The Ambassador Becomes Admiral

"I didn't know you had come," said Benton quietly. "How long have you
been here?"

"I should say a half-hour, Señor," replied Manuel, casually rolling a
cigarette.

"Why didn't you rouse me? I'm not very amusing, but even I could have
relieved the dullness of sitting there like a marooned man on a
derelict."

"Dullness?" inquired the toreador with a lazy lift of the brows. "It
is ease, Señor, and ease is desirable--at sea."

The American sat cross-legged on the deck and held out his hand for a
cigarette. When he asked a question he spoke in matter-of-fact tones. He
even laughed, and the Andalusian chatted on in kind, but secretly and
narrowly he was watching the other, and when he had finished his
scrutiny he told himself that Benton had been indulging in the dangerous
pastime of brooding.

"Tell me--everything," urged the yacht-owner. "What are the
revolutionists doing and how is--how are things?" Carefully he avoided
directing any question to the point on which his eagerness for news was
poignant hunger.

When Blanco told how Louis had left Galavia just before the soldiers
reached the lodge, Benton's face darkened. "That was fatal blundering,"
he complained. "So long as Delgado is at large the Palace is menaced.
If they had taken him, and held him under surveillance, the Cabinet
Noir would be disarmed. Now they will try again."

Blanco nodded.

"There is no charge they can make against him," he mused. "They cannot
bring him back because the government cannot admit its peril. Outwardly
his bill of health is clean. Assuredly when they let him slip, Señor,
they committed a grave error."