ugh following
up an advantage, "shall I tell you what is in them?" He lowered his
voice. "Cartridges and rifles! Do you deny it?"

Roddy found that at last he was on firm ground.

"Of course I deny it," he answered, "because there are no boxes.
They're only an invention of mine to get me to Curacao. Now, you let
_me_ talk."

The Consul retreated behind his desk, and as Roddy spoke regarded him
sternly and with open suspicion. In concluding his story Roddy said:
"We have no other object in saving General Rojas than that he's an old
man, that he's dying, and that Peter and I can't sleep of nights for
thinking of him lying in a damp cell, not three hundred yards from us,
coughing himself to death."

At the words the eyes of the Consul closed quickly; he pressed his
great, tanned, freckled fingers nervously against his lip. But
instantly the stern look of the cross-examiner returned. "Go on," he
commanded.

"If we have cut in on some one's private wire," continued Roddy, "it's
an accident; and when you talk about father recovering two million
dollars you are telling me things I don't know. Father is not a chatty
person. He has often said to me that the only safe time to talk of
what you are doing, or are going to do, is when you have done it. So,
if the Venezuelan government owes the Forrester Construction Company
two millions and father's making a fight for it, I am probably the
last person in the world he would talk to about it. All I know is that
he pays me twenty dollars a week to plant buoys. But out of working
hours I can do as I please, and my friend and I please to get General
Rojas out of prison." Roddy rose, smiling pleasantly. "So, if you
won't introduce me to Senora Rojas," he concluded, "I guess I will
have to introduce myself."

With an angry gesture the Consul motioned him to be seated. From his
manner it was evident that Captain Codman was uncertain whether Roddy
was or was not to be believed, that, in his perplexity, he was
fearful of saying too much or too little.

"Either," the old man exclaimed angrily, "you are a very clever young
man, or you are extremely ignorant. Either," he went on with
increasing indignation, "they have sent you here to test me, or you
know nothing, and you are blundering in where other men are doing
work. If you know nothing you are going to upset the plans of those
men. In any case I will have nothing further to do with you. I wash my
hands of you. Good-morning."

The