Part 14 (1/2)

'Morally certain, yes. Well, as you may guess, I scurried across the little bridge and jumped into the next launch, for they were not easy to follow by the land route, with always the chance that they might go ash.o.r.e on the wrong side of the lagoon. Well, I kept them in sight until we had made the round of the basin, and they made no offer to land, although the launch filled and emptied before we were back at the bridge from which we started. As we pa.s.sed under the bridge my heart was in my mouth, for the boat was out of sight for some moments, but when we shot out into the sunlight there they were, not so far ahead of us, and about to run underneath the bridge at the end of the south ca.n.a.l. I wondered a little at their going away from the crowd just then, but that was their affair, so I just s.h.i.+fted my position in order to keep a better watch upon their boat as we came abreast of the bridge, and then, as the mischief would have it, a launch coming from the other way pushed through and under the bridge and struck us such a blow that the women screamed, and one of them let her parasol fall into the water. Then, of course, there was an exchange of compliments between the two crews, and a scramble and delay in securing the parasol: and when at last we were out on the other side the boat ahead was so far away from the landing, where she had of course made her stop, that I could just make out that the two men had left her and she was almost empty. To add to my agony, two boats had pa.s.sed us while we floundered after that parasol and exchanged compliments with the other boat, and as we lay there waiting I looked wildly about me, and saw at last, on the bridge almost over my head, my two men, standing close by the railing and talking with a little dark woman, who----'

'Describe her!' I broke in.

'Well, now----'

'Was she something under five feet?'

'Yes.'

'Dark eyes and hair?'

'Exact.'

'A broad black hat with plumes, a red veil, and four-in-hand tie?'

'Upon my word, she had 'em all.'

'I knew it; but go on.'

'I can't, not very far at least. I just kept myself from swearing while I sat and saw those three so sociable up there, and I not in it.

Before I got to the landing I had seen the woman trip away.'

'Toward the Plaza?'

'Precisely. Everybody seemed going that way. It was almost time for the infanta to appear. When I set foot on sh.o.r.e I made for that bridge. I had seen them start slowly on after the woman; but when I got upon the bridge I could just see the hat of your friend Smug in a jam some distance ahead, near the Electricity Building, and Bob, the eel, had vanished once more.'

'At what time was this?'

He named the time, and then I told him how I had encountered the little brunette, lost her, and found her again, and of her agile leap at the bridge.

'Lively girl!' Dave commented. I had told him the story of her agility with some _empress.e.m.e.nt_, but he did not seem to see my drift.

'You're sure it's the same who tried to claim the young woman's bag?'

'Quite sure--from your description.'

'Umph! Mine? And she's the one who met the lady at the gate, and left her when the man appeared?'

'The same.'

'Um-m! She tries to secure the young lady's bag; she meets her as though by appointment; and she meets our quarry, too. She seems to know them all. Query: Does she, by any chance, know--well, say you?

Who is she? What is she?'

'Who she is I don't know, what she is I can tell you,' said I.

'Well?'

'She, as we have called her, is a man.'

I had nothing to add to this, and Dave was not willing to accept my statement, based as it was upon that leap at the bridge. 'No woman ever made that jump; I knew it. It showed practice, and that not of the sort that is taken by women.' This had been my argument, and after some discussion and difference of opinions Dave got back to the Camps.