Roddy smiled back at her and shook his head.
"I don't know that we were exactly looking for gratitude," he said. "Now, go!" he ordered, "for I can't leave until you are well out of sight."
With another delightful laugh, that to Roddy was again inexplicable, the girl accepted her dismissal. It was her first rendezvous, but, in spite of her inexperience, she knew that had it been made with a Venezuelan the man would not have been the one first to bring it to an end.
Roddy impatiently waited until a quarter of an hour had passed, then galloped to Willemstad. On the way he put up the pony at a livery-stable in the suburbs, and on foot made his way as quickly as possible to the bookstore. What he wanted, he explained, were guidebooks and histories of Venezuela. Among those the man showed him was one in three volumes, in Spanish, by Señor Don Miguel Rojas. Roddy's fingers itched to open it, but he restrained himself and, after buying half a dozen other books, returned to his hotel. Peter was still asleep, and he could not wait to waken him. Locking himself in, he threw the books he did not want upon the floor, and, with fingers that were all thumbs, fumbled at the first volume of the history until he had found page fifty-four. His eyes ran down it to the fourth paragraph. His knowledge of Spanish was slight, but it was sufficient. Page fifty-four was the description of an attack from the sea by Drake, upon the Fortress of San Carlos. Translated by Roddy, paragraph four read as follows: "Seeing that it was no longer possible to hold the fortress, the defenders were assembled in the guard-room, and from there conducted to the mainland, through the tunnel that connects San Carlos with the Fortress of El Morro."
Like a man in a trance, Roddy walked to the adjoining room and shook the sleeping Peter by the shoulder. Peter opened his eyes, and the look in Roddy's face startled him into instant wakefulness.
"Nothing!" said Roddy. Forgetting that to Peter it was unintelligible, he pointed with a triumphant finger at paragraph four.
"I have found an underground passage into the cell of General Rojas," he said. "We must go back and dig him out."
In order to avoid the heat, those planters who lived some distance from Willemstad were in the habit of rising by candlelight, and when the sun rose it found them well advanced upon their journey. So when on the following morning Roddy again set forth to meet Inez Rojas, the few servants who knew of his early departure accepted it, and the excuse he gave of wild-pigeon shooting, as a matter of course.