"By whose authority," Laguerre repeated, "did you communicate with the
enemy?"

"It was an idea of my own," Aiken answered simply. "I was afraid if I
told you you would interfere. Oh! I'm no soldier," he said. He was
replying to the look in Laguerre's face. "And I can tell you that
there are other ways of doing things than 'according to Hardie.'
Alvarez's officers came to me after the battle of Comyagua. They
expected to beat you there, and when you chased them out of the city
and started for the Capital they thought it was all up with them, and
decided to make terms."

"With you?" said Laguerre.

Aiken laughed without the least trace of resentment, and nodded.

"Well, you give a dog a bad name," he said, "and it sticks to him. So,
they came to me. I'm no grand-stand fighter; I'm not a fighter at all.
I think fighting is silly. You've got all the young men you want to
stop bullets for you, without me. They like it. They like to catch 'em
in their teeth. I don't. But that's not saying that I'm no good. You
know the old gag of the lion and the little mousie, and how the mouse
came along and chewed the lion out of the net. Well, that's me. I'm no
lion going 'round seeking whom I may devour.' I'm just a sewer rat.
But I can tell you all," he cried, slapping the table with his hand,
"that, if it hadn't been for little mousie, every one of you lions
would have been shot against a stone wall. And if I can't prove it,
you can take a shot at me. I've been the traitor. I've been the go-
between from the first. I arranged the whole thing. The Alvarez crowd
told me to tell Garcia that even if he did succeed in getting into the