Naturally Billy didn’t understand this, but the reader may be informed that the general’s remark referred to “a strange thing” that some of the scouts reported having seen in the distant sky the preceding day. Of course it was the Golden Eagle on her way to the mountains. This Rogero had been shrewd enough to guess, but that of the ship’s destination he had no knowledge, goes without saying. The failure of the spy that he had sent to La Merced to disable the craft, had, however, been reported to him and had not tended to put him in an amiable frame of mind. He realized fully that if he attempted to damage Mr. Chester’s property or that of any of his friends, that the Golden Eagle would be able, in the hands of her young navigators, to work terrible reprisals upon his army.
“How did you come here and what do you want?” demanded Rogero the next minute. “If you are anxious to be shot, I shall be glad to accommodate you,” he went on with an amiable smile.
“No, I don’t think I’m quite ready to follow your pleasant suggestion yet,” retorted the reporter, “and I think that my country would make it pretty hot for you if you carried it out. I came here to talk business,” he went on.
“What business can you have to discuss with me?” demanded Rogero sharply.
“Just this,” answered Billy, whose nerve was fast returning. “As you know I have a picture of yours which I don’t think you would like to see put to the use for which I snapped it. Now, it’s not a professional thing of me to do, but I want to help out my friends as much as possible. I will destroy the negative, and refrain from notifying the New York police of my suspicions of you, on one condition.”
“And what is that?” demanded the Nicaraguan general, his face growing black as thunder and tapping impatiently with his riding-boot on the dirt floor of the tent.
“Well, you might call it a double-barreled condition, as a matter of fact,” replied Billy easily; “it’s simply this,—I want you to give a written pledge not to injure, or permit any of your army to injure, any portion of Mr. Chester’s or Don Pachecho’s estates or to destroy any property owned by Americans——”
“In time of war more or less injury is unavoidable,” parried Rogero.
“Not in your case,” replied Billy; “you see you have been advertised by your loving friends—as the wash-powder folks say—and your views on American property-holders are pretty well known. I don’t think you’d have a chance to wreak your spite on them.”
“Well, get on to your other condition—what is it?” growled Rogero.