The Washington times., 1911-04-22
CHAPTER XIV (Continued.)

- URTICE flung out hand
with a despairing gesture
as II concedlng defeat, and
returned to his typewriter-or
rather, to the machine which Hamilton,
himself unable to make use of il, had
loaned him; this TO Curtice's delight.
since he had trained himself in the ha bit
as II were, into the keys; and to one SO
accustomed it is not easy to return 10
the more primitive pen and ink
IL was his task, upon this afternoon,
70 grind out his letter for the Dial;
McCabe demanded 1t at once, and now
the days were moving with a swiftness
80 exceeding that Jimmy might not say
when such another opportunity would
He sat down. gritting his teeth, mis-
facile fingers playing rapidly upon the
key-taps for a while. Then a pause
came; the words formed less easily. He
rose and too& a turn up and down the
room to rearrange his unruly ideas.
Work, indeed. was little to his taste
that day: there lay upon his mind a
burden Of anxiety hard to lift, approach
had reached the President and told his
tale; and yet there was no news of
Norah. The spies and secret agents of
Malone seemed powerless to penetrate
the veil Of mystery which shrouded the
girls fate. A party of four had been
traced from San Diego to Guayana, by
the night express the descriptions OF
three of its members answered fairly
we'll to those of General Lazard. Fetter
and Norah. The fourth was supposed to
have been one Rojas, merchant of San
Diego, prominent citizen of the repub-
lie, now under suspicion-and with rea-
son-as candidate for the next Presi-
dency.
Shortly after the arrival of the ex-
press, a carriage had torn madly
through the city streets and vanished
IL. E-n
lowed had been found. shot in the back,
in q lonely spot; in his pockets was a
sum of gold, small, it is true, but unac-
countable. or the cochero there was no
know him. And that was all. Who
should say whittier that coach had
passed? Had it made for the distant
provinces? Had II returned to the city?
Five persons knew-but where to come
upon them? Norah had been swallowed
as completely by the shadows of that
fateful evening as, apparently, had Mr..
Haigh and the Miranda J: by the sea.
boat Dom 9e na9 haS eet ont for
had brought Malone's message TO
Colonel Paez. commandant of the fort
at San Diego, ordering him to capture
arms of the junta. But the comman-
dant's glass had failed to discover the
Miranda among the shipping in the
roadstead; only. upon the misty horizon
there lowered a SIIluORe OI SIlOht III Il
direction at a radical angle from the
course taken by the admiral
Jimmy sighed deeply and went back
TO the window. The soldiery were gone
now. and the shower had abated It's
violence. In the west sinking sun was
irving to thrust its damask fingers
through the curtain of fog: with the
wind for an ally-a breath of breeze
sweeping down over the steamlng valley
from the slopes of the purple Sferras-
II gained the day. ruthlessly tearing
apart the leaden hangings, ripping them
to shreds which scurried toward the. sea,
till overhead a bare heaven lost Itself IN
infinite sapphire distances.
The correspondent of the Dial turned
his back on this glory impaiently. 1t
was not with nature that he might con-
Germ himself; he must write OF man as
he saw unexpectedly. of one man
who was his friend, the President. And
that mans fortunes were in state
which might well cause concern 10 those
who held him in affectionate solicltude
The revolution grew. its distemper
spreading over the land with the speed
OF a ravaging plague, turning the bralns
OF men with the madness OF war. IN
the south, Ursua held La Marona well
in hand; the advance of the regular
army, dispatched against him so
promptly, he had checked and held untlI.
sinanche and Galiban provinces rising
in sympathy with their neighbor' RoJaS
made sudden tos sdwfn5 tS PSGa TPom E Himself
Combined, they had given battle TO the
government troops, and rumor said that
he regulars had reeled and ned de-
fnoralized before the rebel ADVANCE.
The militia had been mobillzed; yeI
was lacking in its numbers through oe-
sertions TO the insurgent camp, ana
through the detection OF the three proE
inces. Then from the north came me
rumblings of discomfort; and there, too;
Lazard was said to be organizing anu
arming men.
National University had paraded tne
the frown of the Green House, itself
ribald catch deriding the President-a
play in verse upon his name to the et-
feet that the melone of the Green House
had rotted until 1t had become stencil
in the nostrils of honest men. In the
resultant fight between this collection
of hare-brained youngsters and the Bull
dogs, two of the young men had been
killed, number wounded. And the
people muttered angrily, swearing ven
geance, demanding eye for eye, tooth
for tooth, from the foreigners. $50,
,briIIed 1he through the streets by night.
The federal barracks had been fired by
some unknown incendiary. The Presi-
dent, Justly alarmed, had proclaimed
Guayana under martial law; provost
guards Of the militia REINFORCED the po-
lice, and before the Green House the
Bulldogs stood ever on guard
Then, crowning his perVerslty with an
act of folly so supreme that his init
mates Snarveled that a man so cautious
and so polite in the past should throw
all discretion to the winds, Malone had
sent for several of the wealthiest citi-
zens of the town, and, grimly alludinS
to the expenses of war and the impover-
ished state Of the treasury, had request
ed various loans. Backed by fear of
the Rotunda, the request had been ac-
ceded to with celebrity which seemed
to SAVIOR of loyalty to the government.
But the man in the street advertised 1t
loudly as the last imposition of a presi-
dent providing against an exile which
he recognized for future certainty.
Kilrae and Curtice, after vainly op-
posing this overt act of oppression, took
counsel Kilrae confided to the young
man something of the affair of the Deli
lah of the Paseo de la Independencia,
reserving, according to his word given
to Malone, the matter of the secret way.
And the two, discussing it, saw in the
Presidents madness the motive fur
nished by the woman, for whom he pur-
posed TO sell his honor-what of that re-
mained to him-in event he found the
way to victory over the insurgents too
hard.
Compelling himself to the task. Cur
tice ground out his correspondence and
dispatched It to the telegraph office.