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been watching at such inconvenience was the Señora Fombombo. He felt sure the griffe girl knew it also. But he decided optimistically that she would say nothing about it, or, if she did, it would have no influence on his sale.

The big, somber bedroom to which General Fombombo had assigned his guest was a good observation point, and no doubt the dictator had chosen it for this very reason. The scene at which Strawbridge was looking might have aroused enthusiasm in a more susceptible man. At an angle it gave a view of the Plaza Mayor and a glimpse of the cathedral seen through the trees. Straight east a bit of paved street showed, and beyond that a garden with a side gate facing Strawbridge's window. A heavy hedge divided the garden from the plaza. Beyond the garden rose the walls and buttresses of the rear of the cathedral, and this was a handsome thing. In the soft morning light it was an aspiration toward God.

Beyond the cathedral, the wide river stretched eastward. Two hundred yards down the river bank rose another low, massive building, more heavily built and gloomier even than the palace. In the uncertain light Strawbridge thought he discerned two or three figures on the flat roof of this building.

A little later the sun's limb cut the far eastern reach of the river. Distant quivering reflections marked the rapids whose subdued turmoil brooded over the city and the llanos. The light increased momentarily. Against its widening-flame blinked tiny black native boats, like familiar demons traversing the fires of some wide and splendid hell.

None of this interested Strawbridge. He stared at it through the same mechanical compulsion that causes a moth to head toward light, but he did not see it. The first thing that really caught his attention was a bugle blowing reveille; the next breath, from the top of the low building came the flash of a cannon, faintly seen against the brilliant east. After an interval came a brief, hard report.