by high-pitched cries. "_Bajo el
traidor--Muerte el traidor!_" were the words they seemed to form.

"Listen to that!" exclaimed White, bitterly: "I know that much
Spanish. They're shouting, 'Down with the traitor!' I heard them
before. I felt that they meant me. I was a traitor to Art. The
picture had to go."

"'Down with the blank fool' would have suited your case better," said
Keogh, with fiery emphasis. "You tear up ten thousand dollars like an
old rag because the way you've spread on five dollars' worth of paint
hurts your conscience. Next time I pick a side-partner in a scheme
the man has got to go before a notary and swear he never even heard
the word 'ideal' mentioned."

Keogh strode from the room, white-hot. White paid little attention
to his resentment. The scorn of Billy Keogh seemed a trifling thing
beside the greater self-scorn he had escaped.

In Coralio the excitement waxed. An outburst was imminent. The cause
of this demonstration of displeasure was the presence in the town of
a big, pink-cheeked Englishman, who, it was said, was an agent of his
government come to clinch the bargain by which the president placed
his people in the hands of a foreign power. It was charged that not
only had he given away priceless concessions, but that the public
debt was to be transferred into the hands of the English, and the
custom-houses turned over to them as a guarantee. The long-enduring
people had determined to make their protest felt.

On that night, in Coralio and in other towns, their ire found vent.
Yelling mobs, mercurial but dangerous, roamed the streets. They
overthrew the great bronze statue of the president that stood in the
centre of the plaza, and hacked it to shapeless pieces. They tore
from public buildings the tablets set there proclaiming the glory
of the "Illustrious Liberator." His pictures in the government
offices were demolished. The mobs even attacked the Casa Morena, but
were driven away by the military, which remained faithful to the
executive. All the night terror reigned.

The greatness of Losada was shown by the fact that by noon the
next day order was restored, and he was still absolute. He issued
proclamations denying positively that any negotiations of any
kind had been entered into with England. Sir Stafford Vaughn, the
pink-cheeked Englishman, also declared in placards and in public
print that his presence there had no international significance. He
was a traveller without guil