Miss Byrd forced a laugh. “Where?” she demanded. “In Brazil?”
“In Brazil, yes, at first; then where you will. Listen, senorita, my mother is descended from the princely German house of Hochstein, now extinct in the male line. The emperor is about to revive its honors and vest them in me—in me, do you understand. And this is not all. I am at the head of a great movement. Since I was a boy of sixteen I have been laboring for it, and now at last the time is ripe. Only one obstacle remains, and I am about to sweep it aside. Then—then—”
The man’s eyes burned: his breath came hot and fast. His tones carried the intoxication of assured success.
“It is a great game and a great stake,” he hurried on. “A great game. Its web involves four continents; it stretches from Brazil across both the Atlantic and the Pacific and far to the northward. And at its center I sit. Strand by strand I have woven it and tested it. It cannot break. Why! see here!”
He thrust his hand into his pocket and drew out a paper, which he tore apart with shaking fingers. “See!” he cried. “See what the emperor has written. With his own hand he has written it! Read! Read!”
The girl pushed away his hand. “No! No!” she cried. “I won’t read! I won’t listen.”
But the man would not be denied. “Read! Read!” he clamored. “Read! See what the emperor promises.” Determinedly he thrust the paper before her eyes, and held it there while its words burned themselves into the girl’s brain, never to be forgotten.
“You see! You see!” he cried.
Miss Byrd drew back. Her brain was whirling. Half understood facts and unintelligible rumors had suddenly blended into a comprehensive whole. Rutile’s fancies had become facts—the facts of a great political conspiracy. It was not merely what Ouro Preto had said; taken alone that might be set down as the vaporings of a dreamer who took wishes and fancies for facts. But dreamers do not receive letters such as his from the Kaiser; and their dreams are not corroborated by a horde of apparently unrelated facts such as Miss Byrd had in her possession.
The man was still speaking. “Only one thing remains in my way now,” he triumphed. “Nothing but these cursed Yankees can oppose me. And now I am going to draw their teeth. Too long have they assumed to control the destinies of all the Americans. Too long have they stood in my way. Now—now I am about to eliminate them—to crush them if they dare to interpose. Thank God you are English—”