The operator, counting off the length with his pencil, glanced up thoughtfully.
“It costs a dollar a word, sir,” he vouchsafed.
But Saxon nodded affluently, for he knew that the City of Rio sailed north that afternoon, and he did not know that her sister ship, the Amazon, with Duska on board, was at this moment nosing its way south through the tepid water—only twenty-four hours away.
As the City of Rio wound up her rusty anchor chains that afternoon, Saxon was jubilantly smoking his pipe by the rail.
In the launch just putting off from the steamer’s side stood the Hon. Mr. Pendleton, waving his hat, and Jimmy Partridge wildly shouting, “Give my regards to Broadway!” The minister’s flag, which had floated over the steamer while the great personage was on board, was just dipping, and Saxon’s hand was still cramped under the homesick pressure of the farewell grips.
Suddenly, the traveler had a feeling of a presence at his elbow, and, turning, was profoundly astonished to behold again the complacent visage of Mr. Rodman.
“You see, I still appear to be among those present,” announced the filibuster, with some breeziness of manner. “It’s true that I stand before you, ‘my sweet young face still haggard with the anguish it has worn,’ but I’m here, which is, after all, the salient feature of the situation. Say, what did you do to them?”
“I?” questioned Saxon. “I did nothing. The minister came and took me out of their Bastile.”
“Well, say, he must have thrown an awful scare into them.” Mr. Rodman thoughtfully stroked his chin with a thin forefinger. “He must have intimidated them unmercifully and brutally. They stampeded into my wing of the Palace, and set me free as though they were afraid I had the yellow-fever. ‘Wide they flung the massive portals’—all that sort of thing. Now, what puzzles me is, why did they do it? They had the goods on me—almost. However, I’m entirely pleased.” Rodman laughed as he lighted a cigar, and waved his hand with mock sentiment toward the shore. “And I had put the rifles through, too,” he declared, jubilantly. “I’d turned them over to the insurrecto gentleman in good order. Did they clamor for your blood about the $200,000?”
“Rodman,” said Saxon slowly, “I hardly expect you to believe it, but that was a case of mistaken identity. I’m not the man you think. I was never in Puerto Frio before.”