Esperanza lies just around the corner from Gibraltar, and nowhere along all the Iberian littoral of the Mediterranean is the sky fairer or the sun more genial. The fertile _vega_ stretches back to the foot-hills of the snow-capped Sierra Nevada. Across the blue-sea way lies Morocco. It is a picturesque and beautiful spot, and if the consul be a dreamer, he may find golden hours for reverie. But I fear that neither the poetry nor the picturesqueness of the entourage appealed to Consul Warfield as he reached Esperanza that blazing September morning. He was more impressed with the shrill noises of the foul and shabby streets; with the dust that was upon everything, giving even to the palm-trees in the _parque_ a gray and dreary look; with the flies that seemed to be hunting their prey in swarms like miniature vultures; with the uncompromising mosquitos singing shrilly for blood, and the bold, busy fleas that held no portion of his official person sacred.
The colonel was a buoyant man, but his exuberant soul felt a certain sinking that hot morning. It was a busy moment at Esperanza, and not much attention was paid to the new consul at the crowded Fonda Cervantes, whither, after a turbulent effort, he had persuaded his _cochero_ to conduct him. He had been much disappointed that the vice-consul was not on hand to receive him at the railway station. The fact is, the consul had thought rather earnestly of a committee and a brass band at the depot, and the complete lack of anything akin to a reception had been something of a shock to his official and personal vanity. However, he was not easily discouraged, and after having convinced the proprietor of the fonda that he was the new American consul, and therefore entitled to superior consideration, he set out to find the consulate.
He found it in a narrow little street that went twisting back from the quay toward the great dingy cathedral, and certainly it was not what his imagination had fondly pictured it. He had thought of a fine old Moorish-castle sort of house, with a great carved door opening into a spacious _patio_, splendid with Arabic columns, and in the background a broad marble staircase leading up to the consulate. He had expected to see the flag of his country flying in honor of his arrival, and a uniformed soldier on duty at the entrance, ready to present arms and stand at attention when the new consul appeared.