"Mr. Aiken!" he cried, "at last!" He lowered his voice to an eager
whisper. "Where are the guns?" he asked.

Apparently Aiken felt more confidence in General Laguerre than in his
officers, for at this second questioning he answered promptly.

"I regret to say, sir," he began, "that the guns were seized at New
Orleans. Someone informed the Honduranian Consul there, and he--"

"Seized!" cried Laguerre. "By whom? Do you mean we have lost them?"

Aiken lowered his eyes and nodded.

"But how do you know?" Laguerre demanded, eagerly. "You are not sure?
Who seized them?"

"The Treasury officers," Aiken answered

"The captain of the Panama told me he saw the guns taken on the
company's wharf."

For some moments Laguerre regarded him sternly, but I do not think he
saw him. He turned and walked a few steps from us and back again. Then
he gave an upward toss of his head as though he had accepted his
sentence. "The fortunes of war," he kept repeating to himself, "the
fortunes of war." He looked up and saw us regarding him with
expressions of the deepest concern.

"I thought I had had my share of them," he said, simply. He
straightened his shoulders and frowned, and then looked at us and