'I've got some enamel,' replied the mystified Kelly.
He produced a couple of tins, and the Saint selected one with every appearance of satisfaction.
'The very idea,' he said. 'It's just an idea of mine for dealing with this arrest business.'
Kelly was suspicious.
'I don't seem to have much to do,' he complained aggrievedly. 'It's hoggin' the best of the fightin' yez are. Now, if I had my way, I'd be shtartin' the throuble with these police men right away, I would.'
'And wreck the whole show,' said the Saint. 'No, it's too soon for that. And if you call being fifty percent of an invading army 'having nothing to do' I can't agree. You're one of the most important members of the cast. Besides, if your bus doesn't break down, you'll be back here just when the rough stuff is warming up. You get it both ways.'
He adjusted his hat to an appropriately rakish and revolutionary angle on his head, and went out to collect Archie Sheridan.
They shook hands with the still grumbling Kelly; but the Saint had the last word with Lilla McAndrew.
'I'm sorry I've got to take Archie,' he said. 'You see, he's the one man I can trust here who can tap out Morse fluently, and I sent him out from England for that very reason, though I didn't know it was going to pan out as it's panning out now. But I'll promise to get him back to you safe and sound. You needn't worry. Only the good die young. I wonder how you've managed to live so long, Lilla?'
He smiled; and when the Saint smiled in that particularly gay and enchanting manner, it was impossible to believe that any adventure he undertook could fail.
'Archie is marked 'Fragile-With Care' for this journey,' said the Saint, and went swinging down the veranda steps.
He walked back arm-in-arm with Sheridan to the latter's bungalow at a leisurely pace enough, for it was his last chance to give Sheridan his final instructions for the opening of the campaign.
Archie was inclined to voice much the same grievance as Kelly had vented, but Templar dealt shortly with that insubordination.
'I'm starting off by having the most boresome time of any of you,' he said. 'If I could do your job, I promise you I'd be making you do mine. That being so, I reckon I deserve a corresponding majority ration of excitement at the end. Anyway, with any luck we'll all be together again by Thursday, and we'll see the new era in in a bunch. And if you're going to say you've thought of another scheme that'd be just as effective, my answer is that you ought to have spoken up before. It's too late to change our plans now.'
At the bungalow the Saint made certain preparations for the arrival of the police posse which to some extent depleted Archie Sheridan's travelling athletic outfit. That done, he sent Sheridan to his post, and himself settled down with a cigarette in an easy chair on the veranda to await the coming of the Law.
4
The guindillas came toiling up the last two hundred yards of slope in a disorderly straggle. The hill at that point became fairly steep, they were in poor condition, and, although the sun was getting low, the broiling heat of the afternoon had not yet abated; and these factors united to upset what might otherwise have been an impressive approach. The only members of the squad who did not seem the worse for wear were the two comisarios, who rode in the van on a pair of magnificent high-stepping horses, obvious descendants of the chargers of Cortes's invading Spaniards, the like of which may often be seen in that part of the Continent. The Saint had had an eye for those horses ever since he spied them a mile and a half away, which was why he was so placidly waiting for the deputation.
He watched them with a detached interest, smoking his cigarette. They were an unkempt and ferocious- looking lot (in Pasala, as in many other Latin countries, Saturday night is Gillette night for the general public), and every man of them was armed to somewhere near the teeth with a musket, a revolver, and a sabre. The Saint himself was comparatively weaponless, his entire armoury consisting of a beautifully fashioned little knife, strapped to his left forearm under his sleeve, which he could throw with a deadly swiftness and an unerring aim. He did not approve of firearms, which he considered messy and noisy and barbarous inventions of the devil. Yet the opposition's display of force did not concern him.
His first impression, that the entire police force of Santa Miranda had been sent out to arrest him, proved to be a slight overestimate. There were, as a matter of fact, only ten guardias behind the two mounted men in resplendent uniforms.
The band came to a bedraggled and slovenly halt a few yards from the veranda, and the comisarios dismounted and ascended the short flight of steps with an imposing clanking of scabbards and spurs. They were moustached and important.
The Saint rose.
'Buenas tardes, senores,' he murmured courteously.
'Senor,' said the senior comisario sternly, unfolding a paper overloaded with official seals, 'I regret that I have to trouble a visitor illustrious, but I am ordered to request your honour to allow your honour to be taken to the prevencion, in order that in the morning your honour may be brought before the tribunal to answer a charge of grievously assaulting the Senor Shannet.'
He replaced the document in his pocket, and bowed extravagantly.
The Saint, with a smile, surpassed the extravagance of the bow.
'Senor polizante,' he said, 'I regret that I cannot come.'
Now the word 'polizonte,' while it is understood to mean 'policeman,' is not the term with which it is advisable to address even an irascible guardia-much less a full-blown comisario. It brought to an abrupt conclusion the elaborate ceremony in which the comisario had been indulging.
He turned, and barked an order; and the escort mounted the steps and ranged themselves along the veranda.
'Arrest him!'
'I cannot stay,' said the Saint sadly. 'And I refuse to be arrested. Adios, amigos!'
He faded away-through the open door of the dining room. The Saint had the knack of making these startlingly abrupt exits without any show of haste, so that he was gone before his audience had realized that he was on his way.
Then the guardias, led by the two outraged comisarios, followed in a body.
The bungalow was small, with a large veranda in front and a smaller veranda at the back. The three habitable rooms of which it boasted ran through the width of the house, with doors opening onto each veranda. The dining room was the middle room, and it had no windows.
As the guardias surged in in pursuit, rifles at the ready, with the comisarios waving their revolvers, the Saint reappeared in the doorway that opened onto the back of the veranda. At the same moment the doors to the front veranda were slammed and barred behind them by Archie Sheridan, who had been lying in wait in an adjoining room for that purpose.
The Saint's hands were held, high above his head, and in each hand was a gleaming round black object.
'Senores,' he said persuasively, 'I am a peaceful revolutionary, and I cannot be pestered like this. In my hands you see two bombs. If you shoot me, they will fall and explode. If you do not immediately surrender I shall throw them-and, again, they will explode. Is it to be death or glory, boys?'
He spoke the last sentence in English; but he had already said enough in the vernacluar to make the situation perfectly plain. The guardias paused, irresolute.
Their officers, retiring to a strategic position in the back ground from which they could direct operations, urged their men to advance and defy death in the performance of their duty; but the Saint shifted his right hand threateningly, and the guardias found the counter-argument more convincing. They threw down their arms; and the comisarios, finding themselves alone, followed suit as gracefully as they might.
The Saint ordered the arsenal to be thrown out of the door, and he stepped inside the room and stood aside to allow this to be done. Outside, the guns were collected by Archie Sheridan, and their bolts removed and hurled far away into the bushes of the garden. The cartridges he poured into a large bag, together with the contents of the
