m with sunshine, caressed her face. It came
from the land toward which her eyes were turned. It was comforting,
sheltering, breathing of peace. As it touched her she smiled slightly.
She accepted it as a good omen, as a message sent from across the sea,
to tell her that in the step she had taken she had done well.

IV

After their dinner at the hotel, Roddy and Peter strolled down the
quay and over the tiny drawbridge that binds Otrabanda to Willemstad.
There, for some time, half-way between the two towns, they loitered
against the railing of the bridge, smoking and enjoying the cool night
breeze from the sea. After his long nap Roddy was wakeful. He had been
told that Willemstad boasted of a _cafe chantant_, and he was for
finding it. But Peter, who had been awake since the ship's steward had
aroused him before sunrise, doubted that there was a _cafe chantant_,
and that if it did exist it could keep him from sleep, and announced
his determination to seek his bed.

Left to himself, Roddy strolled slowly around the narrow limits of the
town. A few of the shops and two of the cafes were still open,
throwing bright spaces of light across the narrow sidewalks, but the
greater number of houses were tightly barred; the streets slumbered in
darkness. For a quarter of an hour Roddy sauntered idly, and then
awoke to the fact that he was not alone. Behind him in the shadow, a
man with his face hidden in a shawl, the sound of his footsteps
muffled by his rope sandals, was following his wanderings.

Under the circumstances, after the developments of the day, Roddy was
not surprised, nor was he greatly interested. Even in Porto Cabello,
at one time or another, every one was beset by spies. And that here,
in the central office of the revolutionists, Alvarez should be well
represented was but natural.

Twice, softly and quickly, the man who followed had approached him
from the rear, and each time, lest he should have some more serious
purpose than to simply spy upon him, Roddy had stepped into the
street. But when for the third time the man drew near, his approach
was so swift that Roddy had no time to move away. The man brushed
against him, and when he had passed Roddy found a letter had been
pressed into his hand.

The hour was late, Roddy looked like a tourist, the note had been
delivered covertly. Roddy concluded it contained an invitation to some
disreputable adventure, and after calling the man the name associated