“‘Why,’ says he presently, ‘that was all a little joke fixed up by the boys around the court-room, and one or two of our cut-ups, and a few clerks in the stores. The town is bursting its sides with laughing. The boys made themselves up to be conspirators, and they—what you call it?—stick Señor O’Connor for his money. It is very funny.’
“‘It was,’ says I. ‘I saw the joke all along. I’ll take another highball, if your Honor don’t mind.’
“The next evening just at dark a couple of soldiers brought O’Connor down to the beach, where I was waiting under a cocoanut-tree.
“‘Hist!’ says I in his ear: ‘Dona Isabel has arranged our escape. Not a word!’
“They rowed us in a boat out to a little steamer that smelled of table d’hote salad oil and bone phosphate.
“The great, mellow, tropical moon was rising as we steamed away. O’Connor leaned on the taffrail or rear balcony of the ship and gazed silently at Guaya—at Buncoville-on-the-Beach.
“He had the red rose in his hand.
“‘She will wait,’ I heard him say. ‘Eyes like hers never deceive. But I shall see her again. Traitors cannot keep an O’Connor down forever.’
“‘You talk like a sequel,’ says I. ‘But in Volume II please omit the light-haired friend who totes the grub to the hero in his dungeon cell.’
“And thus reminiscing, we came back to New York.”