"Yes."
"Now, do you see the thread of broken masonry zig-zagging upward from
the Palace? That is a walled drive which runs part of the way up to the
rock. In other days the Kings of Galavia went thus from their castle to
the point whence they could see the peninsula spread out below like a
map on the page of a school-book."
"Yes? What else?"
"This. The lodge of the Duke as seen by the telescope sleeps
shuttered--an expanse of blank walls. Yet the Duke is there!"
"Louis--in Galavia?"
"Wait." Blanco laid his hand on the other's arm and smiled.
"My friend is superstitious--and ignorant. He tells how the Duke has a
ship's mast with wires on a tower fronting the far side. He says Louis
talks with the open sea."
"A Marconi mast?"
Manuel nodded.
Benton's eyes narrowed under drawn brows. When he spoke his voice was
tense.
"In God's name, Manuel," he whispered, "what is the answer?"
The Spaniard met the gaze gravely. "I fancy, Señor," he said slowly,
"the matches will burn."
"When? Where?"
"Quien sabe?" Blanco paused to light a cigarette. Two priests, their
black robes relieved by crimson sashes and stockings, approached, and
until they were at a safe distance he talked on once more at random with
the sing-song patter of the guide. "That dungeon-like building is the
old Fortress do Freres. It has clung to that gut of rock out there in
the bay since the days when the Moors held the Mediterranean. It is said
that the new King will convert it from a fortress into a prison. It is
now employed as an arsenal."
Slowly the two men moved back to the busier part of the city. They
walked in silence until they were swallowed in the crowds drifting near
the Central Avenue. Finally Blanco leaned forward, moved by the anxious
face of his companion. "Mañana, Señor," he suggested reassuringly.
"Perhaps we may learn to-morrow."
"And to-morrow may be too late," replied Benton.
"Hardly, Señor. The marriage and coronation are the day following. It
should be one of those occasions." Benton only shuddered.
They swung into the Ruo Centrale, between lining sycamores, olive
trees and acacias, to be engulfed in a jostling press of feast-day
humanity. Suddenly Benton felt his coat-sleeve tugged.
"Let us stop," Manuel shouted into his ear above the roar of the
carnival clamor. "The Royal carriage comes."