Down the wide stairs leading from the living-rooms of Senor Torres came two women, and the negro danced in excitement. As they emerged upon the sidewalk the younger one flashed a glance at the men opposite, and Kirk saw that she was a mulatto--evidently a housemaid. His eager eyes flew back to the entrance. Allan hissed at him: "Yonder goes! Quick, or you will be losing she." "Where?" "There! The young female in w'ite. It is h'indeed the Senorita Torres." "THAT!" Anthony stared at the girl amazedly as she cast him a second and more coquettish flash of her black eyes. "Why, damn it, that--why, she's a--NIGGER!" "No, no!" shrilly expostulated the Jamaican. "It is she. H'alas! They have turned the corner." Kirk wheeled upon his detective in overwhelming disgust. "You idiot!" he breathed. "That girl is a 'dinge.' So, SHE'S the one I've been--Oh, it's unspeakable! Let's get away from here." "You h'informed me in particular that she is dark," protested Allan. "Come on!" Kirk dragged his companion away as fast as he could. His thoughts were too deep for tears. As soon as his emotion permitted coherent speech, he launched into a tirade so eloquent and picturesque that Allan was reduced to a state of wondering awe. Pausing at length in his harangue, he turned smouldering eyes upon the black boy. "I ought to punch you right in the nose," he said, with mournful calmness. "Let me feel your head." Allan obediently doffed his cap, and Kirk rapped the woolly cranium with his knuckle. "Do you feel that? Is there any sensation?" "Yes, sar! Shortly I shall suffer a swelling." Allan stroked the spot tenderly. "It's all imagination; there's no feeling to solid bone. You've got an ivory 'nut,' my friend, just like a cane." "Ivory-nuts grow upon trees, sar, in the Darien region." Anthony regarded him sourly. "The Brunswick-Balke people never turned out anything half so round and half so hard. That burr of yours is a curio. I told you Chiquita was small and beautiful and dainty and--Oh, what's the use! This dame is a truck-horse. She's the color of a saddle." "Oh, she is not too dark, sar." Allan came loyally to the defence of Miss Torres. "Some of the finest people in Panama is blacker than that. There is but few who are h'all w'ite." "Well, SHE'S all white, and I want you to find her to-day--TO-DAY, understand? You gallop out to the Savannas and make some inquiries." He shook his fist in Allan's face. "If you don't learn something this trip, I'll have your lignum-vitae cranium in a bowling-alley by dark. Lord! If I only spoke Spanish!"