"Care will be needed after this," said Don Martin. "Now that they know your boat, it is fortunate we changed the landing place; but you are safe here. This coast is low and unhealthy; the President's friends are prosperous and do not live in the swampy jungle."
"One can understand that," Grahame responded. "Your appeal is to those who must live how and where they can. No doubt, they suffer now and then for helping you."
"Ah!" exclaimed one of the Spaniards, "how they suffer! If you give me leave, señores, I can tell you startling things."
They listened with quickening interest, and he kept his promise well, for there is in southern peoples, contaminated by darker blood, a vein of sensual cruelty that sometimes leads to the perpetration of unutterable horrors. Grahame's face grew quietly stern, Walthew's hot and flushed, and Macallister clenched his hand, for the tales they heard fired their blood.
"You have told us enough," Walthew said at last. "I went into this business because I was looking for adventure and wanted to make some money—but I mean to see it through if it costs me all I have!" He turned to his comrades. "How do you feel about it?"
"Much as you do," Grahame answered quietly, and Macallister put his hand on Sarmiento's arm.
"I'm with ye, if ye mean to make a clean sweep o' yon brutes."
"I believe their reckoning will come, but our bargain stands," said Don Martin. "We need arms, and will pay for all you bring. Still, I am glad your hearts are with us. It is sentiment that carries one farthest."
"How have you been getting on since we last met?" Walthew asked.
"We make progress, though there are difficulties. One must fight with the purse as well as the sword, and the dictator's purse is longer than ours. Of late, he has been getting money and spending it with a free hand."