should be made an international episode, whose ramifications would wind down through years to come, and embrace long, stupid congressional debates, apologies demanded, huge sums to salve a wounded nation, and the making and breaking of politicians too numerous to mention!
But the giant who received them, bound to his chair, in the splendid library of the palatial yacht, and with no attendant, save a single valet, flared out in a towering rage at the gross insult offered him and his great country in these black charges. He had come on a peaceful errand; partly, too, for reasons of health. And he was at that moment awaiting a visit from His Grace. What manner of reception was this, that Cartagena extended to an influential representative of the powerful States of the North!
“But,” the discomfited Indignation Committee gasped, “what of the tall American who was seen to land the day before?”
The master laughed in their faces. He? Why, but a poor, obsessed archaeologist, now prowling around the ruins of San Felipe, doubtless mumbling childishly as he prods the dust and mold of centuries! Go, visit him, if they would be convinced!
And when these had gone, chagrined and mortified––though filled with wonder, for they had roamed the Cossack, and peered into its every nook and cranny, and stopped to look a second time at the fair-haired young boy who looked like a girl, and hovered close to the master––came His Grace, Wenceslas. He came alone, and with a sneer curling his imperious lips. And his calm, arrogant eyes held a meaning that boded no good to the man who sat in his wheel chair, alone, and could not rise to welcome him.
“A very pretty trick, my powerful friend,” said the angered churchman in his perfect English. “And one that will cause your Government at Washington some––”
“Enough!” interrupted Ames in a steady voice. “I sent for you yesterday, intending to ask you to release the man. I had terms then which would have advantaged you greatly. You were afraid to see me until you had evolved your plans of opposition. Only a fixed and devilish hatred, nourished by you against a harmless priest who possessed your secrets, doomed him to die to-day. But we will pass that for the present. I have here my demands for the aid I have furnished you. You may look them over.” He held out some typewritten sheets to Wenceslas.