And his important passenger hadn’t finished: “It is an airplane that takes me back to Spain, back to my country-and Spain will be my country once we settle with the Republican rabble. It is-what does Matthew say?-a pearl of great price.” He crossed himself again.

So did Juan Antonio Ansaldo. “You have the soul of a poet, your Excellency,” he said. General Sanjurjo smiled like a cat in front of a pitcher of cream. Ansaldo did, too, but only to himself; a little judicious flattery, especially flattery from an unexpected direction, never hurt. But he also had a serious point to make: “I’m glad you chose not to endanger the plane-and yourself, a more valuable pearl-with those trunks. Spain needs you.”

“Well, yes,” Sanjurjo agreed complacently. “Who would command the forces of the right, the forces of truth, against the atheists and Communists and liberals in the Republic if anything happened to me? Millan Astray?”

“I don’t think so, sir!” Ansaldo exclaimed, and that wasn’t flattery. Astray, the founder of the Spanish Foreign Legion, was a very brave man. Colonial fighting had cost him an arm and an eye. He still led the Legion, whose war cry was “?Viva la muerte!” -Long live death! Men like that were valuable in the officer corps, but who would want such a skeletal fanatic leading a country?

“Bueno. I don’t think so, either.” Yes, Sanjurjo sounded complacent, all right. And why not, when he held the rising in the palm of his hand? He couldn’t resist throwing out the name of another possible replacement: “Or what about General Franco?”

“Not likely, your Excellency!” Again, Major Ansaldo meant what he said. No one had ever questioned Francisco Franco’s courage, either, even if he wasn’t so showy about displaying it as Millan Astray was. But the plump little general was no great leader of men. With Sanjurjo’s personality, he could stand beside-could, at need, stand up to-Mussolini and Hitler. Franco? Franco had all the warmth, all the excitement, of a canceled postage stamp.