FullReads

She said, “Poof! The cost? La, la!” Which was all very well, but hardly satisfactory as a business chat. However, that was all Roland could get out of her.

* * * * *

The next few days passed for Roland in a sort of dream. It was the kind of dream which it is not easy to distinguish from a nightmare.

Maraquita’s reticence at the supper-party on the subject of details connected with the financial side of revolutions entirely disappeared. She now talked nothing but figures, and from the confused mass which she presented to him Roland was able to gather that, in financing the restoration of royalty in Paranoya, he would indeed be risking everything for her sake.

In the matter of revolutions Maraquita was no niggard. She knew how the thing should be done–well, or not at all. There would be so much for rifles, machine-guns, and what not: and there would be so much for the expense of smuggling them into the country. Then there would be so much to be laid out in corrupting the republican army. Roland brightened a little when they came to this item. As the standing army of Paranoya amounted to twenty thousand men, and as it seemed possible to corrupt it thoroughly at a cost of about thirty shillings a head, the obvious course, to Roland’s way of thinking was to concentrate on this side of the question and avoid unnecessary bloodshed.

It appeared, however, that Maraquita did not want to avoid bloodshed, that she rather liked bloodshed, that the leaders of the revolution would be disappointed if there were no bloodshed. Especially Bombito. Unless, she pointed out, there was a certain amount of carnage, looting, and so on, the revolution would not achieve a popular success. True, the beloved Alejandro might be restored; but he would sit upon a throne that was insecure, unless the coronation festivities took a bloodthirsty turn. By all means, said Maraquita, corrupt the army, but not at the risk of making the affair tame and unpopular. Paranoya was an emotional country, and liked its revolutions with a bit of zip to them.

It was about ten days after he had definitely cast in his lot with the revolutionary party that Roland was made aware that these things were a little more complex than he had imagined. He had reconciled himself to the financial outlay. It had been difficult, but he had done it. That his person as well as his purse would be placed in peril he had not foreseen.

The fact was borne in upon him at the end of the second week by the arrival of the deputation.

It blew in from the street just as he was enjoying his after-dinner cigar.

It consisted of three men, one long and suave, the other two short, stout, and silent. They all had the sallow complexion and undue hairiness which he had come by this time to associate with the native of Paranoya.

For a moment he mistook them for a drove of exiled noblemen whom he had not had the pleasure of meeting at the supper-party; and he waited resignedly for them to make night hideous with the royal anthem. He poised himself on his toes, the more readily to spring aside if they should try to kiss him on the cheek.

“Mr. Bleke?” said the long man.

His companions drifted toward the cigar-box which stood open on the table, and looked at it wistfully.

“Long live the monarchy,” said Roland wearily. He had gathered in the course of his dealings with the exiled ones that this remark generally went well.

On the present occasion it elicited no outburst of cheering. On the contrary, the long man frowned, and his two companions helped themselves to a handful of cigars apiece with a marked moodiness.