would have
my letter in the morning; and if the wistfulness in her eyes meant some
new trouble in which I had a part, I hoped that the words I had written
might banish it.

XXIV

THE GOODWILL OF MARIQUITA

Nevertheless I could not sleep on my hard but clean pillows, for wondering
about that look of Monica's, and its meaning; and whenever I shut my eyes,
hordes of red and yellow figures poured out of white houses upon white
roads, forming irritating, kaleidoscopic patterns on my tired retina.

Each hour that passed was cried by the watchman, far away, and then close
under my window; a fearsome cry like a groan of agony uttered by a madman
in a dying spasm.

I was glad when morning came; and after such a bath as two or three
miniature jugs of water afforded (the deer-eyed boy wondered in the name
of all the saints what I could do with so many), I threw off the
brain-clouds of a sleepless night.

Before long Monica would have my letter. She would know--if she could have
doubted--that if I had loved her at first, I worshipped her now. She would
know why we had not followed more closely yesterday; and why--unless
Carmona chose to accept our help again--we would go on before the grey car
to-day. She would know also that my most earnest hope was to take her
away, out of the reach of harm.

I was dressed, and had had my coffee and hard, fat roll of Spanish bread,
by half-past seven, as I was sure Ropes would be wanting to see me. I
would not have disturbed Dick, who slept in a room across the _patio_, but
I found him in the dining-room, wrestling with a glass of thick chocolate
and a finger-shaped sweet biscuit. "I'm trying to like Spanish customs,"
said he.

I laughed.

"Because, if I'm going to carry through that scheme of mine about motor
traffic, I may have to live on the spot, you see."

"Oh!" said I. "And what about Colonel O'Donnel's copper mines? Have you
thought of a means to persuade him it's his duty to have them worked?"

"In a way, I have," Dick answered dryly. "An indirect sort of way. What
about our gasoline? Heard anything about it?"

"No. I'm going to find Ropes."

"Rather a sell for Carmona, if he did order our _bidons_ pricked, to feel
it's his fault if we're held up as long as he is."

"There's Ropes in the _patio_," I said. "I'll go and interview him."

"What news?" I asked.

"Well, sir, I did what the landlord said last night, and had a tr