ng it, he must mean
to strike soon--to-day--to-morrow. We of the Rojas faction are as
ignorant of his plans as we hope he is of ours. But in every camp
there are traitors. No one can tell at what hour all our secrets may
not be made known. Of only one thing you can be certain: matters
cannot continue as they are. Within a week you will see this country
torn by civil war, or those who oppose Alvarez, either of our party or
of Vega's, will be in prison."

When Roddy, rested and refreshed and with normal pulse and mind, came
to luncheon, Peter confided to him all that Vicenti had told him.

"If all that is going to happen," was Roddy's comment, "the sooner we
get Rojas free the better. We will begin work on the tunnel to-night."

The attacking party consisted of McKildrick, Roddy, and Peter. When
the day's task on the light-house was finished and the other workmen
had returned to the city, these three men remained behind and,
placing crowbars, picks, and sticks of dynamite in Roddy's launch,
proceeded to a little inlet a half-mile below El Morro. By seven
o'clock they had made their way through the laurel to the fortress,
and while Roddy and Peter acted as lookouts McKildrick attacked the
entrance to the tunnel. He did not, as he had boasted, open it in an
hour, but by ten o'clock the iron bars that held the slabs together
had been cut and the cement loosened. Fearful of the consequences if
they returned to the city at too late an hour, the tools and dynamite
were hidden, rubbish and vines were so scattered as to conceal the
evidence of their work, and the launch landed the conspirators at
Roddy's wharf.

"We shall say," explained Roddy, "that we have been out spearing eels,
and I suggest that we now go to the _Dos Hermanos_ and say it."

They found the cafe, as usual, crowded. Men of all political opinions,
officers of the army and the custom-house, from the tiny warship in
the harbor, Vegaistas, and those who secretly were adherents of Rojas,
were all gathered amicably together. The Americans, saluting
impartially their acquaintances, made their way to a table that
remained empty in the middle of the room. They had hardly seated
themselves when from a distant corner an alert young man, waving his
hand in greeting, pushed his way toward them. They recognized the
third vice-president of the Forrester Construction Company, Mr. Sam
Caldwell.

Mr. Caldwell had arrived that afternoon. He was delighted at being
free of