The shadows were growing long when Agueda cantered down the path that ran alongside of the banana walk. She crossed the potrero at a slow pace, for Castaño was tired and warm. As she slowly rounded the corner of the veranda, a figure caught her eye. It was Don Beltran, cool and immaculate in his white linen suit. He was smoking, and seemed to be enjoying the sunset hour.
"Ah! are you here at last, child! I was just about to send your uncle to look for you. Have you had dinner?"
"Not a mouthful," laughed Agueda, at the remembrance of the Señora at El Cuco. It was cruel to laugh while Aneta wept, but it was so hard not to be happy.
"Tell Juana to bring you some dinner. There was a san coche, very good, and a pilauf of chicken. Did you see Don Mateo?"
"No, Señor," said Agueda, looking down.
"Why will you persist in calling me Señor, Agueda? I am Beltran. Say it at once—Beltran!"
"Beltran," said Agueda, with a happy smile.Poor Aneta! Poor everybody in the world who did not have a Beltran to love her!
As Agueda told Beltran the history of her long day, he listened with interest. When she spoke of Aneta's changed life, "The brute!" said Beltran, "the damned brute!"
While Agueda was changing her dress for the dark blue skirt and white waist, Beltran sat and thought upon the veranda. When she came out again, he spoke.
"Agueda," said he, "it is time that you and I were married."
Agueda blushed.
"I see no cause for haste," said Agueda.
"It is right," said Beltran, "and why should we wait? What is there to wait for? I want you for my wife. I have never seen any one who could take me from you, and there is no such person in all the world. All the same, you must be my wife."
"I think the padre is away," said Agueda, looking down.
"He will be back before long, and then, if the river is still low, we will go to Haldez some fine morning and be married. Your uncle can give you away. He will be very glad, doubtless!" Don Beltran laughed as he spoke. He was not unconscious of Uncle Adan's plans, but as they happenedto fall in with his own, he took them good-naturedly.
"Do you know, Agueda," he said presently, looking steadily at her, "that you are better born than I?"
"What does the Señor mean?" laughed Agueda.
"The Señor?"
"Well, then, Señor—Beltran. What do you mean by that?"
"I mean what I say, Agueda. Your grandfather, Don Estevan, is a count in his own country—in old Spain. That is where you get your pretty slim figure, child, your height, and your arched instep. You are descended from a long line of noble ladies, Agueda. I have seen many a Spanish gran' Señora darker than you, my Agueda. When shall our wedding-day be, child?"
Agueda shook her head and looked down at the little garment which she was stitching. She had no wish to bind him. That was not the way to treat a noble nature like his. Agueda had no calculation in her composition. Beltran could never love her better were they fifty times married. She was happy as the day. What could make her more so?
"Did the Señor enjoy his sail across the bay?" asked Agueda.
"It was well enough, child. I got the draftcashed, and, strange to say, I found a letter at the post-office at Saltona."
"From the coffee merchant, I suppose, Señor?"
"No, not from the coffee merchant, Señora," Beltran laughed, teasingly. "Guess from whom, Agueda; but how should you be able to guess? It is from my uncle, Agueda. My mother's brother. You know that he married in the States."
"I have heard the Señor say that the Señor his uncle married in the es-States," said Agueda, threading her fine needle with care, and making a tiny knot. Beltran drew his chair close. He twitched the small garment from her hands. She uttered a slight exclamation. The needle had pricked her finger. Beltran bent towards her with remorseful words, took the slender finger between his own, and put it to his lips. His other hand lay upon her shoulder. She smiled up at him with a glance of inquiry mixed with shyness. Agueda had never got over her shy little manner. The pressure of his fingers upon her shoulder thrilled her. She felt as ever that dear sense of intimacy which usage had not dulled.
Beltran again consulted the letter which he held.
"Uncle Nóe will arrive in a week's time," he said. "He is a very particular gentleman, is my Uncle Nóe. Quite young to be my uncle. Look at my two grey hairs, Agueda."
She released her hand from his, and tried to twist her short hair into a knot. It looked much more womanly so. She must try to make it grow if a new grand Señor was coming to San Isidro. Don Beltran was still consulting the letter.
"He brings his child—his little daughter. Now, Agueda, how can we amuse the little thing?"
Agueda, with work dropped, finger still pressed between her small white teeth, answered, wonderingly:
"A little child? Let me think, Señor."
"Ah!"
"Well, then, again I say Beltran, if you will. We have not much." How dear and natural the plural of the personal pronoun! "We have not much, I fear. There is the little cart that the Señora gave the Señor when he was muchachito. That is a good little plaything. I have cleaned it well since the last flood. The water washed even into the cupboard. Then there is—there is—ah, yes, the diamond cross. She will laugh, the little thing, when it flashes in the sunshine. Children love brilliant things. I remember well that the little Cristina, from the conuco, up there, used to love to see the sparkle of the jewels. But the little one will like the toy best."
"That is not much, dear heart."
"And then—and then—there may be rides onthe bulls, and punting on the river in the flatboat, and the little chestnut—she can ride Castaño, the little thing!"
"Not the chestnut; I trained him for you, Agueda, child."
"And why should not the little one ride him, also? We can take her into the deep woods to gather the mamey apples, and to the bushes down in the river pasture to gather the aguacate. Only the little thing must be taught to keep away from the prickly branches, and—sometimes, Don—Beltran, we might take the child as far as Haldez, if some acrobats or circus men should arrive. We have not been there since Dondy-Jeem walked the rope that bright Sunday. Oh, yes! we shall find something to amuse her, certainly. A little child! We are to have a child in the house!" It was always a happy "we" with Agueda. "How old is the little thing?"
"I have not heard from my uncle for many years. I do not know when he married; but he is a young man still, Uncle Nóe. Full of affectation, speaking French in preference to Spanish and English, which are equally his mother tongues—I might say his mother and father tongue—but with all his affectations, delightful."
"A little child in the house! A little child in the house," murmured Agueda over and over to herself.
Now it was all bustle at the casa. San Isidro took on a holiday air. There was no more talk of marriage. Not because Don Beltran did not think of it and wish it, but because there was no time. A room down the veranda must be beautified for the little child. She was to be placed next her father, that if she should want anything at night, he could attend her.
"Where shall we put the nurse?" said Don Beltran.
"I am afraid the nurse will have to sleep in the rancho, Beltran. These two rooms take all that we have." Agueda looked up wistfully. "I wonder how soon she will come," she said. "The little thing! the little thing!"
So soon as Agueda had disappeared down the trocha which leads to the sea, Silencio called for Andres. Old Guillermina came with a halt and a shuffle. This was caused by her losing ever and anon that bit of shoe in which she thought it respectful to seek her master, or to obey his summons. She agreed with some modern authorities, although she had never heard of them or their theories, that contact with Mother Earth is more agreeable and more convenient (she did not know of the claim that it is more healthful) than encasing the foot in a piece of bull's hide or calf's skin.
"Where is Andres?" asked Don Gil, impatiently.
"Has the Señor forgotten that the Andres has gone to the Port of Entry?"
"He has not gone there," said Silencio; "that I know, for I sent Troncha in his place. See where he is, and let me know. I need a messenger at once."
As Guillermina turned her back, Don Gil bit his lip. "Then I am helpless," he said aloud, "if Andres is not here." He arose and started afterGuillermina, calling impatiently: "Do not wait for Andres; get some one, any one. I must send a message at once."
While Guillermina shuffled away, Silencio sat himself down at his desk and wrote. He wrote hurriedly, the pen tearing across the sheet as if for a wager. As its spluttering ceased, there was a knock at the counting-house door.
"Entra!" called Silencio, rising.
It was a moist day in May. The June rains were heralded by occasional showers, an earnest of the future. The dampness was all-pervading, the stillness death-like. No sound was heard but the occasional calling of the peons to the oxen far afield. The leaves of the ceiba tree hung limp and motionless; the rompe hache[6]had not stirred a leaf for two days past. No tender airs played caressingly against the nether side of the palm tufts and swayed them in fan-like motion. The gri-gri stood tall and grand, full of foliage at the top. Its numberless little leaves were precisely outlined, each one, against the sky. One might almost fear that he were looking at a painting done by one of the artists of the early Hudson River school, so distinctly was the edge of each leaf and twig drawn against its background of blue.
Rotiro stood and waited. Then he knockedagain. A step was heard approaching from an inner room.
"Entra!" called a voice from within, but louder than before.
Rotiro obeyed the permission. He entered the outer room to find Don Gil just issuing from the inner one—that holy of holies, where no profane foot of peon, shod or unshod, had ever penetrated. Rotiro touched his forelock by way of salutation, drew his machete from its yellow leathern belt, swung it over his shoulder, and brought it round and down with a horizontal cut, slashing fiercely into the post of the doorway. It sank deep, and he left it there, quivering.
Silencio was moistening the flap of an envelope with his lip as Rotiro entered. After a look at Rotiro, Don Gil thought it best to light a taper, take a bit of wax from the tray and seal the note. He pressed it with the intaglio of his ring. The seal bore the crest of the Silencios. When he had finished he held the note for a moment in his hand, to dry thoroughly. As he stood, he surveyed the machete of Rotiro, which still trembled in the doorpost. The post was full of such gashes, indicating it as a common receptacle for bladed weapons. It served the purpose of an umbrella-stand at the north. Don Billy Blake had said: "We don't carry umbrellas into parlours at the No'th, and Ibedam if any man, black or shaded, shall bring his machett into my shanty."
Don Billy was looked upon as an arbiter of fashion. This fashion, however, antedated Don Billy's advent in the island.
Rotiro unslung his shotgun from his shoulder and stepped inside the doorway. He leaned the gun against the inner wall.
"Buen' dia', Seño'," he nodded.
"Set that gun outside, Rotiro."
"My e'copeta very good e'copeta, Seño' Don Gil. It a excellent e'copeta. It is, however, as you know, not much to be trusted; it go off sometimes with little persuasion on my part, often again without much reason."
"Following the example of your tongue. Listen! Rotiro. I wish to do the talking. Attend to what I say. Here is a note. I wish you to take it up back of Troja, to the Señor Escobeda."
"But, Seño', I thought—"
"You thought! So peons think! On this subject you have no need to think. Take this note up to Troja, and be quick about it. I want an answer within an hour. Waste no time on thoughts or words, and above all, waste no time in going or returning. See the Señor Escobeda. Hand him the note, see what he has to say, and bring me wordas soon as possible. Notice how he looks, how he speaks, what—"
"But the Seño' may not—"
"Still talking? Go at once! Do you remember old Amadeo, who was struck by lightning? I always believed that it was to quiet his tongue. It certainly had that effect. But for the one servant I have had who has been struck by lightning, I have had twenty who ought to have been. There was a prince in a foreign land who was driven crazy by his servants. He said, 'Words! words! words!' I wonder very much what he would have said could he have passed a week on the plantation of Palmacristi."
As the Devil twists Scripture to suit his purpose, so Silencio was not behind him in his interpretation of Shakespeare, and Rotiro prepared for his journey, with a full determination to utter no unnecessary word during the rest of his life. In dead silence he withdrew his machete from its gash in the doorpost, tied the letter round his neck by its cord of red silk, swung his apology for a hat upon his head, and was off. Meanwhile Don Gil sat and waited.
The hour ended as all hours, good or bad, must end. Don Gil kept his eyes fixed upon the clock. Ah! it was five minutes past the hour now.
"If I find that he has delayed one minute beyondthe necessary—possibly Escobeda has held him there, taken him prisoner—prisoner! In the nineteenth century! But an Escobeda is ready for anything; perhaps he has—" There was a step at the doorway.
"Entra!" shouted Don Gil, before one had the time to knock, and Rotiro entered. He had no time to say a word. He had not swung his arm round his head, nor settled the machete safely in the post of the door, before Don Gil said, impatiently:
"Well! well! What is it? Will the man never speak? Did you see the Señor Escobeda? Open that stupid head of yours, man! Say something—"
Rotiro was breathless. He set his gun in the corner with great deliberation. At first his words would not come; then he drew a quick breath and said:
"I saw the Seño' E'cobeda, Don Gil. He is a fine man, the Seño' E'cobeda. Oh! yes, he is a very fine man, the Seño'!"
"Ah!" said Don Gil, dryly, "did he send me a message, this very fine man?"
Rotiro thrust his hand into the perpendicular slit that did duty for a legitimate opening in his shirt. He was dripping with moisture. Great beads stood out upon his dark skin. He pulled the faded pink cotton from his wet body and brought to lighta folded paper. This he handed to Don Gil. The paper was far from dry. Don Gil took the parcel. He broke the thread which secured it—the thread seemed much shorter than when he had knotted it earlier in the day—and discovered the letter which he sought. The letter was addressed to himself.
Don Gil opened this missive with little difficulty. The sticky property of the flap had been impaired by its contact with the damp surroundings. Don Gil read the note with a frown.
"Caramba hombre! Did you go up back of Troja for this?"
Rotiro raised his shoulders and turned his palms outward.
"As the Seño' see."
If Rotiro had gone "up back of Troja" for nothing, it was obviously the initial occasion in the history of the island. The natives, as well as the foreigners, seemed to go "up back of Troja" for every article that they needed. They bought their palm boards back of Troja. They bought their horses back of Troja. They bought their cattle back of Troja. Back of Troja was made the best rum that was to be had in all the island. Back of Troja, for some undiscovered reason, were found the best guns, the best pistols, the sharpest "colinos," smuggled ashore at the cave, doubtless, and taken in the night through dark florestas,impenetrable to officers of the law. Many a wife, light of skin and slim of ankle, had come from back of Troja to wed with the people nearer the sea. The region back of Troja was a veritable mine, but for once the mine had refused to yield up what the would-be prospector desired.
"He'll get no wife from back of Troja," thought Rotiro, whose own life partner, out of the bonds of wedlock, had enjoyed that distinction.
"Whom did you see back of Troja?"
"The Seño' E'cobeda, Seño'. The Seño' E'cobeda is a ver—"
"Yes, yes, I know! How you natives will always persist in slipping your 's,' except when it is superfluous! How did Escobeda look?"
"Much as usual, Seño'. He is a very fi—"
"Was he pleasant, or did he frown?"
"In truth, Seño' Don Gil, I cannot say for one, how he look. I saw but the back of the Seño' E'cobeda. He look—"
"As much of a cut-throat as ever, I suppose?"
"Si, Seño'. The Seño' was seated in his oficina. He had his back to me. I saw nothing but his ear-rings and the very fine white shirt that he wore."
"Well, well! He read the note, and—"
"He read the note, Seño', and—and—he read the note, and—he read the n—"
"Well, well, well!"
"And shall I tell the Seño' all, then?"
"Will you continue? or shall I—" Don Gil's tone was threatening.
"If the Seño' will. He laugh, Seño' Don Gil. He laugh very long and very loud, and then I hear a es-snarl. It es-sound like a dog. Once he reach toward the wall for his 'colino.' I at once put myself outside of the casa, and behind the pilotijo. When he did not advance, I put an eye to the crack, all the es-same."
"And it was then that he wrote the note?"
"Si, Seño'; it was then that he wrote the answer and present it to me."
"And said—?"
"He said, oh! I assure the Seño' it was nothing worthy to hear; the Seño' would not—"
"He said—?" There was a dangerous light in Don Gil's eye.
"And I must tell the Seño'? He said, 'Here! give this to that—that—'"
"That—?"
"'Thattruhan!' I pray the Don Gil forgive me; the Don Gil make me—"
Silencio's face had flushed darkly.
"Continue."
Rotiro, embarrassed beyond measure, forgot what he had learned by fair means and what by foul, and blundered on.
"He did not say whether the Señorit' had go to the Port of Entry; he—"
"And who told you to enquire whether the Señorita had gone to the Port of Entry or not?"
Rotiro perceived at once that he had made a gigantic slip. When Don Gil next spoke, Rotiro was busy watching the parjara bobo which loped along within the enclosure. The bird, stupid by name and nature alike, came so close that Rotiro could almost have touched it with his hand.
"Do you hear my question?"
Rotiro started at the tones of thunder.
"No one inform me, Seño'. I had heard talk of it."
"Two fools in one enclosure! The bird is as clever as you. Do not try to think, Rotiro. Have you never heard that peons should never try to think? Leave the vacuum which nature abhors in its natural state." Rotiro looked blankly at Don Gil, who often amused himself at the expense of the stupid. Just now he was angry, and ready to say something harsh which even a wiser peon than Rotiro could not understand. Rotiro's vacuum was working, however, as even vacuums will. "Decidedly, I have made a very grand mistake of some kind; but when a letter will not stick, it is so easy—the thing, however, is not to let him—"
"Rotiro!"
The peon started. Don Gil stood facing him. His eyes were blazing. Rotiro's arm twitched with the desire to reach for his machete.
"If I ever find you—" Don Gil spoke slowly and impressively, his forefinger moving up and down in time with his words—"if ever I find you opening a letter of mine, either a letter that I send or one that I receive, I will send you to Saltona, and I shall ask the alcalde to put you in the army."
Rotiro's knees developed a sudden weakness. He would much rather be led to the wall outside the town, turned with his face towards its cold grey stone, and have his back riddled with bullets. At least, so he thought at the moment.
"The Seño' will never find me opening a letter, either now or at any other time." (Nor will he. Does he think that I should be so stupid as to open them before his face? Or within two and a half miles of the Casa de Caoba?)
"Very well, then. Be off with you. Take your gun out of my counting-house and your colino out of my doorpost, and yourself out of my sight."
"The Seño' Don Gil allow that I accommodate myself with a little ching-ching?"
"Always ching-ching, Rotiro. Bieng, bieng! Tell Alfredo to give you a half-glass, not of the pink rum—that is not for such as you. You remember, perhaps, what happened the last timethat I gave you a ching-ching. I should have said No."
"I assure the Seño' that Garcito Romando was a worthless man. O, yes, Seño', an utterly worthless man—an entirely useless man. He could not plant the suckers, he could not plant the cacao, he could not drive four bulls at a time; there was no place for Garcito Romando either in heaven or in hell. Marianna Romando was weary of him. Purgatory was closed to him, and the blessed island was too good for him. He stole three dollars Mex. of me once. My e'copeta did, perhaps, go off a little early, but the Seño' should thank me. He has on his finca one bobo the less, and the good God knows—"
Rotiro was not only fluent, he was confluent. He ran his words together in the most rapid manner.
Don Gil raised his hand as if to ward off the storm of words. "He was certainly a fool to tamper with a man whose gun shoots round the corner. Come! Be off with you! Three fingers, and no more."
FOOTNOTE:[6]Literally,hatchet breaker.
[6]Literally,hatchet breaker.
[6]Literally,hatchet breaker.
There are days which are crowded with events; days so bursting with happenings that a single twenty-four hours will not suffice to tell the tale. There are other days so blank and uneventful that one sighs for very weariness when one thinks of them. It is not well to wish time away, but such days are worse than useless. It is, however, of one of the former that this chapter relates. To a little community like that surrounding San Isidro and Palmacristi, to say nothing of Troja, the day on which Agueda carried the note for Raquel was full of events.
When Escobeda went from Raquel's room, slamming the door after him, the terrified girl dropped on her knees before Ana. All her courage seemed to have flown. She bent her head and laid it in Ana's lap, and then tears rained down and drenched Ana's new silk apron.
"Ana," she whispered, "Ana, who is there to help me?"
Ana sighed and sniffed, and one or two great drops rolled off her brown nose and splashed down on the back of Raquel's dark head.
"There is no one but you and God, Ana."
"Holy Mother! child, do not be so irreverent."
"Can you steal out into the corridor and down the two little steps, and into the rum room, Ana, and hear what is being said?"
"I am too heavy; that you know, Señorita. The boards creak at the very sound of my name. I am tall, my bones are large. Such persons cannot trip lightly; they tip the scales at a goodly number of pounds. Holy Mother! If he should catch me at it!" and Ana shivered, her tears drying at once from fright.
"You could very well do it if you chose. Listen, Ana. If he takes me away, I shall die. Now I tell you truly, Ana, I will never go to that government house alive; that you may as well know. Get me my mother's dagger, Ana."
Ana arose and went to a bureau drawer. The drawer squeaked as she pulled at the knobs.
A far door was heard opening. "What is that?" roared Escobeda.
"I am packing the child's trunks, Señor. How can I pack them unless I may open the drawer?" There was a sound of retreating footsteps and the closing of the door. Raquel looked at Ana, who was kneeling upon the floor, searching in the drawer.
"Ah! here it is," said Ana. "But you will not use it, sweet?"
"Not unless I must," said Raquel. She sighed. "Not unless I must. I do not want to die, Ana. I love my life, but there is a great horror over there." She nodded her head in the direction of the Port of Entry. "When that horror comes very near me, then I—" Raquel made as if she would thrust the dagger within her breast. Ana shuddered.
"I shall not see it," she said. "But I advise it, all the same, if you must."
She drew the girl up to her, and cried helplessly upon her neck.
"Can't you think a little for me, Ana? It is hard always to think for one's self."
"No," said Ana, shaking her head, "I never have any fresh thoughts. I always follow."
"Then, dear Ana, just tiptoe down and listen. It is the last thing that I shall ever ask of you, Ana."
Ana, her eyes streaming with tears, took her slippers—those tell-tale flappers—from her feet, and went to the door. She turned the knob gently and pushed the door outward without noise. As she opened it she heard Escobeda's voice, raised in angry tones.
"Go now! now! while he is scolding," whispered Raquel. "He will not hear you. I must know what he is saying to that man. Do you think it is the Señor Silencio's messenger?"
Ana nodded and put her finger to her lip. She crept noiselessly along the passage. Raquel, listen as she would, heard nothing of Ana's footsteps, for Escobeda was still swearing so loudly as to drown every other sound.
Raquel went to the bureau, and took from the drawer a piece of kid. She seated herself and began to polish her weapon of defence. "Of death," said Raquel to herself. "If I am forced—"
She peeped out, but Ana had turned the corner, and was hidden from sight. Ah! she must be in the rum room now, where she could both peer through the cracks and hear all that was said on either side. Suddenly a far door was violently wrenched open, and Raquel heard Escobeda's steps coming along the corridor. Where was Ana, then? Raquel's heart stood still. Escobeda came on until he reached the door of Raquel's chamber. The girl did not alter her position, and but for her flushed cheeks there was no sign of agitation. She bent her head, and rubbed the shining steel with much force.
"Where is that lazy Ana?"
Raquel raised her innocent eyes to his.
"Did you call, uncle? Well, then, she must have gone to the kitchen."
"You lie," said Escobeda.
Raquel's cheeks reddened still more.
"Perhaps I do, uncle. At all events, she is not here."
"What have you there?"
Escobeda had stooped towards the girl with hand outstretched, but she had sprung to her feet in a moment, and stood at bay, the dagger held, not in a threatening attitude, but so that it could be turned towards the man at any moment.
"It is my mother's dagger, uncle."
"What are you doing with it?"
"Polishing it for my journey, uncle."
"Give it to me."
"Why should I give it to you, uncle?"
"Because I tell you to."
Raquel's hair had fallen down; she was scantily clothed. Her cheeks were ablaze. She looked like a tigress brought to bay.
"Do you remember my mother, uncle?"
"I remember your mother; what of her?"
"Do you know what she said to me at the last—at the last, uncle?"
"I neither know nor care," said Escobeda. "Hand me the knife."
"My mother told me," said Raquel, still polishing the blade and changing its direction so that the point was held towards Escobeda—"my mother told me to keep this little thing always at hand. It has always been with me. You do not know howmany times I have had the thought to turn it upon you"—Escobeda started and paled—"when your cruelties have been worse than usual. Sometimes at night I have thought of creeping, creeping along the hall there, and going to the side of your bed—"
"You murderess!" shouted Escobeda. "So you would do that, would you? It is time that you came under the restraint that you will find over there in the government town. Do you hear? Give me the knife. It was like that she-dev—"
"I can hear quite well with it in my hand," said Raquel. "You may say whatever comes into your head, only about my mother. That I will not bear. Speak of her gently, I warn you—I warn you—"
"Do you know who the man was who came to me just now?"
"The Señor Silencio?" said Raquel, breathless, her eyes flashing with a thousand lights.
"No, it was not the Señor Silencio." Raquel's eyelids drooped. "But it was the next thing to it. It was that villain, Rotiro. I could have bought him, as well as Silencio. A little rum and a few pesos, and he is mine body and soul. But I do not want him. I have followers in plenty—"
"Those who follow you for love?" said Raquel, with sly malice in her tone.
Escobeda flashed a dark and hateful look upon her.
"It makes no difference why they follow me. They are all mine, body and soul, just as you are mine, body and soul."
"Are you going to tell me why Rotiro came here to-day?" asked Raquel.
"Yes, that is what I came to tell you. I came purposely to tell you that. The Señor Silencio sent me a letter by the villain Rotiro."
"For me?" asked Raquel, breathless. "Oh, uncle! Let me see it, let me—"
"No, it was to me. But I will tell you its contents. I will tell you gladly. He offers you his hand in marriage."
"Oh, uncle!"
The girl's eyes were dancing. She blushed and paled alternately; then drew a long sigh, and waited for Escobeda to speak further.
"From your appearance, I should judge that you wish me to accept him for you."
"Oh, uncle!" Again the girl drew short, quick breaths. She gazed eagerly into Escobeda's face. "Can you think anything else? Now I need not go away. Now I need not be longer a burden upon you. Now I shall have a home! Now—I—shall—be—" The girl hesitated and dropped her voice, and then it died away in a whisper. But one meaning could be drawn from Escobeda's cunning screwed-up eyes, his look of triumph, his smile of wickedness.
They stood gazing at each other thus for the space of a few seconds, those seconds so fraught with dread on the one side, with malice and triumphant delight on the other.
"Your mother hated me, Raquel. Perhaps she never had the kindness to tell you that. I found her when she was dying. You remember, perhaps, when she asked you, her little girl, to withdraw for a while, that she might speak with me alone?"
"I remember, uncle," said Raquel, panting.
"It was not to be wondered at that she preferred your father to me. She had loved me first. She was my father's ward. But when he came, with his handsome face and girlish ways, she threw me aside like a battered doll. She said that I was cruel, but she never discovered that until she fell in love with your father. She ran away with him one night when I was at the city on business for my father. The doting old man could not keep a watch upon them, but I followed their fortunes. She never knew that it was I who had him followed to the mines, where he thought he had discovered a fortune, and killed him in the cold and dark—"
"Are you a devil?" asked Raquel.
"His bones, you can see them now, Raquel; they were never buried—they lie up there on the floor of the old—"
The dagger slipped from Raquel's fingers, and she slid to the floor.
"No, I did not tell her that I should take out my vengeance upon her child. I knew my time would come. Silencio's offer is of as much value as if written in the sand down there by the river, the—"
Ana came in at the doorway. Escobeda stooped and picked up the dagger. "She will hardly need this," he said, as he stuck it in his belt.
When Raquel opened her eyes Ana was bending over her, as usual in floods of tears, drenching the girl alternately with warm water from her tender eyes and cold water from the perron.
Raquel sat up and looked about her as one dazed. She clutched at the folds of her dress. The piece of kid lay in her hand.
"Oh, Ana!" she sobbed, "he has taken it away. All that I had. My only protection."
Ana arose and quietly closed the door.
"Sweet," she said, "I have good news for you."
"What is it?" asked Raquel, sitting up, all interest, her dull eyes brightening.
"I crept along the hall," said Ana, "and when I reached the rum room I slipped in and closed the door softly, and listened through the cracks. When he came here, I slipped out to the kitchen, and there I have been ever since."
"But the good news," asked Raquel. "Quick! Ana, tell me."
"He was sitting at his desk, the Señor Escobeda, his back to the door, so unlike any other gentleman. If they must rage, they stand up and do it. But there he sat, swearing by all the gods at something. I saw that that man Rotiro from Palmacristi had run out of the counting-house, and was peeping in at the door; and I listened, hoping to find out something, and I have, sweet, I have."
"Well! well! Ana, dear Ana, hasten! hasten!—"
"I have found out that the Señor Don Gil asks your hand in marriage."
Raquel sank down again in a heap on the floor.
"Is that all, Ana?" she said.
"All! And what more can the Señorita want than to have a gentleman, rich, handsome, devoted, offer her his hand in honourable marriage?"
"I only want one thing more, Ana dear," said Raquel, sadly, "the power to accept it."
"The power to accept it?" said Ana, questioningly. "Is the child mad?"
"He twits me with it. He says that I shall not accept him, the Señor Don Gil. He says that I shall go in any case to the government town. He has taken away my dagger. I cannot even kill myself, Ana. Oh! what am I to do? Gil! Gil! Come and save me."
At this heavy steps were heard coming along the corridor. The door was burst open with a blow of Escobeda's fist.
"You need not scream or call upon your lover, or on anybody else. You have no one to aid you."
"No one but God, and my dear Ana here," said Raquel.
"One is about as much use as the other," said Escobeda, laughing. "Call as loud as you will, one is quite deaf and the other helpless."
Raquel rose to her feet.
"Will you leave my room?" she said with dignity.
"I will leave your room, because I have done all that I came to do."
"You have broken the child's heart, Señor," said Ana, with unwonted courage, "if that is what you came to do."
"If I can break her spirit, that is all I care for," said Escobeda.
"You will never break my spirit," said Raquel. She stood there so defiant, the color coming and going in her face, her splendid hair making a veil about her, that Escobeda looked upon her with the discriminating eye of fresh discovery.
"By Heaven," he said, "you are more beautiful than ever your mother was! If I had not promised the Governor—"
"Spare her your insults," said Ana, herindignation aroused. She pushed the door against his thick figure, and shot the bolt. They heard Escobeda's laugh as he flung it back at them. "What shall we do now?" asked Raquel. "Shall I drop from the window and run away? There must be some one who will aid me."
Ana approached the closely drawn jalousies. She put her long nose to a crack and peered down. The slight movement of the screen was seen from the outside.
"It is you that need not look out, Anita Maria," came up to her in Joyal's rasping voice. "This is not the front door."
"He has been quick about it," said Ana. "No matter, sweet, we must pack. Some one must help us. When the Señor Silencio gets that devilish message he must do something."
"What was the devilish message, Ana?" asked Raquel.
"Do not ask me, child; just hateful words, that is all."
Raquel put her young arms round Ana's old thin shoulders.
"Promise me one thing, Ana," she said.
"Promise! Who amIto make promises, sweet? All that I can, I will. That you must know."
"When I am gone, Ana"—Raquel looked searchingly at Ana and repeated the wordssolemnly—"when I am gone, promise that you will go to the Señor Silencio. Say to him—"
"But how am I to get there, sweet? I should have to wear my waist that I keep for the saints' days. I—"
"Get there? Do you suppose if you asked me I would not find a way? My uncle Escobeda will be gone. Remember he will be gone, Ana! There will be no one to watch you, and you talk of clothes! You will not wear them out in one afternoon, and when I am Señora"—Raquel halted in her voluble speech and blushed crimson—"he, my uncle, would be glad to have you go and say that he has taken me away. Nothing would please him better. Now, promise me that when I am gone you will go to the Señor Silencio, and tell him where he has taken me. Tell him that I accept his offer. Tell him that if he loves me, he will find a way to save me. Tell him that I sent him a note by that pretty Agueda from San Isidro—"
"You should not speak to such as she—"
"She seemed sweet and good. She carried my note, Ana. I must always be her friend. Tell him—"
A loud thud upon the door.
Escobeda had stolen up softly, and was chuckling to himself outside in the passage.
"Ana has my permission to go and tell him allabout how you love him, Muchacha. That will make it even more pleasant for me. I thank you for helping me carry out my plans, but for the present, Ana had better pack your things, and quickly. The sun is getting over to the west, and you must start within two hours' time."
Raquel threw her arms round Ana and strained her to her childish breast.
"You will go, dear Ana, you promise me, do you not? You will go?"
"I will," said the weeping Ana, "even if I must go in my Sunday shoes."
When the voluble Rotiro had vanished round the end of the counting-house, Silencio retired to his inner sanctum and closed and locked the door. The contrast between this room and the bare front office was marked. Here cretonne draped the walls, its delicate white and green relieving the plain white of the woodwork. Coming from the outer glare, the cool coloring was more than grateful to the senses. The large wicker chairs with which the room was furnished were painted white, their cushions being of the same pale green whose color pervaded the interior. The white tables, with their green silken cloths, the white desk, the mirrors with white enameled frames, the white porcelain lamps with green shades, all of the same exquisite tint, made the sanctum a symphony of delicate color, a bower of grateful shade. Pull one of the hangings aside, ever so little, and a fortress stared you in the face—a fortress known of, at the most, to but two persons in the island.
It is true that the more curious of the peons had wondered somewhat why Don Gil had brought down from the es-States those large sheets of ironwith clamps and screws; but the native is not inquisitive as a rule, and certainly not for long. All señors do strange things, things not to be accounted for by any known rule of life, and the Señor Don Gil was rich enough to do as he liked. What, then, was it to a hard-working peon, what a grand señor like the Don Gil took into his mahogany house?
The man who had come down in the steamer with the sheets of iron had remained at Palmacristi for a month or more. He had brought two workmen, and when he sailed for Nueva Yorka no one but the owner of the Casa de Caoba and the old Guillermina knew that the inner counting-house had been completely sheathed with an iron lining, whose advent the peons had forgotten.
"This is my bank," said Don Gil to Don Juan Smit'.
"It may become a fort some day, who knows?" answered the Don Juan Smit', "if those rascally Spaniards come over here and create another rumpus." Strange to say, Don Gil did not resent this remark about the nation which had produced his ancestors. But, then, Don Gil was a revolutionist, and had fought side by side with the bravest generals of the ten years' Cuban war.
"It is a very secure place to detain a willing captive," smiled Don Gil.
"Well, I guess!" assented the Señor Don Juan Smit', with a very knowing wink of the eye, which proved that he had not understood his employer's meaning in the very slightest.
Old Guillermina, who had reared Don Gil's mother, was the only person allowed within the counting-house.
"A very fine place for the black spiders to hide," remarked Guillermina, as she twitched aside the green and white hangings, and exposed the iron sheathing. "There is no place they would prefer to this."
When Don Gil had locked the door, he seated himself and took Escobeda's note from his pocket. He examined the flap of the envelope; it was badly soiled and creased. He was morally certain that Rotiro had possessed himself of the contents of the letter. He had told Rotiro that peons should not think, but they would think, semi-occasionally, and more than that, they would talk. When a peon was found clever enough to carry a message, he also possessed the undesirable quality of wishing to excite curiosity in others, and to make them feel what a great man he was to be trusted with the secrets of the Señor. By evening the insolence of Escobeda would be the common property of every man, woman, and child on the estate, and, what Silencio could bear least of all, the insulting newsas to the ultimate destination of Raquel would be gossiped over in every palm hut and rancho far and near. All his working people would know before to-morrow the message which had been brought to him by Rotiro, and it was his own rum that would loosen Rotiro's tongue and aid materially in his undoing. His face grew red and dark. His brow knotted as he perused the vile letter for the fourth time. Escobeda's handwriting was strong, his grammar weak, his spelling not always up to par. The letter was written in Spanish, into which some native words had crept. The translation ran:
"To the Señor Don Gil Silencio-y-Estrada."Señor:—You are forbidden to set foot in my house. You are forbidden to try to see or speak to the Señorita Raquel. I do not continue the farce of saying my niece; she is not more than a distant relative of mine. But in this case, might makes right. I control her and she is forever lost to you. You refused me the trocha farm for a fair price. See now, if it would not have been better to yield. The Señorita Raquel starts for the Port of Entry this afternoon. She sails to-night for the government town. The Governor desires her services. Knowing the Governor by repute, you may imagine what those services are."
"To the Señor Don Gil Silencio-y-Estrada.
"Señor:—You are forbidden to set foot in my house. You are forbidden to try to see or speak to the Señorita Raquel. I do not continue the farce of saying my niece; she is not more than a distant relative of mine. But in this case, might makes right. I control her and she is forever lost to you. You refused me the trocha farm for a fair price. See now, if it would not have been better to yield. The Señorita Raquel starts for the Port of Entry this afternoon. She sails to-night for the government town. The Governor desires her services. Knowing the Governor by repute, you may imagine what those services are."
Silencio struck the senseless sheet with his clenched fist. His ring tore a jagged hole in the paper, so that he had difficulty in smoothing it for re-perusal.
"It pays me better to sell her to him than to give her to you."
"It pays me better to sell her to him than to give her to you."
Wild thoughts flew through the brain of Silencio. He started up, and had almost ordered his horse. He was rich. He would offer all, everything that he possessed, to save Raquel from such a fate, but he sadly resumed his seat after a moment of reflection. Escobeda hated him, there had been a feud between the families since the old Don Gil had caused the arrest of the elder Escobeda, a lawless character; and the son had made it the aim of his life to annoy and insult the family of Silencio. Here was a screw that he could turn round and round in the very heart of his enemy, and already the screwing process had begun. Don Gil took up the mutilated letter and read to the end:
"We start for the coast this afternoon. Do not try to rescue her. I have a force of brave men who will protect me from any number that you may bring. We have colinos and escopetes in plenty. Your case is hopeless. You dare not attack me on land; you cannot attack me on the water."
"We start for the coast this afternoon. Do not try to rescue her. I have a force of brave men who will protect me from any number that you may bring. We have colinos and escopetes in plenty. Your case is hopeless. You dare not attack me on land; you cannot attack me on the water."
Don Gil dashed the paper on the floor and ground savagely beneath his heel the signature "Rafael Escobeda."
"It is true," he said, shaking his head. "It is true; I am helpless!"
With a perplexed face and knitted brow he went into the outer room, closed the entrance door and took a flat bar of iron from its resting-place against the wall. This he fitted into the haspsat each side of the door, which were ready to receive it. Then he returned to the inner room, and secured the iron-sheathed door with two similar bars. After this was done, he looked somewhat ruefully at his handiwork. "The cage is secure," he said, "if I but had the bird."
Silencio opened the door which connected the office with the main part of the house. He closed and locked it behind him, and proceeded along a passage so dark that no light crept in except through the narrow slits beneath the eaves. When he had traversed this passage, he opened a further door and emerged at once into the main part of the house. Here everything was open, attractive, and alluring. Here spacious apartments gave upon broad verandas, whose flower boxes held blooms rare even in this garden spot of the world. Here were beauty and colour and splendour and glowing life.
Don Gil threw himself down in a hammock which stretched across a shady corner. Through the opening between the pilotijos, he could see the wooded heights in the distance, those heights beyond which Troja lay, Troja, which held his heart and soul. What to do? To-night she would set sail for the government town in the toils of Escobeda, her self-confessed betrayer and barterer—set sail for that hateful place where herworse than slavery would begin. The person to whom she was to be sold—none the less sold because the price paid did not appear on paper—was possessed of power and that might of which Escobeda had spoken in his letter—that might which makes right. He could give countenance to speculators and incorporators, he could grant concessions for an equivalent; into such keeping Escobeda, with his devil's calculation, was planning to deliver her—his Raquel, his little sweetheart. That she loved him he knew. A word and a glance are enough, and he had received many such. A note and a rose at the lastfestin, where she had been allowed to look on for a while under the eye of her old duenna! A pressure of her hand in the crowd, a trembling word of love under her breath in answer to his fierce and fiery ones!
The cause for love, its object does not know nor question. The fact is all that concerns him, and so far Silencio was secure. And here was this last appeal from the helpless girl! They had started by this time perhaps. Don Gil looked at the ancient timepiece which had descended from old Don Oviedo. Yes, they had started. It was now twenty minutes past six; they needed but two hours to ride to the Port of Entry. The steamer would not sail until between nine and ten o'clock. Very shortly Escobeda's party would cross thetrocha, which at that point was a public highway. It ran through the Palmacristi estate, and neared the casa on the south. Could he not rescue her when they were so near? There were not three men within the home enclosure. The others had gone direct to their huts and ranchos from their work in the fields. He could not collect them now, and if he could, of what use a skirmish in the road? Escobeda was sure to ride with a large force, and a stray shot might do injury to Raquel herself. No, no! Some other way must be thought of.
Silencio arose, passed quickly through the casa and entered the patio. He ran up the stairs which ascended from the veranda to the flat roof above. He stood upon the roof, shading his eyes with his hand, and straining his vision to catch the first sight of Escobeda and his party of cut-throats. He was none too early. A cloud of dust on the near side of the cacao grove told him this, and then he heard the jingling of spurs and the sound of voices. A group of some thirty horsemen swept round the curve and came riding into full view. In their center rode a woman. She was so surrounded that by no effort of hers could she break through the determined-looking throng. One glance at those cruel faces, and Silencio's heart sank like lead.
The woman was gazing with appealing eyes at the Casa de Caoba. Silencio was not near enoughto distinguish her features, but her attitude was hopeless and appealing, and he knew that it was Raquel the moment that he discovered her.
Suddenly she drew a handkerchief from her bosom and waved it above her head. There was something despairing and pitiable in her action. Silencio whirled his handkerchief wildly in the air. He was beside himself! Escobeda turned and struck the girl, who dropped her signal hand and drooped her head upon her breast.
Silencio put his hands to his mouth and shouted: "Do not fear; I will save you!" He shook his clenched hand at Escobeda. "You shall pay for that! By God in Heaven! you shall pay for that!"
Yes, pay for it, but how? How? Oh, God! how? He was so helpless. No one to aid him, no one to succour.
At this defiance of Silencio's there came an order to halt. The men faced the Casa de Caoba, Escobeda placed his rifle to his shoulder, but as he fired, Raquel quickly reached out her hand and dashed the muzzle downward. A crash of glass below stairs told Silencio where the shot had found entrance.
"And for that shot, also, you shall pay. Aye, for twenty thousand good glass windows." Glass windows are a luxury in the island.
A burst of derisive laughter and a scatteringflight of bullets were thrown back at him by the motley crew. They reined their horses to the right, turned a corner, and were lost in their own dust.
Silencio descended the stairs, how he never knew. He ran through the patio and the main rooms, and out on to the veranda, from which the path led toward the gate of the enclosure. He was beside himself. He seized his gun from the rack; he cocked it as he ran.
"He said that I could not reach him upon the water; I can reach him upon the land. Piombo, my horse! Do not wait to saddle him, bring him at once. No, I cannot reach him upon the water—"
A sound of footsteps. A head bound in a ragged cloth appeared above the flower boxes which edged the veranda, and pushed its way between the leaves. A body followed, and then a man ascended slowly to a level with Don Gil Silencio. Over his shoulder was slung a shotgun; in his leathern belt, an old one of his master's, was thrust a machete; from his hand swung a lantern with white glass slides. This man was stupid but kindly. He pattered across the veranda with bare and callous feet, and came to a halt within a few paces of Don Gil. There he stopped and leaned against the jamb of the open door.
At night Andres hung a lantern upon theastaat the headland yonder, more as a star of cheer thanas a warning. The red lantern on Los Santos, some miles further down the coast, was the beacon for and the warning to mariners. The ray from its one red sector illumined the channel until the morning sun came again to light the way. When the white pane changed the ray of red to one of white, the pilot shouted, "Hard over." With a wide and foaming curve, the vessel swept round and out to sea, thus avoiding the sand spit of Palmacristi.
Silencio's eyes fell upon the lantern in the hand of Andres, and in that moment the puzzle of the hour was solved. So suddenly does the bread of necessity demand the rising of the yeast of invention. The expression of Don Gil's face had changed in a moment from abject gloom to radiant exultation.
"Bien venido, Andres!Bien venido!"
No dearest friend could have been greeted with a more joyous note of welcome. Andres raised his eyes in astonishment to the face of the young Señor. He had expected to meet with Guillermina's reproaches because he had forgotten to lower the lantern from the asta that morning, and had left it burning all the long day, so that now it must be refilled. Here was a very different reception. He had been thinking over his excuses. He had intended to say at once how ill El Rey had been all night, and how he had forgotten everything butthe child; and here, instead of the scolding of the servant, he was greeted with the smiles of the master. Truly, this was a strange world; one never knew what to expect.
"I come for oil for the lantern, Don Gil. It is a very goodfarol de señales, but it is a glutton! It is never satisfied! It eats, and eats!"
"Like the rest of you." Don Gil laughed aloud. Andres gazed at him with astonishment. "That blessed glutton! Let us feed it, Andres! Give it plenty to eat to-night, of all nights. I will hoist it upon the headland myself to-night." At Andres's still greater look of astonishment, "Yes, yes, leave it to me. I will hoist the blessed lantern myself to-night upon my headland."
"The Señor must not trouble himself. It is a dull, dark night! The Señor will find thesendicarough and hard to climb."
"What! that little path? Have not I played there as a child? Raced over it as a boy? I could go there blindfold. How is the little king, Andres?" Andres's face fell.
"He is not so well, Señor. That is why I forgot the lantern. He was awake in the night talking to her. I have left him for barely an hour to fill the lantern and return it again to the asta. He talks to her at night. Sometimes I think she has returned. He begged me to leave the doorunlocked; he thinks she may come when I am gone." Andres turned away his heavy face, and brushed his sleeve across his eyes.
"You shall go home early to-night, Andres; as I said, I will hoist the lantern."
The dull face of Andres lighted up with a tender smile, a smile which glorified its homely lineaments—that smile which had always been ready to appear at the bidding of El Rey. Poor little El Rey, who had never ceased to call, in all his waking hours for Roseta, Roseta who had found the charms of Dondy Jeem, with his tight-rope and his red trunk-hose and his spangles and his delightful wandering life, much more to be desired than the palm-board hut down on the edge of the river, with El Rey to care for all day, and Andres to attend when he returned at night from the sucker planting or banana cutting.
"How is the sea, Andres?"
"It is quiet, Señor, not a ripple."
"And we shall have no moon?"
"As the Señor says, not for some weeks past have we had a moon."
Don Gil laughed. He could laugh now, loud and long. His heart was almost light. What better tool and confidant could he procure than a peon who knew so little of times and seasons as Andres?
"And it is low tide at ten o'clock to-night?"
"As the Señor says."
Had Don Gil asked, "Is the sea ink?" Andres would have replied, "As the Señor says."
"At about what time is the red lantern lighted on Los Santos?"
"At about six o'clock, Señor. I heard old Gremo say that he lights it each evening at six o'clock."
"He does not live near it now?"
"As the Señor says. The old casa fell quite to pieces in the last hurricane, and now Gremo lives at the Romando cannuca."
"He must start early from the conuco?"
"As the Señor says. At half after five. It is a long way to carry a ladder—there and back. Gremo is afraid of the ghosts who infest the mompoja patch. If one but thrusts his head at you, you are lost. Marianna Romando says that Gremo is not much of a man, but far superior to Garcito Romando. The few pesos that he gets for lighting the lantern keep the game cock in food."
"And no one can tamper with the light, I suppose?"
"As the Señor says. The good God forbid! The cords by which it is lowered hang so high that no one can reach them—not even Natalio, who, as all know, is a giant."
"And you could not get that ladder, Andres?"
"As the Señor says, when Gremo carries it a mileaway, and puts it inside the enclosure. He is a good shot, though so old. There is only one better in all the district. Besides, there are ghosts between the asta and the cannuca."
Don Gil stood for a moment lost in thought.
"I suppose El Rey needs you at home, Andres. I should not keep—"
"That is quite true; I do, very much, Señor."
The thin little voice came from behind the giant ceiba round which the circular end of the veranda had been built.
"You here, El Rey?"
A slight, childish figure emerged slowly from behind the giant trunk and leaned against its corrugated bark.
"El Rey becomes weary staying down there in the palm hut, Señor. There is nothing to do but watch the pajara bobo, and the parrots, and listen to river, going, going, going! Always going! Has Roseta been here, Señor?"
Don Gil shook his head. He gazed sadly at the child.
"When do you think she will come, Señor?"
"I know not, little one; perhaps to-morrow."
The boy raised his hand and smoothed down his thin hair. The hand trembled like that of an old man. His cheek was sunken, his lips colourless. He lifted his large eyes to Don Gil's face.
"They always tell me that. Mañana, mañana; always mañana!"
He sighed patiently, looking at the Señor, as if the great gentleman could help him in his trouble.
Andres turned away his head. He gazed across the valley toward the hills beyond which lay Troja. That was where they had gone to see Dondy Jeem, he and his pretty Roseta—Roseta, who had tossed her head and shaken the gold hoops in her ears when Dondy Jeem had kissed his hand to the spectators. He had turned always to the seats where Roseta and Andres, stupid Andres—he knew that now—sat. Then Roseta had given El Rey to the ever-willing arms of Andres, and fixed her eyes on Dondy Jeem and watched his graceful poise, the white satin shoes descending so easily and securely upon the swaying rope, the long pole held so lightly in the strong hands. It had been before those days that Roseta used to call the child her king. Poor El Rey! He looked a sorry enough little king to-day, a dethroned little king, with his pinched face and trembling fingers and wistful eyes, searching the world in vain for the kingdom which had been wrested from him.
"How did you get out of the rancho, El Rey?"
"That Señorita from El Cuco, she let me out."
"You should be in bed, muchachito."
"But it is lonely, Señor, in that bed. That isRoseta's bed. I turn that way and this way. It is hot. I look for Roseta. She is not there. A man look in at the door once; he frighten me. To-day a hairy beast came. He push back the shutter. When he was gone, I ran. I stumble, I fell over bajucos. I caught my foot in a root. That would not matter if I could find Roseta. I would rather be here with the Señor than at the river."
El Rey pushed a confiding little hand into Don Gil's palm. Don Gil sat down and took the child between his knees.
"Andres, do you shoot as well as of old?"
"I shoot fairly well, Señor."
The Señor laughed. He had seen Andres at only the last fair, less than a year ago, shoot, at eighty yards, a Mexican dollar from between the fingers of Dondy Jeem. The scene recurred to Andres. "Had it been but his heart!" he muttered, dully. And then, with a look at Don Gil, "There are few who cannot do one thing well, Señor."
"You are far too modest, Andres."
Don Gil glanced again at the lantern which Andres had set down upon the veranda rail. When he had first caught sight of that lantern in Andres's hand his difficulty had vanished like the morning mist. With a flash of thought, rather of many thoughts in one train, he had seen the proceedingsof the evening to come mapped out like a plan of campaign.
"Will you do something for me, Andres?"
"The good God knows; anything that I can, Señor. But what I should prefer would be a night when the moon shines. He could not then see me behind the old ironwood, and I could distinguish him better when there is a little light. Is it the Señor E'cobeda, Señor?"
Don Gil laughed again. He put El Rey gently from him, and arose. He walked to the corner of the veranda and back again. Andres took El Rey tenderly up in his arms, the child laid his hot head on Andres's shoulder.
"When will Roseta come?" he whispered. With the unreason and trustful selfishness of childhood, he did not see that if his heart was breaking, the heart of Andres had already broken.
"No, Andres; it is not Escobeda. I do not hire assassins, even for such a villain as he. But I need a servant as faithful and as dumb as if that were my custom. I want something done at once, Andres, and I truly believe that you are the only one upon all the coloñia whom I can trust. Come in here with me. No! Set the child down; he will listen and repeat."
"El Rey will not listen at nothing, Señor," said the child. He clung tightly to Andres's neck.