'To Gloria, of course. You have not asked me why I refused to give my services to Orizaba.'
'No; I assumed that you did not care to be the mercenary of an invasion.'
'Mercenary? No, it wasn't quite that. I have been a mercenary in many parts of the world, although I never in my life fought on what I did not believe to be the right side. That's how it comes in here—in your case. I told the Orizaba people who wrote to me that I firmly believed you were certain to come back to Gloria, and that if the sword of Oisin Sarrasin could help you that sword was at your disposal.'
'Captain Sarrasin,' the Dictator said, 'give me your hand.'
Captain Sarrasin was a pretty strong man, but the grip of the Dictator almost made him wince.
'When you make up your mind to go back,' Captain Sarrasin said, 'let me know. I'll go with you.'
'If this is really going on,' the Dictator said meditatively—'if Orizaba is actually going to make war on Gloria—well, I must go back. I think Gloria would welcome me under such conditions—at such a crisis. I do not see that there is any other man——'
'There is no other man,' Sarrasin said. 'Of course one doesn't know what the scoundrels who are in office now might do. They might arrest you and shoot you the moment you landed—they are quite capable of it.'
'They are, I dare say,' the Dictator said carelessly. 'But I shouldn't mind that—I should take my chance,' And then the sudden thought went to his heart that he should dislike death now much more than he would have done a few weeks ago. But he hastened to repeat, 'I should take my chance.'
'Of course, of course,' said Sarrasin, quite accepting the Dictator's remark as a commonplace and self-evident matter of fact. 'I'll take my chance too. I'll go along with you, and so will my wife.'