n't quite that. I have been a mercenary in many
parts of the world, although I never in my life fought on what I did not
believe to be the right side. That's how it comes in here--in your case.
I told the Orizaba people who wrote to me that I firmly believed you
were certain to come back to Gloria, and that if the sword of Oisin
Sarrasin could help you that sword was at your disposal.'

'Captain Sarrasin,' the Dictator said, 'give me your hand.'

Captain Sarrasin was a pretty strong man, but the grip of the Dictator
almost made him wince.

'When you make up your mind to go back,' Captain Sarrasin said, 'let me
know. I'll go with you.'

'If this is really going on,' the Dictator said meditatively--'if
Orizaba is actually going to make war on Gloria--well, I _must_ go back.
I think Gloria would welcome me under such conditions--at such a crisis.
I do not see that there is any other man----'

'There is no other man,' Sarrasin said. 'Of course one doesn't know what
the scoundrels who are in office now might do. They might arrest you and
shoot you the moment you landed--they are quite capable of it.'

'They are, I dare say,' the Dictator said carelessly. 'But I shouldn't
mind that--I should take my chance,' And then the sudden thought went to
his heart that he should dislike death now much more than he would have
done a few weeks ago. But he hastened to repeat, 'I should take my
chance.'

'Of course, of course,' said Sarrasin, quite accepting the Dictator's
remark as a commonplace and self-evident matter of fact. 'I'll take _my_
chance too. I'll go along with you, and so will my wife.'

'Your wife?'

'Oh, yes, my wife. She goes everywhere with me.'

The face of the Dictator looked rather blank. He did not quite see the
appropriateness of petticoats in actual warfare--unless, perhaps, the
short petticoats of a _vivandiere_; and he hoped that Captain Sarrasin's
wife was not a _vivandiere_.

'You see,' Sarrasin said cheerily, 'my wife and I are very fond of each
other, and our one little child is long since dead, and we have nobody
else to care much about. And she is a tall woman, nearly as tall as I
am, and she dresses up as my _aide-de-camp_; and she has gone with me
into all my fights. And we find it so convenient that if ever I should
get killed, then, of course, she would manage to get killed too, and
_vice versa--vice versa_, of course. And that would be so convenient,
don't you see? We are so used to each ot