"He was tall, athletic, gray-eyed," announced the attache irrelevantly; "in his eyes dwelt something of the spirit of the dreamer. He never faltered." The speaker lifted his sauterne glass to his lips, and sipped the wine deliberately. "The _teniente_ in command inquired if he wished to pray," Ribero added then, "but he shook his head almost savagely. 'No, damn you!' he snapped out, as though he were in a hurry about it all, 'Go on with your rat-killing. Let's have it over with.'" The raconteur halted in his narrative. "Please go on," begged Duska, in a low voice. "What happened?" The foreigner smiled. "They fired." Then, as he saw the slight shudder of Duska's white shoulder, he supplemented: "But each soldier had left the task for the others.... Possibly, they sympathized with him; possibly, they sympathized with the revolution; possibly, each of the six secretly calculated that the other five would be sufficient. _Quien sabe?_ At all events, he fell only slightly wounded. One bullet--" he spoke thoughtfully, letting his eyes drop from Saxon's face to the table-cloth where Saxon's right hand lay--"one bullet pierced his right hand from back to front." Then, a half-whimsical smile crossed Ribero's somewhat saturnine features, for Miss Filson had dropped her napkin on Saxon's side, and, when the painter had stooped to recover it, he did not again replace the hand on the table. "Before he could be fired on a second time," concluded the diplomat with a shrug, "a new _presidente_ was on his way to the palace. Your countryman was saved." If the hero of Ribero's narrative was a malefactor, at least he was a malefactor with the sympathy of Mr. Bellton's dinner-party, as was attested by a distinctly audible sigh of relief at the end of the story. But Senor Ribero was not quite through. "It is not, after all, the story that discredits your countryman," he explained, "but the sequel. Of course, he became powerful in the new regime. It was when he was lauded as a national hero that his high fortunes intoxicated him, and success rotted his moral fiber. Eventually, he embezzled a fortune from the government which he had assisted to establish. There was also a matter of--how shall I say?--of a lady. Then, a duel which was really an assassination. He escaped with blood on his conscience, presumably to enjoy his stolen wealth in his own land." "I have often wondered," pursued Ribero, "whether, if that man and I should ever be thrown together again, he would know me ... and I have often wished I could remember him only as the brave adventurer--not also as the criminal." As he finished, the speaker was holding Saxon with his eyes, and had a question in his glance that seemed to call for some expression from the other. Saxon bowed with a smile. "It is an engrossing story." "I think," said Duska suddenly, almost critically, "the first part was so good that it was a pity to spoil it with the rest."