"Let us not say anything more about it," she said. "Tell me--tell me something about San Blanco."
As she ceased speaking, she turned slowly toward the banquet hall. Dan, following her, complied with what he knew to be a purely perfunctory request, talking in an easy conversational tone.
"I have looked into the history of the country a good bit," said he. "It is quite interesting. They have had just twenty-three _presidentes_ and four dictators, and there have been twelve assassinations. I believe candidates for the office are liable to arrest for attempted suicide--"
The girl paused at the window. She had not been listening. Her eyes, were fastened upon the figure of a man whose skulking form she had made out where the glow of the window almost opposite the speakers' table fell upon the garden. Now she saw him again. He had a gun in his hands and was beginning to kneel.
Breathless and rigid the girl slowly stretched out her hand and touched Dan on the shoulder; with the other she pointed silently at the crouching figure. The gun was now being raised to aim, probably at the _Presidente_, who was speaking, possibly at Mr. Howland. Dan apprehended the situation at once. In the flash of an eye he was making for the assassin like an antelope. Hearing the approaching footfalls, the man turned his head, and then, with a cry, Virginia saw him arise and shift his weapon toward Dan.
[Illustration: In the flash of an eye, Dan was making for the assassin.]
But he was too late. At least ten feet away Dan left his feet and launched himself into one of those old-time tackles which even in Exeter had attracted the eyes of the football authorities of three universities. Hard and straight he went, head to one side, jaws shut tight. Then he struck, one brawny shoulder snapping full into the man's midriff. You have to know how to fall when tackled by a good man. This San Blancan did not. He went down like a falling tower. The gun was discharged in the air with a resounding report and flew into the bushes. The man lay still, gasping. The dinner ended abruptly and in great confusion. Guests poured out of the windows, tables were overturned.
Dan quickly dragged the prostrate man into a clump of mesquite. His first impulse had been to turn him over to the soldiers. But the defiant, if faint murmurs of the patriot, "Long live San Blanco; death to Rodriguez!" bringing back to him his emotions of the morning, caused him to decide differently. He seized the man by the collar.