Clouds of yellow mud boiled up from the bottom of the oozy harbor as the Hatteras dropped her hook; and the sharks moved about, all the more shuddery in their tameness.  Two launches were making for the steamer, and Bedient, sheltering his eyes from the light, discovered the little Captain standing well-forward on the nearest—­a puffy, impatient face, pathetically unconscious of its own workings in anxiety.  Bedient’s uplifted hand caught the other’s eye as the launch neared.  The old adventurer needed a second or two to take in the tall figure and the changed countenance—­then a look of gladness, full, deep and tender with embarrassment, crowned the years and the long journey.

Bedient had to remember hard, after dozens of fluent and delightful letters, that he must encounter the old bashfulness again....  Plainly the Captain showed the years.  There was the dark dry look of some inner consuming, and the trembling mouth was lined and assertive where formerly it was unnoticed in the general cheer.  There was a break in rotundity.  Perhaps this, more than anything else, put a strange hush upon the meeting.  Bedient was glad he had not delayed longer; and he saw he must break through the embarrassment, as the boy and the cook of years ago would not have thought of doing.  The old perfume sought his nostrils delicately with a score of memories.

The Captain seemed to have an absurd number of natives at his disposal.  Bedient’s small pieces of baggage were prodigiously handled.  A carriage was provided, and the two drove up the main thoroughfare, Calle Real.  The little city was appointed and its streets named by the Spanish.  Parts of it were very old, and Bedient liked the setting, which was new to him—­the native courtesy and the mellowness of architecture which that old race of conquerors has left in so many isles of the Western sea.

At the head of the rising highway shone a gilded dome, a sort of crown for the city.  Bedient had seen it shining from the harbor, and supposed it to be the capitol.  The building stood upon an eminence like a temple. Calle Real parted to the right and left at its gates.  Their carriage passed to the right, and within the walls were groves of palms, gardens of rose, rhododendron, jasmine, flames of poinsettia, and a suggestion of mystic glooms where orchids breathed—­fruit, fragrance, fountains.

“The Capitol?” laughed the Captain.  “No, my boy, those little rain-rotted, stone buildings near the water-front are the government property.  However, you never can tell about Equatoria.  There are folks who believe that this stone palace of Senor Rey is fated to become the Capitol.  It might happen in two ways.  Senor Rey might overturn the government and move headquarters to his own house.  You see, he loves fine things too well to reside back yonder.  Or, the government overturning Celestino Rey—­would ultimately move up here on the hill.”

Bedient laughed softly.  It was all delightfully young to him.  “Then Senor Rey aspires?”