And after nodding kindly to him, the President returned to his cabinet, the door of which was closed upon him. The adventurer stood for a moment motionless, painfully affected by the President's incredulity.
"Oh!" he muttered sadly, "Those whom God wishes to destroy, he blinds! Alas! All is now over, this man is hopelessly condemned, his cause is lost."
He left the palace full of the most sinister anticipations.
[CHAPTER XXXII.]
EL PALO QUEMADO.
The adventurer as we said, left the palace, the Plaza Mayor was deserted, the popular effervescence had calmed down as rapidly as it had risen: by the entreaties of certain influential persons, the troops had returned to their quarters: the leperos and other citizens equally respectable, who formed the majority of the insurgent mob, seeing that decidedly there was nothing to be done, and that the victims whom they coveted were effectually escaping from them, after a few cries and yells raised as a consolation, dispersed in their turn, and returned to the more or less ill-famed dens, always open in the low quarters of the city, and where they were sure of finding a shelter.
López alone remained firm at his post. The adventurer had ordered him to wait for him at the palace gate, and he did so. Still, as the night was dark, and the most profound obscurity had succeeded the radiant illumination of the evening, he waited with his hand on his weapons, with ears and eyes on the watch, lest, in spite of the vicinity of the palace, he might be surprised and robbed by some night prowler, who would not have been sorry of the windfall if the peon had not thus kept good guard. When López saw the palace gate opened, he understood that it could only be his master who thus came out alone, and he went up to him.
"Anything new?" the adventurer asked, as he put his foot in the stirrup.
"Not much," he answered.