te front of the Custom-House, and the long half-circle of
twinkling lamps along the quay. MacWilliams and Langham sat panting on
the lower steps of the office-porch considering whether they were too
lazy to clean themselves and be rowed over to the city, where, as it
was Sunday night, was promised much entertainment. They had been for
the last hour trying to make up their minds as to this, and appealing
to Clay to stop work and decide for them. But he sat inside at a table
figuring and writing under the green shade of a student's lamp and made
no answer. The walls of Clay's office were of unplaned boards,
bristling with splinters, and hung with blue prints and outline maps of
the mine. A gaudily colored portrait of Madame la Presidenta, the
noble and beautiful woman whom Alvarez, the President of Olancho, had
lately married in Spain, was pinned to the wall above the table. This
table, with its green oil-cloth top, and the lamp, about which winged
insects beat noisily, and an earthen water-jar--from which the water
dripped as regularly as the ticking of a clock--were the only articles
of furniture in the office. On a shelf at one side of the door lay the
men's machetes, a belt of cartridges, and a revolver in a holster.

Clay rose from the table and stood in the light of the open door,
stretching himself gingerly, for his joints were sore and stiff with
fording streams and climbing the surfaces of rocks. The red ore and
yellow mud of the mines were plastered over his boots and
riding-breeches, where he had stood knee-deep in the water, and his
shirt stuck to him like a wet bathing-suit, showing his ribs when he
breathed and the curves of his broad chest. A ring of burning paper
and hot ashes fell from his cigarette to his breast and burnt a hole
through the cotton shirt, and he let it lie there and watched it burn
with a grim smile.

"I wanted to see," he explained, catching the look of listless
curiosity in MacWilliams's eye, "whether there was anything hotter than
my blood. It's racing around like boiling water in a pot."

"Listen," said Langham, holding up his hand. "There goes the call for
prayers in the convent, and now it's too late to go to town. I am
glad, rather. I'm too tired to keep awake, and besides, they don't
know how to amuse themselves in a civilized way--at least not in my
way. I wish I could just drop in at home about now; don't you,
MacWilliams? Just about this time up in God's country