The girl knew where the key was hung, and I wondered why she had not ere now attempted to lead the beautiful prisoner from the house to the calle, where in due time she might have reached the protection of the Stars and Stripes over the door of our consul’s office.
So she opened the door, and in a whisper bade us enter. Perhaps Robbins was more eager than myself; somehow I stepped aside and allowed him to enter first.
Was it a sense of chivalry? If any romance was to grow out of this escapade of the night, I was just then quite willing that he should carry off all the honors. For myself, that sort of thing had, I believed, lost all its attraction, since it is said the burned child dreads the fire, and I had been singed.
As I passed beyond the door the girl cautiously closed and locked it; but suspicion had now ceased to worry me, and I looked upon this simply in the light of prudence. For I had already discovered there was a lady in the room.
The lamp, shaded with a crimson globe, was burning with less than full power, but the light was sufficient to show me that the apartment was handsomely and sumptuously furnished. Robbins was just ahead, and his big bulk allowed me only that fleeting glimpse of a lady rising in haste from her chair, but even then I seemed to grasp the idea that she was a charming personality.
Ah! Perhaps our mission was not fated to be such a fool’s errand, after all.
I was content for the time being to let Robbins play first fiddle, ready to back him up should he need assistance in words or deeds. The mate, thrown upon his resources, was bowing, hat in hand.
“Madam, I am an American, and you can trust us,” he managed to say, boldly. Then I heard her utter a cry of delight.
“At last—it has come. I shall leave these hateful scenes, never to return. Oh, Carmecita, blessed child, what do I not owe to you!”
I believe you could have knocked me down with a feather when that voice fell upon my hearing, for it aroused all the memories I had thought buried in the dead past.