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Long before this could be repaired and word received along it from the capital the fugitives would have reached the coast and the question of escape or capture been solved. Goodwin had stationed armed sentinels at frequent intervals along the shore for a mile in each direction from Coralio.

'Twas just such a hot broth of a day as this has been. And I'd call at him 'Hey, monseer! and he'd look at me black, with the damp showin' through his shirt in places. "'Fat, strong mans, says I to General De Vega, 'is needed in New Orleans. Yes. To carry on the good work. Carrambos! Erin go bragh!" Breakfast in Coralio was at eleven. Therefore the people did not go to market early.

To the stranger or the guest the people of Coralio will relate the story of the tragic end of their former president; how he strove to escape from the country with the public funds and also with Dona Isabel Guilbert, the young American opera singer; and how, being apprehended by members of the opposing political party in Coralio, he shot himself through the head rather than give up the funds, and, in consequence, the Senorita Guilbert.

The government party travels by carriage from San Mateo to this road's terminal point, and proceeds by train to Solitas. From here they march in grand procession to Coralio where, on the day of their coming, festivities and ceremonies abound. But this season saw an ominous dawning of the tenth of November. Although the rainy season was over, the day seemed to hark back to reeking June.

Therefore it will be seen that there was a dearth of fellowship and entertainment among the foreign contingent of Coralio. And then Dicky Maloney dropped down from the clouds upon the town, and amused it. Nobody knew where Dicky Maloney hailed from or how he reached Coralio. He appeared there one day; and that was all.

Coralio reclined, in the mid-day heat, like some vacuous beauty lounging in a guarded harem. The town lay at the sea's edge on a strip of alluvial coast. It was set like a little pearl in an emerald band. Behind it, and seeming almost to topple, imminent, above it, rose the sea-following range of the Cordilleras.

If they who sometimes sat over their wine in Coralio, reshaping old, diverting stories of the madcap career of Isabel Guilbert, could have seen the wife of Frank Goodwin that afternoon in the estimable aura of her happy wifehood, they might have disbelieved, or have agreed to forget, those graphic annals of the life of the one for whom their president gave up his country and his honour.

Say Carry you'll see old man Keogh safe in some nice, quiet idiot asylum, won't you, if he makes a break like that again?" The Casa Morena, although only one story in height, was a building of brown stone, luxurious as a palace in its interior. It stood on a low hill in a walled garden of splendid tropical flora at the upper edge of Coralio.

The president would, without doubt, move as secretly as possible, and endeavour to board a vessel by stealth from some secluded point along the shore. On the fourth day after the receipt of Englehart's telegram the Karlsefin, a Norwegian steamer chartered by the New Orleans fruit trade, anchored off Coralio with three hoarse toots of her siren.

They say, in Coralio, that she found a prompt and prosperous tide in the form of Frank Goodwin, an American resident of the town, an investor who had grown wealthy by dealing in the products of the country a banana king, a rubber prince, a sarsaparilla, indigo, and mahogany baron.