``By leaving me,'' cried the older woman.``Good God, child, have I not enough to answer for without dragging you into this?
Go home at once through the botanical garden, and then by way of the wharves.That part of the city is still empty.''
``Where are your servants; why are they not here?'' Hope demanded without heeding her.The palace was strangely empty; no footsteps came running to greet them, no doors opened or shut as they hurried to Madame Alvarez's apartments.The servants of the household had fled at the first sound of the uproar in the city, and the dresses and ornaments scattered on the floor told that they had not gone empty-handed.The woman who had accompanied Madame Alvarez to the review sank weeping on the bed, and then, as the shouts grew suddenly louder and more near, ran to hide herself in the upper stories of the house.Hope crossed to the window and saw a great mob of soldiers and citizens sweep around the corner and throw themselves against the iron fence of the palace.``You will have to hurry,'' she said.``Remember, you are risking the lives of those boys by your delay.''
There was a large bed in the room, and Madame Alvarez had pulled it forward and was bending over a safe that had opened in the wall, and which had been hidden by the head board of the bed.
She held up a bundle of papers in her hand, wrapped in a leather portfolio.``Do you see these?'' she cried, ``they are drafts for five millions of dollars.'' She tossed them back into the safe and swung the door shut.
``You are a witness.I do not take them,'' she said.
``I don't understand,'' Hope answered, ``but hurry.Have you everything you want--have you your jewels?''
``Yes,'' the woman answered, as she rose to her feet, ``they are mine.''
A yell more loud and terrible than any that had gone before rose from the garden below, and there was the sound of iron beating against iron, and cries of rage and execration from a great multitude.
``I will not go!'' the Spanish woman cried, suddenly.``I will not leave Alvarez to that mob.If they want to kill me, let them kill me.'' She threw the bag that held her jewels on the bed, and pushing open the window stepped out upon the balcony.She was conspicuous in her black dress against the yellow stucco of the wall, and in an instant the mob saw her and a mad shout of exultation and anger rose from the mass that beat and crushed itself against the high iron railings of the garden.Hope caught the woman by the skirt and dragged her back.``You are mad,''
she said.``What good can you do your husband here? Save yourself and he will come to you when he can.There is nothing you can do for him now; you cannot give your life for him.You are wasting it, and you are risking the lives of the men who are waiting for us below.Come, I tell you.''
MacWilliams left Clay waiting beside the diligence and ran from the stable through the empty house and down the marble stairs to the garden without meeting any one on his way.He saw Stuart helping and directing his men to barricade the gates with iron urns and garden benches and sentry-boxes.Outside the mob were firing at him with their revolvers, and calling him foul names, but Stuart did not seem to hear them.He greeted MacWilliams with a cheerful little laugh.``Well,'' he asked, ``is she ready?''
``No, but we are.Clay and I've been waiting there for five minutes.We found Miss Hope's groom and sent him back to the Palms with a message to King.We told him to run the yacht to Los Bocos and lie off shore until we came.He is to take her on down the coast to Truxillo, where our man-of-war is lying, and they will give her shelter as a political refugee.''
``Why don't you drive her to the Palms at once?'' demanded Stuart, anxiously, ``and take her on board the yacht there? It is ten miles to Bocos and the roads are very bad.''
``Clay says we could never get her through the city,''
MacWilliams answered.``We should have to fight all the way.
But the city to the south is deserted, and by going out by the back roads, we can make Bocos by ten o'clock to-night.The yacht should reach there by seven.''
``You are right; go back.I will call off some of my men.The rest must hold this mob back until you start; then I will follow with the others.Where is Miss Hope?''
``We don't know.Clay is frantic.Her groom says she is somewhere in the palace.''
``Hurry,'' Stuart commanded.``If Mendoza gets here before Madame Alvarez leaves, it will be too late.''
MacWilliams sprang up the steps of the palace, and Stuart, calling to the men nearest him to follow, started after him on a run.
As Stuart entered the palace with his men at his heels, Clay was hurrying from its rear entrance along the upper hall, and Hope and Madame Alvarez were leaving the apartments of the latter at its front.They met at the top of the main stairway just as Stuart put his foot on its lower step.The young Englishman heard the clatter of his men following close behind him and leaped eagerly forward.Half way to the top the noise behind him ceased, and turning his head quickly he looked back over his shoulder and saw that the men had halted at the foot of the stairs and stood huddled together in disorder looking up at him.
Stuart glanced over their heads and down the hallway to the garden beyond to see if they were followed, but the mob still fought from the outer side of the barricade.He waved his sword impatiently and started forward again.``Come on!'' he shouted.
But the men below him did not move.Stuart halted once more and this time turned about and looked down upon them with surprise and anger.There was not one of them he could not have called by name.He knew all their little troubles, their love-affairs, even.They came to him for comfort and advice, and to beg for money.He had regarded them as his children, and he was proud of them as soldiers because they were the work of his hands.