Mr. Rodman had been rowed across from the Rio to the Amazon, and he had taken with him the hand-luggage that made his only impedimenta. In Mr. Rodman’s business, it was important to travel light. If he found Señor Miraflores among the passengers of the Amazon, it was his intention to right-about-face, and return south again.
Señor Miraflores had been in the States as the secret and efficient head of that junta which Rodman served. He had very capably directed the shipping of rifles and many sub-rosa details that must be handled beyond the frontier, when it is intended to change governments without the knowledge or consent of armed and intrenched incumbents. The home-coming of Señor Miraflores must of necessity be unostentatious, since his arrival would be the signal for the conversion of the quiet steeps of San Francisco into craters.
Rodman knew that, if the señor were on board the Amazon, his name would not be on the sailing-list, and his august personality would be cloaked in disguise. His point of debarkation would be some secluded coast village where fellow conspirators could hide him. His advent into the capital itself would not be made at all unless made at the head of an invading army, and, if so made, he would remain as minister of foreign affairs in the cabinet of General Vegas, to whom just now, as to himself, the city gates were closed.
But Señor Miraflores had selected a more cautious means of entry than the ship, which might bear travelers who knew him. Rodman spent an hour on the downward steamer. He managed to see the face of every passenger, and even investigated the swarthy visages in the steerage. He asked of some tourists casual questions as to destination, and chatted artlessly, then went over the side again, and was rowed back across the intervening strip of sea. Immediately upon his departure overside, the Amazon proceeded on her course, and five minutes later the City of Rio was also under way.
The next morning, after a late breakfast, Saxon was lounging at the rail amidship. He had ceased looking backward, and all his gaze was for the front. Ahead of him, the white superstructure, the white-duck uniform of the officer pacing the bridge, the whiteness of the holystoned deck, all stood boldly out against the deep cobalt of the gently swelling sea. Saxon was satisfied with life, and, when he saw Rodman sauntering toward him, he looked up with a welcoming nod.
“Hello, Carter—I mean Saxon.” The gun-smuggler corrected his form of address with a laugh.
The breezy American was a changed and improved man. The wrinkled gray flannels had given way to natty white duck. His Panama hat was new and of such quality that it could be rolled and drawn through a ring as large as a half-dollar. He was shaven to an extreme pinkness of face. As Saxon glanced up, his eyes wearing tell-tale recognition of the transformation, the thin man laughed afresh.
“Notice the difference, don’t you?” he genially inquired, rolling a cigarette. “The gray grub is splendidly changed into the snow-white butterfly. I’m a very flossy bug, eh, Saxon?”
The painter admitted the soft self-impeachment with a qualification.
“I begin to think you are a very destructive one.”