"We would like to know what you were doing at the spot where the soldiers arrested you?"
"That," said Desmond sturdily, "is my own business; and a thing I have not the least intention of telling you."
Two of the officers frowned, but the man at the table waved his hand.
"Well," he said, "we will try another question. It is desirable that we should know how a certain eight boys whom the prisoner brought down to the coast were smuggled out of the country."
Desmond looked at Ormsgill, who nodded. "I think you may as well tell him," he said. "There is reason for believing that our friend yonder who speaks excellent English"—and he indicated Dom Clemente—"is acquainted with it already. I don't think they can hold—you—responsible."
Then Desmond spoke boldly, answering their questions until almost everything was explained. Dom Clemente's eyes twinkled, and his companion leaned back in his chair with a curious little smile.
"What I have heard is so extraordinary as to be almost incomprehensible," he said. "It seems that you and your friend must have spent a very large amount of money to set these fourteen boys at liberty."
He waved his hand towards the squatting negroes. "Señores," he said turning to the officers, "I would ask you to look at them, and tell me if the thing appears reasonable."
The manner in which the officers smiled was very expressive. It was, they were assured, for these thick-lipped, woolly-haired bushmen crouching half-naked against the wall, without a spark of intelligence in their heavy animal-like faces, that the two English gentlemen had spent money broadcast, faced fatigue and peril, and hazarded the anger of the Government. The thing certainly appeared incomprehensible to them. Desmond guessed their thoughts, and a red flush crept into his sea-bronzed face and a little portentous glint into his eyes.
"I admit that it sounds nonsensical," he said. "Still, Señores, I have the honor of offering you my word."