“Here you are at your inn,” Sard said. “Now go up to your berth and turn in, and don’t run the town with flash reefers again. You can’t do them any good, and they may do you great harm. Cut away to bed, and tell Mr. Dorney at breakfast that I hope to see him at nine in the morning at the agent’s office.”
After he had dismissed the boy, Sard walked back to the Plaza, to think. He sat again at his table, sipping coffee, while the waiters about him prepared for closing time. “Medellin throat,” he kept thinking, “dead of medellin throat; Captain Cary dead and the ship thrown away on the Snappers.”
There came the tramp of feet upon the stairway: men were marching to the Plaza crying strange cries like cheers. The waiter at his elbow touched him and muttered under his breath “Cuidado.”
Sard looked up suddenly. Men in the green and silver uniforms of the Guards came up the staircase into the Plaza: they drew up in three little squads of four men each. They carried rifles with which they stood on the alert. After them marched two officers, who came to Sard, jingled the spurs on their heels, clicked and saluted. Sard rose, returned the salute and waited.
“Captain Chisholm Harker?” one of the men said.
“I am Harker, not Captain,” Sard answered.
“His Excellency, Don Manuel, the Dictator, desires to speak with you.” They jingled, clicked, saluted and went. A great man stepped from the stairs into the Plaza. Sard knew him at once; indeed no one could fail to know him; there being only one such man alive. He was a grand man, with beauty and power in every line and gesture. He was dressed in spotless white and girt with a green sash. He wore the great white Santa Barbara hat of white macilento straw. He stood still, surveying Sard, for half a minute; Sard stood bareheaded surveying him. Very slowly and reverently the Dictator removed his hat, bowed to Sard and stood bareheaded before him. He said no word, but stood there bowed. Sard wished that it might end.
The Dictator advanced suddenly and spoke in English with fierce interjections of Spanish.
“Por Dios, Captain Harker,” he said, “I have waited all these years, knowing that you would come. When I heard that you were ashore and at the Plaza I could hardly endure to wait. So, give me your hands: no: both hands: so: how are you?”
Sard mumbled that he was well and glad to see the Dictator well.