"Freedom!" he said. "Ah!"--and was about to continue when a native Indian servant in a uniform of white linen with gold shoulder knots, advanced towards them with a salver upon which were two calling cards. Morse took the cards. A slight gleam came into his eyes and passed, leaving his face as impassive as before. "You must run away, darling," he said to Juanita. "I have to see some gentlemen. Are all your preparations made?" "Everything. All the luggage has gone down to the harbor except just a couple of hand-bags which my maid has." "Very well then, we will have an early meal and leave at dusk." The girl flitted away. Morse gave some directions to the servant, and, shortly after, the rattle of a lift was heard from a little cupola in one corner of the roof. Two men stepped out and came among the palms and flowers to the millionaire. One was a thin, dried-up, elderly man with a white mustache--the Marquis da Silva; his companion, powerful, black-bearded and yellow-faced, obviously with a touch of the half-caste in him--Don Zorilla y Toro. "Pray be seated," said Morse, with a low bow, though he did not offer to shake hands with either of them. "May I ask to what I owe the pleasure of this visit?" "It is very simple, senor," said the marquis, "and you must have expected a visit sooner or later." The old man, speaking in the pure Spanish of Castille, trembled a little as he sat at a round table of red lima-wood encrusted with mother-of-pearl. "We are, in short," said the burly Zorilla, "ambassadors." They were now all seated round the table, under the shade of a palm whose great fans clicked against each other in the evening breeze which began to blow from the cool heights of the sugar-loaf mountain. The face of Gideon Morse was inscrutable as ever. It might have been a mask of leather; but the old Spanish nobleman was obviously ill at ease, and the bulging eyes of the well-dressed half-caste, with his diamond cuff links and ring, spoke of suppressed and furious passion. In a moment tragedy had come into this paradise. "Yes, we are ambassadors," echoed the marquis with a certain eagerness. "A grand and full-sounding word," said Gideon Morse. "I may be permitted to ask--from whom?" Quick as lightning Don Zorilla held out his hand over the table, opened it, and closed it again. There was a little glint of light from his palm as he did so. Morse leant back in his chair and smiled. Then he lit one of his pungent cigarettes. "So! Are you playing with those toys still, gentlemen?" The marquis flushed. "Mendoza," he said, "this is idle trifling. You must know very well--" "I know nothing, I want to know nothing." The marquis said two words in a low voice, and then the heads of the three men drew very close together. For two or three minutes there was a whispering like the rustle of the dry grasses of the Brazilian campos, and then Morse drew back his chair with a harsh noise.