“But,” objected Roddy, “we haven’t got our credentials.”
“We’ll have to do without them,” declared Peter. “I tell you, if you get mixed up with Brother Pino when you get back to Porto Cabello you’ll go to jail. And what chance will we have then of saving General Rojas? He will stay in prison and die there. As White Mice,” announced Peter firmly, “we have our work to do, and we must not be turned aside by anybody’s revolution, your father’s, or Pino Vega’s, or anybody’s. We’re White Mice, first, last and all the time. Our duty isn’t to take life but to save it.” As though suddenly surprised by a new idea Peter halted abruptly.
“I suppose,” he demanded scornfully, “you think you prevented a murder this morning, and you will be claiming the White Mice medal for saving life?”
“I certainly will,” declared Roddy cheerfully, “and you will have to certify I earned it, because you saw me earn it.”
“But I didn’t,” declared Peter. “I was under the table.”
Roddy closed his eyes and again fell back upon the cot. For so long a time was he silent that Peter, who had gone out upon the balcony, supposed him asleep, when Roddy suddenly raised himself on his elbow.
“Anyway,” he began abruptly, “we can’t leave here until the boat takes us away, three days from now. I’ll bet in three days I’ll get all the credentials we want.”
Roddy had been awake since sunrise, the heat was soporific, the events of the morning exhausting, and in two minutes, unmindful of revolutions, indifferent to spies, to plots and counter-plots, he was sleeping happily. But as he slumbered, in two lands, at great distances apart, he and his affairs were being earnestly considered. On the twenty-seventh floor of the Forrester Building his father, with perplexed and frowning brows, studied a cablegram; in the Casa Blanca, Señora Rojas and her daughters listened in amazement to a marvelous tale. Had it not been their faithful friend and jealous guardian, the American Consul, who was speaking, they could not have credited it.
At the Forrester Building the cablegram had been just translated from the secret code of the company and placed upon the desk of Mr. Forrester. It was signed by Von Amberg, and read: “To-day at meeting your party, unknown man fired three shots Vega; Young Forrester overpowered man; Vega unhurt; man escaped. Understand young Forrester not in our confidence. Please instruct.”
Three times Mr. Forrester read the cablegram, and then, laying it upon his knee, sat staring out of the open window.