He rose while she was searching for the right word. “Will you excuse me until after dinner, Miss Ruey? I'd love to stay and chat with you, even though it does appear that presently we shall be calling each other names, but the fact of the matter is—well, I am in a very serious predicament, and I might as well start right now to prepare to meet any emergency. For what hour shall I order the carriage?”
“Seven-thirty. After all, they'll not dare to murder you on the Malecon.”
“I agree with you. It will have to be done very quietly, if at all. You've been mighty nice to me this afternoon, seeress; I shall be grateful right up to the moment of dissolution.”
“Speak softly but carry a big stick,” she warned him.
“A big gun,” he corrected here, “—two of them, in fact.”
“Sensible man! I'm not going to worry about you, Mr. Webster.” She nodded her permission for him to retire, and as he walked down the veranda and into the hotel, her glance followed him with pardonable feminine curiosity, marking the breadth of his shoulders, the quick, springy stride, the alert, erect poise of his head on the powerful neck.
“A doer of deeds are you, John Stuart Webster,” she almost whispered. “As Kipling would say: 'Wallah! But you are a man!'” ^
A stealthy footstep sounded below the veranda she turned and beheld Don Juan Cafetéro, his hat in his left hand, in his right a gold-piece which he held toward her.
“Take it, allanah,” he wheezed in his hoarse, drunkard's whisper. “Keep it f'r me till to-morrow, for sorra wan av me can I trust to do that same—an' be the same token I can't face that big man wit'out it.”
“Why not, Don Juan?”