Contact!" he snapped, and turned on the switch. The mechanic remained
frozen with fear. "Damnation!" said Bell savagely. "I don't know the
Portuguese for 'Turn her over'!"

He fumbled desperately about in the cockpit. Something whirred. The
propeller went over.... Canalejas shot with painstaking accuracy,
twice. The motor caught with a spluttering roar.

As a horde of running figures, servants and guests, running with the
same desperation, came plunging out on the flying field from the
shrubbery. Bell gave the motor the gun. The fast little plane's tail
came up off the ground as she darted forward. Faster and faster, with
many bumpings. The bumpings ceased. She was clear.

And Bell zoomed suddenly to lift her over the racing, fear-ridden
creatures who clutched desperately at the wheels, and then the little
ship shot ahead, barely cleared the trees to the east of the field,
and began to roar at her topmost speed toward Rio.

CHAPTER V

The Trade--which does not exist--has its obligations and its code, but
also it has its redeeming features. When a man has finished his job,
he has finished it. And as far as the Trade was concerned, Bell had
but little more to do. But after that--and his eyes burned smokily in
their depths--there was much that he intended to do. He sat in one of
the _bondes_ of the Botanical Garden half of the street railway system
of Rio, and absent mindedly regarded the scenery. This particular
_bonde_ was headed out toward the Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas, by which
salty mass of water Bell would meet Paula Canalejas. He would receive
a package from her, which he would deliver to Jamison. And then he
would be free, and it was his private intention to engage in an
enterprise which was very probably a form of suicide. But there are
some things one cannot dismiss with a sage reflection that they are
not one's business. This matter of Ribiera was definitely one of them.

* * * * *

The escape from Ribiera's _fazenda_ had been relatively easy, because
so thoroughly unexpected. The little plane had climbed to five
thousand feet and found a stratum of cloud that stretched for very
many miles. Bell had emerged from it only twice in the first hour of
flight, and the second time the sky was clear all about him. That he
was pursued, he had no doubt. That Ribiera had wireless communications
with Rio, he knew. And he knew that instant, and imperative orders
would have gone out for