t savagely. 'No, damn you!' he
snapped out, as though he were in a hurry about it all, 'Go on with
your rat-killing. Let's have it over with.'"

The raconteur halted in his narrative.

"Please go on," begged Duska, in a low voice. "What happened?"

The foreigner smiled.

"They fired." Then, as he saw the slight shudder of Duska's white
shoulder, he supplemented: "But each soldier had left the task for the
others.... Possibly, they sympathized with him; possibly, they
sympathized with the revolution; possibly, each of the six secretly
calculated that the other five would be sufficient. _Quien sabe?_ At
all events, he fell only slightly wounded. One bullet--" he spoke
thoughtfully, letting his eyes drop from Saxon's face to the
table-cloth where Saxon's right hand lay--"one bullet pierced his
right hand from back to front."

Then, a half-whimsical smile crossed Ribero's somewhat saturnine
features, for Miss Filson had dropped her napkin on Saxon's side, and,
when the painter had stooped to recover it, he did not again replace
the hand on the table.

"Before he could be fired on a second time," concluded the diplomat
with a shrug, "a new _presidente_ was on his way to the palace. Your
countryman was saved."

If the hero of Ribero's narrative was a malefactor, at least he was a
malefactor with the sympathy of Mr. Bellton's dinner-party, as was
attested by a distinctly audible sigh of relief at the end of the
story. But Senor Ribero was not quite through.

"It is not, after all, the story that discredits your countryman," he
explained, "but the sequel. Of course, he became powerful in the new
regime. It was when he was lauded as a national hero that his high
fortunes intoxicated him, and success rotted his moral fiber.
Eventually, he embezzled a fortune from the government which he had
assisted to establish. There was also a matter of--how shall I
say?--of a lady. Then, a duel which was really an assassination. He
escaped with blood on his conscience, presumably to enjoy his stolen
wealth in his own land."

"I have often wondered," pursued Ribero, "whether, if that man and I
should ever be thrown together again, he would know me ... and I have
often wished I could remember him only as the brave adventurer--not
also as the criminal."

As he finished, the speaker was holding Saxon with his eyes, and had a
question in his glance that seemed to call for some expression from
the other. Saxon bowed with a smile.

"