A faint flush overspread the girl's delicate features; a strange look kindled within her dark eyes. "It is well, Don Raoul," she said in a low voice. "And here you are, still the Queen--beautiful, mysterious!" he exclaimed. "You know I am not a queen," she murmured. "Why, even now they called you so. Those jackals felt your power--just as I do, beautiful Sajipona!" "Enough, Senor! Titles and flatteries I neither care for nor deserve are a mockery in my own house." "The title is yours by tradition, if not by right. As for flatteries----" "We do not live by traditions," she interrupted. "To me, at least, you are La Reina de los Indios." "Ah, well, Senor," she said with a low laugh; "every queen, I fancy, should have at least one subject. And now--supposing that I am this queen you talk of--what is it you want of me?" "We always used to be friends, Sajipona. Can we not be friends still?" "There's another strange question! But--surely you did not come here to ask me that? There is something else, Don Raoul," she added, regarding him intently. "It is that, first of all. And then--I had it in mind to tell you that my friend is returning to Bogota--David Meudon." "David Meudon," she repeated, as if pondering the name, looking steadily at Raoul the while. "But then--what is that to me, Senor?" she asked. "You remember him?" "Yes, of course I remember him. He has been away a long time, hasn't he?" Then, after a pause: "Why does he come back?" "To solve a mystery--so he writes me." "A mystery?" "He calls it a mystery," laughed the other. "You see, when we were living here together he disappeared for three months. We thought he had been killed by a dynamite explosion. Surely, you have heard of it, Senorita?" "Yes--I think everyone has heard of it. And then, at the time, there were rumors. For instance, I heard--I heard who exploded the dynamite." "Sure enough, there were all kinds of rumors. But, of course, the whole thing was an accident, a horrible accident, that nearly cost David his life. He didn't heed the signal in time--or something went wrong--the signal or the dynamite. Anyway, he wasn't seen or heard of again for three months. We all thought he must have been blown to bits. Then, a curious thing happened. One morning I found him in my house, in a sort of trance." "Well?" "When he came out of the trance, he declared he could remember nothing of what he had been through. Those three months were a blank in his memory." "And then----?" "He left Bogota, declaring he would never come back. That was just three years ago." "But----" "Yes, now he is coming back--with some friends--to solve this mystery, so he says." "What mystery, Senor?" "Why," replied Raoul slowly, looking at her intently; "the mystery of those three months when he was supposed to have been in a trance." "What is a trance, Don Raoul?" asked the girl innocently. Raoul laughed.