own discretion about giving
them the tip if your life were threatened as I imagined it would be."

"Very clever of you, Jack," I answered, "and I'm very much obliged to
you for thinking of it, but I am glad that the poor devil didn't take
it after all. I believe it to be my duty to take it to Don Juan
d'Alta, even at the risk of my life."

St. Nivel sat thinking a moment or two; then he spoke.

"Why do you use the term 'poor devil'?" he asked, "when you speak of
the robber chief?"

I told him why. I told him how I had shot him.

"Well, really, Bill," he said very seriously, "I wish the thing _had_
gone. It has already cost several lives, and seems to carry ill-luck
with it. Who knows how many more lives may be sacrificed? Of course,
there cannot be a doubt but that the train was held up solely to obtain
it; the taking of the hundred dollars a head was simply a ruse to cover
the other. Old Frampton says such a raid on a train is a thing unheard
of now in Aquazilia."

"Yes," I answered, "but it came to a good round sum all the same.
Well, at any rate," I continued, as the train ran into Valoro station,
"we've brought the thing to its destination, and we're all safe and
sound, so there's _something_ to be thankful for!"

At Valoro, things were "all right" as my man Brooks put it; news of the
attack on the train, in which was the British Minister, had reached the
capital, and a troop of cavalry awaited to escort him to his Legation.

"As I understand you have something of importance to deliver in
Valoro," said Sir Rupert Frampton to me as we left the train, "I think
you had better come in my carriage. I am taking Mrs. Darbyshire and
the Senorita with me too. They both want reassuring, and the morale of
the escort will do that. I shall take them right home."

"Thank you very much," I answered, "that will suit me down to the
ground. My mission is to deliver a packet to Don Juan d'Alta himself."

"Then come along," added Sir Rupert, "for, of course, the ladies are
going there too."

In a few minutes we were driving out of the station yard in a fine
carriage, surrounded by soldiers.

It was the first time I had ever ridden with an escort, and I liked it.

We left the immense terminus, which would not have disgraced the finest
city in Europe, and turned up a great boulevard leading to the higher
part of the city where amid trees we could see many fine white houses.

"That is our house!" cried Dolores,