He slipped from one of his pudgy fingers a massive gold ring set with a huge diamond. “Since you are about to leave us,” he said, handing the piece of jewelry to his visitor, “I beg you to accept this as a small token of my esteem and gratitude.” Gale left the palace well satisfied with the result of his visit. “Guess the boys on Park Row will think this is pretty poor.” He chuckled, gazing at the gem which glistened on his finger with all the pleasure of a woman. But what pleased him much more than the president’s valuable gift was the thought of what influence his conversation with Portiforo was likely to have upon the fate of the man whom he hated more than anybody else in the world. “I rather think I’ve settled Frank Hawley’s hash,” he told himself delightedly. Shortly after Gale’s departure from the palace, Minister Throgmorton arrived, and was closeted with the president for over an hour. The interview was at times a stormy one. It was as a result of that conference that the Camera Chap, the next morning, was visited by two men who threw open the door of his cell and bade him accompany them. CHAPTER XXXIII. AT THE PALACE. Hawley believed that almost anything outrageous was possible after the terrible scene he had witnessed in the courtyard of the jail, and he accompanied his own visitors with some misgivings, which, however, he took pains to conceal from them. “If you don’t mind,” he said, with well-simulated carelessness, as they invited him to enter an automobile with a closed top which was standing outside the jail, “I’d like to know where you’re taking me? I’m naturally of a rather curious disposition.” “To the national palace, señor,” one of the men answered. “The president sent us for you.” The prisoner’s face grew grim. He thought he could guess the reason for this summons. Disappointed at Lopez’s inability to get the truth about the snapshot expedition, Portiforo was going to try his own skill as a cross-examiner. The Camera Chap had no doubt that the president of Baracoa was a past master at the gentle art of administering the third degree, but he was fully resolved that if Portiforo hoped to get anything out of him he was going to be greatly disappointed. Arriving at the palace in a decidedly belligerent mood, which was intensified by his contempt for the man of whose brutality he had just had such startling evidence, he was somewhat astonished by the graciousness with which he was received. Portiforo was seated in the audience chamber, a large room furnished in massive mahogany and hung with rich Oriental draperies. Near the president sat Minister Throgmorton, whose scowling face was in sharp contrast to the smile which illuminated the former’s rubicund countenance. The only other person present was a dark-skinned young man who sat at a big writing table in the center of the room, chewing the end of a pencil, with a stenographer’s notebook before him.