belonging to your company, and hold it until you pay your debts. Now
you go, and congratulate yourself that when you tried to insult me,
you did so when you were under my roof, at my invitation.' Then
Laguerre wired the commandantes at all the seaports to seize the
warehouses and officers of the Isthmian Line, and even its ships, and
to occupy the buildings with troops. He means business," Miller cried,
jubilantly. "This time it's a fight to a finish."

Lowell had already sent for his horse, and altogether we started at a
gallop for the palace. At the office of the Isthmian Line we were
halted by a crowd so great that it blocked the street. The doors of
the building were barred, and two sentries were standing guard in
front of it. A proclamation on the wall announced that, by order of
the President, the entire plant of the Isthmian Line had been
confiscated, and that unless within two weeks the company paid its
debts to the government, the government would sell the property of the
company until it had obtained the money due it.

At the entrance to the palace the sergeant in charge of the native
guard, who was one of our men, told us that two ships of the Isthmian
Line had been caught in port; one at Cortez on her way to Aspinwall,
and one at Truxillo, bound north. The passengers had been landed, and
were to remain on shore as guests of the government until they could
be transferred to another line.

Lowell's face as he heard this was very grave, and he shook his head.

"A perfectly just reprisal, if you ask me," he said, "but what one
lonely ensign tells you in confidence, and what Fiske will tell the
State Department at Washington, is a very different matter. It's a