"Listen!" The general was deeply in earnest. "You have no conception of the chaos out there." He waved a comprehensive gesture. "If the explosion has not come, it will come within a few hours. That is why I flew to your side. Battleships are hurrying toward our coast, troops are massing against our border, and Mexico has risen like one man. The people are in a frenzy; they are out of bounds; there is sack and pillage in the cities. Americans are objects of violence everywhere and the peons are frantic." He paused impressively. "We face the greatest upheaval of history." "Then why are you here?" Alaire demanded. "This is no place for you at such a moment." Longorio came closer to her, and his voice trembled as he said: "Angel of my soul, my place is at your side." Again she recoiled, but with a fervor he had never dared display he rushed on heedlessly. "I have told you I harken only to my heart; that for one smile from you I would behead myself; that for your favor I would betray my fatherland; that for your kiss I would face damnation. Well, I am here at your side. The deluge comes, but you shall be unharmed." He would not permit her to check him, crying: "Wait! You must hear me through, senora, so that you may comprehend fully why I am forced to speak at this time. Out of this coming struggle I shall emerge a heroic figure. Now that Mexico unites, she will triumph, and of all her victorious sons the name of Luis Longorio will be sung the loudest, for upon him more than upon any other depends the Republic's salvation. I do not boast. I merely state facts, for I have made all my plans, and tomorrow I put them into effect. That is why I cannot wait to speak. The struggle will be long, but you shall be my guiding star in the hour of darkness." Under other circumstances the man's magnificent egotism might have provoked a smile. And yet, for all its grandiloquence, there was something in his speech that rang hard and true. Unquestionably Longorio was dangerous--a real personality, and no mere swaggering pretender. Alaire felt a certain reluctant respect for him, and at the same time a touch of chilling fear such as she had hardly experienced before. She faced him silently for a moment; then she said: "Am I to understand that you forbid me to leave my own house?" "For the time being, exactly." "What? Then I am your prisoner!"