The spy spoke in his womanish, dainty manner, and with such evident satisfaction that I could have strangled him with much pleasure had I been free.
“Why are you here?” inquired the Emperor, after eyeing me curiously for a moment.
“I have some personal belongings in this house which I wished to secure before returning to the United States. Your men arrested me in the room I have been occupying.”
“Why are you anxious to return to the United States?” questioned the Emperor.
“Because my mission to Brazil is ended.”
“It is true,” returned Dom Pedro, positively. “The conspiracy is at an end.”
“Of that I am not informed,” I replied evasively. “But I have been employed by Dom Miguel de Pintra, not by the conspiracy, as your Majesty terms it. And Dom Miguel has no further need of me.”
“Dom Miguel is dead,” retorted the Emperor, with an accent of triumph in his voice.
“Murdered by his daughter, your spy,” I added, seeing that he was aware of the truth.
He merely shrugged his broad shoulders and turned to whisper to a gray-bearded man behind him.