Lowell had already sent for his horse, and altogether we started at a gallop for the palace. At the office of the Isthmian Line we were halted by a crowd so great that it blocked the street. The doors of the building were barred, and two sentries were standing guard in front of it. A proclamation on the wall announced that, by order of the President, the entire plant of the Isthmian Line had been confiscated, and that unless within two weeks the company paid its debts to the government, the government would sell the property of the company until it had obtained the money due it. At the entrance to the palace the sergeant in charge of the native guard, who was one of our men, told us that two ships of the Isthmian Line had been caught in port; one at Cortez on her way to Aspinwall, and one at Truxillo, bound north. The passengers had been landed, and were to remain on shore as guests of the government until they could be transferred to another line. Lowell’s face as he heard this was very grave, and he shook his head. “A perfectly just reprisal, if you ask me,” he said, “but what one lonely ensign tells you in confidence, and what Fiske will tell the State Department at Washington, is a very different matter. It’s a good thing,” he exclaimed, with a laugh, “that the Raleigh’s on the wrong side of the Isthmus. If we were in the Caribbean, they might order us to make you give back those ships. As it is, we can’t get marines here from the Pacific under three days. So I’d better start them at once,” he added, suddenly. “Good-by, I must wire the Captain.” “Don’t let the United States Navy do anything reckless,” I said. “I’m not so sure you could take those ships, and I’m not so sure your marines can get here in three days, either, or that they ever could get here.” Lowell gave a shout of derision. “What,” he cried, “you’d fight against your country’s flag?” I told him he must not forget that at West Point they had decided I was not good enough to fight for my country’s flag. “We’ve three ships of our own now,” I added, with a grin. “How would you like to be Rear Admiral of the naval forces of Honduras?” Lowell caught up his reins in mock terror. “What!” he cried. “You’d dare to bribe an American officer? And with such a fat bribe, too?” he exclaimed. “A Rear-Admiral at my age! That’s dangerously near my price. I’m afraid to listen to you. Good-by.” He waved his hand and started down the street. “Good-by, Satan,” he called back to me, and I laughed, and he rode away. That was the end of the laughter, of the jests, of the play-acting. After that it was grim, grim, bitter and miserable. We dogs had had our day. We soldiers of either fortune had tasted our cup of triumph, and though it was only a taste, it had flown to our brains like heavy wine, and the headaches and the heartaches followed fast. For some it was more than a heartache; to them it brought the deep, drugged sleep of Nirvana.