“Tell me,” commanded the girl, emerging from her reverie. 

 “The mountaineers say that their fragrance casts a spell which carries the thought back to the giver.” 

 “Is that the language of science?” she queried absently, with a thought far away. 

 “But no, señorita, assuredly not,” said the young Caracufian. “It is the language—permit that I say it better in French—c’est le langage d’amour.” 

 

III. THE BETTER PART OF VALOR

 Night fell with the iron clangor of bells, and day broke to the accompaniment of further insensate jangling, for Caracuña City has the noisiest cathedral in the world; and still the graceful gray yacht Polly lay in the harbor at Puerto del Norte, hemmed in by a thin film of smoke along the horizon where the Dutch warship promenaded. 

 In one of the side caverns off the main dining-room of the Hotel Kast, the yacht’s owner, breakfasting with the yacht’s tutelary goddess and the goddess’s determined pursuer, discussed the blockade. Though Miss Polly Brewster kept up her end of the conversation, her thoughts were far upon a breeze-swept mountain-side. How, she wondered, had that dry and strange hermit of the wilds known the news before the city learned it? With her wonder came annoyance over her lost wager. The beetle man, she judged, would be coolly superior about it. So she delivered herself of sundry stinging criticisms regarding the conduct of the Caracuñan Administration in having stupidly involved itself in a blockade. She even spoke of going to see the President and apprising him of her views. 

 “I’d like to tell him how to run this foolish little island,” said she, puckering a quaintly severe brow. 

 “Now is the appointed time for you to plunge in and change the course of empire,” her father suggested to her. “There’s an official morning reception at ten o’clock. We’re invited.” 

 “Then I shan’t go. I wouldn’t give the old goose the satisfaction of going to his fiesta.” 

 “Meaning the noble and patriotic President?” said Carroll. “Treason most foul! The cuartels are full of chained prisoners who have said less.” 

 “Father can go with Mr. Sherwen. I shall do some important shopping,” announced Miss Brewster. “And I don’t want any one along.” 

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