an fired out another question
in his curt, unceremonious manner:

"You have no women in your hotel, eh?"

"Women!" Schomberg exclaimed indignantly, but also as if a little
frightened. "What on earth do you mean by women? What women? There's
Mrs. Schomberg, of course," he added, suddenly appeased, with lofty
indifference.

"If she knows how to keep her place, then it will do. I can't stand
women near me. They give me the horrors," declared the other. "They are
a perfect curse!"

During this outburst the secretary wore a savage grin. The chief guest
closed his sunken eyes, as if exhausted, and leaned the back of his head
against the stanchion of the awning. In this pose, his long, feminine
eyelashes were very noticeable, and his regular features, sharp line of
the jaw, and well-cut chin were brought into prominence, giving him a
used-up, weary, depraved distinction. He did not open his eyes till
the steam-launch touched the quay. Then he and the other man got ashore
quickly, entered a carriage, and drove away to the hotel, leaving
Schomberg to look after their luggage and take care of their strange
companion. The latter, looking more like a performing bear abandoned by
his show men than a human being, followed all Schomberg's movements step
by step, close behind his back, muttering to himself in a language
that sounded like some sort of uncouth Spanish. The hotel-keeper felt
uncomfortable till at last he got rid of him at an obscure den where
a very clean, portly Portuguese half-caste, standing serenely in the
doorway, seemed to understand exactly how to deal with clients of every
kind. He took from the creature the strapped bundle it had been hugging
closely through all its peregrinations in that strange town, and cut
short Schomberg's attempts at explanation by a most confident--

"I comprehend very well, sir."

"It's more than I do," thought Schomberg, going away thankful at being
relieved of the alligator-hunter's company. He wondered what these
fellows were, without being able to form a guess of sufficient
probability. Their names he learned that very day by direct inquiry "to
enter in my books," he explained in his formal military manner, chest
thrown out, beard very much in evidence.

The shaven man, sprawling in a long chair, with his air of withered
youth, raised his eyes languidly.

"My name? Oh, plain Mr. Jones--put that down--a gentleman at large. And
this is Ricardo." The pock-marked man, lying pros