SO spoke Jimmie Hagan. We sat looking at each other, and smoking silently for a moment. I got up and shooed the motley collection of human things around us back to a pleasanter distance, and sat down again to think. But still I didn't see altogether what Mrs. Ulswater thought she was going to do with her insurrection. It was a good idea of hers to keep Chepa aboard the Violetta. But a mob is like dynamite, and a person ought to have a considerable idea before he takes it on himself to explode one. A Portate mob is a maniac that cuts throats in the name of the saints, and forgets what started him, and he scatters destruction in all directions. For a man said to be without sand, I thought Hagan had done pretty well.

“Sor,” he said, “it's this way. I knew the Mayor long ago, an' Sadler knew him well, an' I know the Mayor's the same man wid the tempestchus bowels of him, for he's a nice man when he's cheerful, but he's not a wise man when there's trouble comin'. Well, sor, Sadler nor the docther ain't here, an' what one of them doesn't know the other does. An' some men was born to order and others to take orders, an' I dunno. But, if the Kid was here things'd be doin'. Well, sor, the docther is filled up wid handy knowledge more'n a bushel of pertaties wid perta-ties, but when it comes to makin' up his mind, it's the missis does it. The Violetta carries more contagious brains than's native in South America, an' you're askin' what the missis had in mind, an' I dunno. But Chepa says there's only two men in Por-tate can start them disabled machines for to-night's lightin', to say nothin' there's not a trolley runnin' in the city this day. An' where's those two men? One of 'em's here. The other's on the Violetta, but the Mayor don't know where he is. Well, sor, what can he do? It's not for me to say, but there's the populace shlingin' stones at the City Hall this blissid minute in persuasion of the Mayor's wickedness. An' who persuaded 'em of the Mayor's wickedness? Trolleys they don't so much care for, but there'll be lights or shootin', an' the Mayor'd needn't be foolish, an if ye ask me, I'll say it's the missis has got the soople intilligence, an' no throuble at all. Hark to 'em now!”

The roar of the crowd had grown to be tremendous, and they were probably throwing stones. What, indeed, could the Mayor do? The peons about us were chattering in excited groups, and the guards at the gate were distinctly uneasy. If the mob came there, I could make a fair guess what the guards would do.

There was a sudden clatter in the streets, of hoofs and wheels on bad pavement. Again the great wooden door flew open with a bang. Entered the paymaster, another agitated official, and an officer in pink and white, who bowed and smiled at me affectionately.

“You are released, senor,” said the officer.

“Oh, I am! And this gentleman too?”

“Impossible, senor. His Excellency is determined. With you, senor, he requests a friendly interview.”

“He won't get it.”

“His Excellency is in a carriage at the door.”

It was not fifty feet to the open door. His Excellency seemed to have lost flesh with the excitement and anguish of his mind.

“Oo-aa!” came over from the Plaza, that indescribable roar.

“Oh, senor!” he cried with enthusiasm. “It is the will of the people that we be reconciled. Enough. We are reconciled.”

“Not yet, Mayor. My red-haired friend here——”

“Impossible!”

“Not a light, then. Bury it all, Mayor. The wisest plan.”

“But the proclamations! Abominable, public, infamous!”

“Oh, quite wrong, of course.”

“You admit it!”

“He must be pardoned.”

“To-morrow.”

“Now!”

“Oo-aa!” from the Plaza, that hair-raising yell.

The Mayor shivered. Then he gathered up his dignity with the gracefulness of a lady picking up her skirts, and finished the game like a fallen but romantic potentate. “Enough,” he said. “I yield.”

We drove to the Plaza, Jimmie Hagan on the carriage-springs behind, the Mayor and I standing on the seat and holding hands for the public to see the unlimited affection we had; the paymaster and the officer in pink and white on the seat facing, waving their hats with unnatural joy, and the other official on the seat with the driver.

But what a sight was the Plaza! What a howling mass of faces, open mouths, hands gesticulating, all fading and dimly seen at a few hundred feet from the carriage, for the night was falling fast.

“Excellency,” I said, “you owe me thirty thousand dollars. We'll stop at the bank.”

“Just at present, senor, the public's balance is low, but——”

“On the contrary—or rather, we'll step in and see.”

“To-morrow, senor——”

“Excellency,” I said, “I don't care one little bit at all whether it's out of the city's deposit, or your private account, or whether there's any difference between them. But there won't be a light till every dollar is paid. Moreover, this mob is nervous. Moreover, here's the bank.”

We got down, and left the pink and white officer in the carriage with the two other officials. The Mayor stalked grimly ahead of me into the bank, and the thirty thousand was paid.

I made the plant in a carriage in ten minutes. Three scared furnace tenders were there, in charge of a company of pink soldiers. Among them they had two dynamos more or less mutilated trying to switch them on with a pick-axe. At last I got things running, turned on the main switch, and saw the nearby streets leap into brightness.

When Hagan and I came back through the town about eight o'clock, the band was playing in the Plaza, the people rejoicing among the palm trees, which were done up in bunting, and the Mayor was making a speech from the balcony of magistrates to the effect that Portate was a centre of civilisation, a second Paris.

It occurred to me that I was carrying thirty thousand dollars in my pocket, and wasn't a steel vault. The lights were going anyway for to-night, and maybe some public functionary's private bandit might be looking for me. I ought to have deposited before going to the plant, or perhaps—but there was the Violetta, which would be safer still.

We dodged the Plaza, and went down to the docks. Not a boatman was about. I untied a row boat, and we rowed out, looking for the Violetta. It was easy to distinguish her, clean and white, glimmering with bright port-holes. As we drew near we could see the polished brasses shining under the stars. The cool sea wind on the bay and the soft lapping of waves against the boat were pleasant to feel and hear, after the heat and noise of Portate. The sight of the Violetta, neat and compact, made me homesick for the temperate zone and my own people of the North, gray-eyed level-headed people, steady and reasonable. I felt like a carrier pigeon come home.

“Violetta, ahoy!”