WHILE Ricardo watched beside the unconscious Webster one of his aides galloped up the street, to return presently with a detachment with stretchers, into which Webster and Don Juan CafetÉro were laid and carried up the palace driveway into the huge golden reception-hall where only the night before Sarros had greeted the belles and beaux of his capital. In the meantime Mother Jenks had succeeded in restoring Dolores to consciousness; supported by the indomitable old woman the girl slowly followed the grim procession until, at the door of the reception-room, they found their further progress barred by a sentry.

“The red-haired man is dead,” he informed them in response to their eager queries. “If you want his body,” he continued, hazarding a guess as to their mission, “I guess you can have it. There he is.” And the sentry pointed to the stretcher which had been set down along the wall of the reception-hall.

“'Ow about the other?” Mother Jenks demanded. Don Juan CafetÉro had, unfortunately, been so much of a nuisance to her in life that she was not minded to be troubled greatly over him in death, although the Spartanlike manner of his exit had thrilled the British bulldog blood in her.

“The big fellow isn't quite dead yet, but I'm afraid he's a goner. The surgeons have him in this room now. Friend of yours, Miss?” he inquired in tones freighted with neighbourly sympathy.

Dolores nodded.

“Sorry I can't let you in, Miss,” he continued, “but the General ordered me to keep everybody out until the doctors have finished looking him over. If I was you, I'd wait in that room across the hall; then you can get the first news when the doctors come out.”

Mother Jenks accepted his advice and steered her charge into the room indicated. And as they waited, Ricardo Ruey stood anxiously beside the table on which John Stuart Webster's big, limp body reposed, while Doctor Pacheco, assisted by a Sobrantean confrÈre, went deftly over him with surgical scissors and cut the blood-soaked clothing from his body.

“He breathes very gently,” the rebel leader said, presently. “Is there any hope?”

The little doctor shrugged. “I fear not. That bayonet-thrust in the left side missed his heart but not his lung.”

“But apparently he hasn't bled much from that wound.”

“The hemorrhage is probably internal. Even if that congestion of blood in the lungs does not prove fatal very shortly, he cannot, in his weakened state, survive the traumatic fever from all these wounds. It is bound—hello, how our poor friend still lives with the bayonet broken off in his body—for here is steel—hah! Not a bayonet, but a pistol.”

He unbuttoned the wounded man's coat and found a strap running diagonally up across his breast and over the right shoulder, connecting with a holster under the left arm. The doctor unbuckled this strap and removed the holster, which contained Webster's spare gun; Ricardo, glancing disinterestedly at the sheathed weapon, noted a small, new, triangular hole in the leather holster. He picked it up, withdrew the pistol, and found a deep scratch, recently made, along the blued steel close to the vulcanite butt.

When Ricardo glanced at Pacheco after his scrutiny of the pistol and holster, the doctor's dark eyes were regarding him mirthfully.

“I have been unnecessarily alarmed, my general,” said Pacheco. “Our dear friend has been most fortunate in his choice of wounds——”

“He's a lucky Yankee; that's what he is, my dear Pacheco. A lucky Yankee!” Ricardo leaned over and examined the bayonet-wound in Webster's left side. “He took the point of the steel on this pistol he happened to be wearing under his left arm,” he went on to explain. “That turned the bayonet and it slid along his ribs, making a superficial flesh-wound.”

Pacheco nodded. “And this bullet merely burned the top of his right shoulder, while another passed through his biceps without touching the bone. His most severe wound is this jab in the hip.”

They stripped every stitch of clothing from Webster and went over him carefully. At the back of his head they found a little clotted blood from a small split in the scalp; also they found a lump of generous proportions. Pacheco laughed briefly but contentedly.

“Then he is not even seriously injured?” Ricardo interrupted that laugh.

“I would die of fright if I had to fight this fine fellow a month from to-day,” the little doctor chirped. “Look at that chest, mi general—and that flat abdomen. The man is in superb physical condition; it is the bump on the head that renders him unconscious—not loss of blood.”

As if to confirm this expert testimony Webster at that moment breathed long and deeply, screwed up his face and shook his head very slightly. Thereafter for several minutes he gave no further evidence of an active interest in life—seeing which Pacheco decided to take prompt advantage of his unconsciousness and probe the wounds in his arm and shoulder for the fragments of clothing which the bullets must have carried into them. After ten minutes of probing Pacheco announced that he was through and ready to bandage; whereupon John Stuart Webster said faintly but very distinctly, in English:

“I'm awfully glad you are, Doc'. It hurt like hell! Did you manage to get a bite on that fishing-trip?”

“Jack Webster, you scoundrel!” Ricardo yelled joyously, and he shook the patient with entire disregard of the latter's wounds. “Oh, man, I'm glad you're not dead.”

“Your sentiments appeal to me strongly, my friend. I'm—too—tired to look—at you. Who the devil—are you?”

“I'm Ricardo.”

Fell a silence, while Webster prepared for another speech. “Where am I?”

“In the palace.”

“Hum-m! Then it was a famous victory.”

“One strong, decisive blow did the trick, old chap. We won pulled-up, and that forty-thousand-dollar bet of yours is safe. I'll cash the ticket for you tomorrow morning.”

“Damn the forty thousand. Where's my Croppy Boy?”

“Your what?”

“My wild Irish blackthorn, Don Juan CafetÉro.”

“I hope, old man, he has ere now that which all brave Irishmen and true deserve—a harp with a crown. In life the Irish have the harp without the crown, you know.”

“How did he die?” Webster whispered.

“He died hard, with the holes in front—and he died for you.”

Two big tears trickled slowly through Webster's closed lids and rolled across his pale cheek. “Poor, lost, lonesome, misunderstood wreck,” he murmured presently, “he was an extremist in all things. He used to sing those wonderfully poetic ballads of his people—I remember one that began: 'Green were the fields where my forefathers dwelt.' I think his heart was in Kerry—so we'll send him there. He's my dead, Ricardo; care for his body, because I'm—going to plant Don Juan with the—shamrocks. They didn't understand him here. He was an exile—so I'm going to send him—home.”

“He shall have a military funeral,” Rocardo promised.

“From the cathedral,” Webster added. “And take a picture of it for his people. He told me about them. I want them to think he amounted to something, after all. And when you get this two-by-four republic of yours going again, Rick, you might have your congress award Don Juan a thousand dollars oro for capturing Sarros. Then we can send the money to his old folks.”

“But he didn't capture Sarros,” Ricardo protested. “The man escaped when the Guards cut their way through.”

“He didn't. That was a ruse while he beat it out the gate where you found me. I saw Don Juan knock him cold with the but of his rifle after I'd brought down his horse.”

“Do you think he's there yet?”

“He may be—provided all this didn't happen the day before yesterday. If I wanted him, I'd go down and look for him, Rick.”

“I'll go right away, Jack.”

“One minute, then. Send a man around to that little back street where they have the wounded—it's a couple of blocks away from here—to tell Mother Jenks and the young lady with her I'll not be back.”

“They're both outside now. They must have gone looking for you, because they found you and Don Juan first and then told me about it.”

“Who told you?”

“Mother Jenks.”

“Oh! Well, run along and get your man.” Ricardo departed on the run, taking the sentry at the door with him and in his haste giving no thought to Mother Jenks and her companion waiting for the doctor's verdict. In the palace grounds he gathered two more men and bade them follow him; leading by twenty yards, he emerged at the gate and paused to look around him.

Some hundred feet down the street from the palace gate Sarros's bay charger lay dead. When Webster's bullet brought the poor beast down, his rider had fallen clear of him, only to fall a victim to the ferocity of Don Juan CafetÉro. Later, as Sarros lay stunned and bleeding beside his mount, the stricken animal in its death-struggle had half risen, only to fall again, this time on the extended left leg of his late master; consequently when Sarros recovered consciousness following the thoughtful attentions of his assailant, it was to discover himself a hopeless prisoner. The heavy carcass of his horse pinned his foot and part of his leg to the ground, rendering him as helpless and desperate as a trapped animal. For several minutes now he had been striving frantically to release himself; with his sound right leg pressed against the animal's backbone he tried to gain sufficient purchase to withdraw his left leg from the carcass.

As Ricardo caught sight of Sarros he instinctively realized that this was his mortal enemy; motioning his men to stand back, he approached the struggling man on tiptoe and thoughtfully possessed himself of the dictator's pistol, which lay in back of him but not out of reach. Just as he did so, Sarros, apparently convinced of the futility of his efforts to free himself, surrendered to fate and commenced rather pitifully to weep with rage and despair.

Ricardo watched him for a few seconds, for there was just sufficient of the blood of his Castilian ancestors still in his veins to render this sorry spectacle rather an enjoyable one to him. Besides, he was 50 per cent. Iberian, a race which can hate quite as thoroughly as it can love, and for a time Ricardo even nourished the thought of still further indulging his thirst for revenge by pretending to aid Sarros in his escape! Presently, however, he put the ungenerous thought from him; seizing the dead horse by the tail, he dragged the carcass off his enemy's leg, and while Sarros sat up, tailor-fashion, and commenced to tub the circulation back into the bruised member, Ricardo seated himself on the rump of the dead horse and appraised his prisoner critically.

Sarros glanced up, remembered his manners and very heartily and gracefully thanked his deliverer.

“It is not a matter for which thanks are due me, Sarros,” Ricardo replied coldly. “I am Ricardo Luiz Ruey, and I have come back to Sobrante to pay my father's debt to you. You will remember having forced the obligation upon me in the cemetery some fifteen years ago.”

For perhaps ten horrified seconds Sarros stared at Ricardo; then the dark blood in him came to his defense; his tense pose relaxed; the fright and despair left his swarthy countenance as if erased with a moist sponge, leaving him as calmly stoical and indifferent as a cigarstore Indian. He fumbled in his coat pocket for a gold cigarette case, selected a cigarette, lighted it and blew smoke at Ricardo. The jig was up; he knew it; and with admirable nonchalance he declined to lower his presidential dignity by discussing or considering it. He realized it would delight his captor to know he dreaded to face the issue, and it was not a Sarros practice to give aid and comfort to the enemy.

“Spunky devil!” Ricardo reflected, forced to admiration despite himself. Aloud he said: “You know the code of our people, Sarros. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.”

Sarros bowed. “I am at your service,” he replied carelessly.

“Then at daylight to-morrow morning I shall make settlement.” Ricardo beckoned his men to approach. “Take this man and confine him under a double guard in the arsenal,” he ordered. “Present my compliments to the officer in charge there and tell him it is my wish that a priest be provided for the prisoner to-night, and that to-morrow morning, at six o'clock, a detail of six men and a sergeant escort this man to the cemetery in the rear of the Catedral de la Cruz. I will meet the detail there and take command of it.”

Two of Ricardo's imported fighting men stepped to the prisoner's side, seized him, one by each arm, and lifted him to his feet; supported between them, he limped away to his doom, while his youthful conqueror remained seated on the dead horse, his gaze bent upon the ground, his mind dwelling, not upon his triumph over Sarros but upon the prodigious proportions of the task before him: the rehabilitation of a nation. After a while he rose and strolled over toward the gate, where he paused to note the grim evidences of the final stand of Webster and Don Juan CafetÉro before passing through the portal. .

Ricardo had now, for the first time, an opportunity to look around him; so he halted to realize his homecoming, to thrill with this, the first real view of the home of his boyhood. The spacious lawn surrounding the palace had been plowed and scarred with bursting shrapnel from the field guns captured in the arsenal, although the building itself had been little damaged, not having sustained a direct hit because of Ricardo's stringent orders not to use artillery on the palace unless absolutely necessary to smoke Sarros out. Scattered over the grounds Ricardo counted some twenty-odd Government soldiers, all wearing that pathetically flat, crumpled appearance which seems inseparable from the bodies of men killed in action. The first shrapnel had probably commenced to drop in the grounds just as a portion of the palace garrison had been marching out to join the troops fighting at the cantonment barracks. Evidently the men had scattered like quail, only to be killed as they ran.

From this grim scene Ricardo raised his eyes to the palace, the castellated towers of which, looming through the tufted palms, were reflecting the setting sun. Over the balustrade of one of the upper balconies the limp body of a Sarros sharpshooter, picked off from the street, drooped grotesquely, his arms hanging downward as if in ironical welcome to the son of Ruey the Beloved. The sight induced in Ricardo a sense of profound sadness; his Irish imagination awoke; to him that mute figure seemed to call upon him for pity, for kindness, for forbearance, for understanding and sympathy. Those outflung arms of the martyred peon symbolized to Ricardo Ruey the spirit of liberty, shackled and helpless, calling upon him for deliverance; they brought to his alert mind a clearer realization of the duty that was his than he had ever had before. He had a great task to perform, a task inaugurated by his father, and which Ricardo could not hope to finish in his lifetime. He must solve the agrarian problem; he must develop the rich natural resources of his country; he must provide free, compulsory education and evolve from the ignorance of the peon an intelligence that would built up that which Sobrante, in common with her sister republics, so woefully lacked—the great middle class that stands always as a buffer between the aggression and selfishness of the upper class and the helplessness and childishness of the lower.

Ricardo bowed his head. “Help me, O Lord,” he prayed. “Thou hast give me in Thy wisdom a man's task. Help me that I may not prove unworthy.”