all be faithful to it." He hesitated till his roaming eyes met Sir
John's face upon which he fixed a lurid, sleepy glance; and the figure
of the lately negotiated loan came into his mind. He lifted his glass.
"I drink to the health of the man who brings us a million and a half of
pounds."

He tossed off his champagne, and sat down heavily with a half-surprised,
half-bullying look all round the faces in the profound, as if appalled,
silence which succeeded the felicitous toast. Sir John did not move.

"I don't think I am called upon to rise," he murmured to Mrs. Gould.
"That sort of thing speaks for itself." But Don Jose Avellanos came
to the rescue with a short oration, in which he alluded pointedly to
England's goodwill towards Costaguana--"a goodwill," he continued,
significantly, "of which I, having been in my time accredited to the
Court of St. James, am able to speak with some knowledge."

Only then Sir John thought fit to respond, which he did gracefully in
bad French, punctuated by bursts of applause and the "Hear! Hears!"
of Captain Mitchell, who was able to understand a word now and then.
Directly he had done, the financier of railways turned to Mrs. Gould--

"You were good enough to say that you intended to ask me for something,"
he reminded her, gallantly. "What is it? Be assured that any request
from you would be considered in the light of a favour to myself."

She thanked him by a gracious smile. Everybody was rising from the
table.

"Let us go on deck," she proposed, "where I'll be able to point out to
you the very object of my request."

An enormous national flag of Costaguana, diagonal red and yellow, with
two green palm trees in the middle, floated lazily at the mainmast head
of the Juno. A multitude of fireworks being let off in their thousands
at the water's edge in honour of the President kept up a mysterious
crepitating noise half round the harbour. Now and then a lot of rockets,
swishing upwards invisibly, detonated overhead with only a puff of smoke
in the bright sky. Crowds of people could be seen between the town gate
and the harbour, under the bunches of multicoloured flags fluttering on
tall poles. Faint bursts of military music would be heard suddenly, and
the remote sound of shouting. A knot of ragged negroes at the end of the
wharf kept on loading and firing a small iron cannon time after time. A
greyish haze of dust hung thin and motionless against the sun.

Don Vincente Ribiera ma