you were not what you seemed, and I thought you might be going
about to see who obeyed The Master's orders...."

* * * * *

Bell nodded.

"That is my mission," he said curtly. "Do not speak of it further--not
even to the deputy in Asuncion."

The captain stammered again.

"But I must see the Senor Francia," he said humbly. "I report to him
after every trip, and if he thought that I did not report all that I
learn...."

"It is my order," snapped Bell angrily. "If he reproaches you, say that
one who has orders from The Master himself gave them to you. And do not
speak of the destruction of the _fazenda_. I am searching especially for
the man who caused it. And--wait! I will take your name, and you shall
give me--say--a thousand pesos. I had need of money to bribe a fool I
could not waste time on, up-country. It will be returned to you."

And again the captain stammered, but Bell stared at him haughtily, and
he knelt abjectly before the ship's safe.

* * * * *

Asuncion, as everybody knows, is a city of sixty thousand people, and
the capital of a republic which enjoyed the rule of a family of
hereditary dictators for sixty years; which rule ended in a war wherein
four-fifths of the population was wiped out. And since that beginning it
has averaged eight revolutions to Mexico's three, has had the joy of
knowing seven separate presidents in five years--none of them
elected--and now boasts a population approximately two-thirds
illegitimate and full of pride in its intellectual and artistic tastes.

Bell and Paula made their way along the cobbled streets away from the
river, surrounded by other similarly peasant-seeming folk. Bell told her
curtly what had happened with the steamer captain.

"It's the devil," he said coldly, "because this whole republic is under
The Master's thumb. Except among the peasants we can count on nearly
everybody being on the lookout for us, if they so much as suspect we're
alive. And they may because I burned their damned _fazenda_. So...."

Paula smiled at him, rather wanly.

"What are you going to do, Charles?"

"Get a boat," said Bell curtly. "One with three or four men, if I can.
If I can buy it with the skipper's money, I will. But I can't take you
to go bargaining. It would look suspicious."

They had reached the central plaza of the town. The market swarmed with
brown skinned folk and seemed to overflow with fruits