Page:Cabbages and Kings (1904).djvu/292

 no international significance. He was a traveller without guile. In fact (so he stated), he had not even spoken with the president or been in his presence since his arrival.

During this disturbance, White was preparing for his homeward voyage in the steamship that was to sail within two or three days. About noon, Keogh, the restless, took his camera out with the hope of speeding the lagging hours. The town was now as quiet as if peace had never departed from her perch on the red-tiled roofs.

About the middle of the afternoon, Keogh hurried back to the hotel with something decidedly special in his air. He retired to the little room where he developed his pictures.

Later on he came out to White on the balcony, with a luminous, grim, predatory smile on his face.

“Do you know what that is?” he asked, holding up a 4x5 photograph mounted on cardboard.

“Snap-shot of a señorita sitting in the sand—alliteration unintentional,” guessed White, lazily.

“Wrong,” said Keogh with shining eyes. “It’s a slung-shot. It’s a can of dynamite. It’s a gold