“Afraid he’d hit me!” roared Peter. “You hit me! Hit me with a table! Look at my new white flannel suit! And look at this!” With his fingers he gingerly parted his wet, disheveled hair. “Look at the bump on the back of my head. Is that your idea of saving me? I wish,” he exploded savagely, “I wish he’d shot you full of holes!”
The violent onslaught of Peter was interrupted by one hardly less violent from the young Venezuelan. He had freed himself from his friends, and, as it now was evident the man who had attempted his life had escaped, and that to search further was useless, he ran to thank the stranger who had served him. Extravagantly, but with real feeling, he wrung both of Roddy’s hands. In the native fashion he embraced him, shook him by the shoulders, patted him affectionately on the back. Eloquently but incoherently in Spanish, French and English he poured forth his thanks. He hailed Roddy as his preserver, his bon amigo, his brav camarad. In expressing their gratitude his friends were equally voluble and generous. They praised, they applauded, they admired; in swift, graceful gestures they reënacted for each other the blow upon the chin, the struggle for the revolver, the escape of the would-be assassin.
Even Peter, as the only one who had suffered, became a heroic figure.
It was many minutes before the Americans could depart, and then only after every one had drunk to them in warm, sweet champagne.
When the glasses were filled the young Venezuelan turned to those standing about him on the grass and commanded silence. He now spoke in excellent English, but Roddy noted that those of the older men who could not understand regarded him with uneasiness.
“I ask you, my friends,” cried the Venezuelan, “to drink to the name of Forrester. How much,” he exclaimed, “does not that name mean to my unhappy country. I—myself—that my life should be taken—it is nothing; but that it should be saved for my country by one of that name is for us an omen—a lucky omen. It means,” he cried, the soft, liquid eyes flashing, “it means success. It means—” As though suddenly conscious of the warning frowns of his friends, he paused abruptly, and with a graceful bow, and waving his glass toward Roddy, said quietly, “Let us drink to the son of a good friend of Venezuela—to Mr. Forrester.”
Not until the landau was well on its way to Willemstad did Roddy deem it wise to make a certain inquiry.
“What,” he asked of the driver, “is the name of the gentleman that the other gentleman tried to shoot?”
The driver turned completely in his seat. His eyes were opened wide in amazement.
“You don’t know that gentleman!” he exclaimed.“I think everybody know that gentleman. He be very brave Venezuela gentleman; he be Colonel Vega.”