In all the magnificence of medieval Spanish and New World costume such
as was still affected by certain of the great haciendados of Panama,
Torres rode along the beach-road to the home of the Solanos. Running
with him, at so easy a lope that it promised an extension that would
outspeed the best of Torres’ steed, was the great white hound that had
followed him down the subterranean river. As Torres turned to take the
winding road up the hill to the hacienda, he passed Yi Poon, who had
paused to let the old crone gather strength. He merely noticed the
strange couple as dirt of the common people. The hauteur that he put on
with his magnificence of apparel forbade that he should betray any
interest further than an unseeing glance.
But him Yi Poon noted with slant Oriental eyes that missed no details.
And Yi Poon thought: He looks very rich. He is a friend of the Solanos.
He rides to the house. He may even be a lover of the Senorita
Leoncia.—Or a worsted rival for her love. In almost any case, he might
be expected to buy the secret of the Senorita Leoncia’s birth, and he
certainly looks rich, most rich.
Inside the hacienda, assembled in the living room, were the returned
adventurers and all the Solanos. The Queen, taking her turn in piecing
out the narrative of all that had occurred, with flashing eyes was
denouncing Torres for his theft of her jewels and describing his fall
into the whirlpool before the onslaught of the hound, when Leoncia, at
the window with Henry, uttered a sharp exclamation.
“Speak of the devil!” said Henry. “Here comes Torres himself.”
“Me first!” Francis cried, doubling his fist and flexing his biceps
significantly.
“No,” decreed Leoncia. “He is a wonderful liar. He is a very wonderful
liar, as we’ve all found out. Let us have some fun. He is dismounting
now. Let the four of us disappear.—Father!” With a wave of hand she
indicated Enrico and all his sons. “You will sit around desolated over
the loss of me. This scoundrel Torres will enter. You will be thirsty
for information. He will tell you no one can guess what astounding lies
about us. As for us, we’ll hide behind the screen there.—Come! All of
you!”
And, catching the Queen by the hand and leading the way, with her eyes
she commanded Francis and Henry to follow to the hiding place.
And Torres entered upon a scene of sorrow which had been so recently
real that Enrico and his sons had no difficulty in acting it. Enrico
started up from his chair in eagerness of welcome and sank weakly back.
Torres caught the other’s hand in both his own and manifested deep
sympathy and could not speak from emotion.
“Alas!” he finally managed heart-brokenly. “They are dead. She is dead,
your beautiful daughter, Leoncia. And the two Gringo Morgans are dead
with her. As Ricardo, there, must know, they died in the heart of the
Maya Mountain.
“It is the home of mystery,” he continued, after giving due time for the
subsidence of the first violent outburst of Enrico’s grief. “I was with
them when they died. Had they followed my counsel, they would all have
lived. But not even Leoncia would listen to the old friend of the
Solanos. No, she must listen to the two Gringos. After incredible
dangers I won my way out through the heart of the mountain, gazed down
into the Valley of Lost Souls, and returned into the mountain to find
them dying——”
Here, pursued by an Indian man-servant, the white hound bounded into the
room, trembling and whining in excitement as with its nose it quested
the multitudinous scents of the room that advertised his mistress.
Before he could follow up to where the Queen hid behind the screen,
Torres caught him by the neck and turned him over to a couple of the
Indian house-men to hold.
“Let the brute remain,” said Torres. “I will tell you about him
afterward. But first look at this.” He pulled forth a handful of gems.
“I knocked on the doors of the dead, and, behold, the Maya treasure is
mine. I am the richest man in Panama, in all the Americas. I shall be
powerful——”
“But you were with my daughter when she died,” Enrico interrupted to
sob. “Had she no word for me?”
“Yes,” Torres sobbed back, genuinely affected by the death-scene of his
fancy. “She died with your name on her lips. Her last words were——”
But, with bulging eyes, he failed to complete his sentence, for he was
watching Henry and Leoncia, in the most natural, casual manner in the
world stroll down the room, immersed in quiet conversation. Not noticing
Torres, they crossed over to the window still deep in talk.
“You were telling me her last words were ...?” Enrico prompted.
“I ... I have lied to you,” Torres stammered, while he sparred for time
in which to get himself out of the scrape. “I was confident that they
were as good as dead and would never find their way to the world again.
And I thought to soften the blow to you, Senor Solano, by telling what I
am confident would be her last words were she dying. Also, this man
Francis, whom you have elected to like. I thought it better for you to
believe him dead than know him for the Gringo cur he is.”
Here the hound barked joyfully at the screen, giving the two Indians all
they could do to hold him back. But Torres, instead of suspecting,
blundered on to his fate.
“In the Valley there is a silly weak demented creature who pretends to
read the future by magic. An altogether atrocious and blood-thirsty
female is she. I am not denying that in physical beauty she is
beautiful. For beautiful she is, as a centipede is beautiful to those
who think centipedes are beautiful. You see what has happened. She has
sent Henry and Leoncia out of the Valley by some secret way, while
Francis has elected to remain there with her in sin——for sin it is,
since there exists in the valley no Catholic priest to make their
relation lawful. Oh, not that Francis is infatuated with the terrible
creature. But he is infatuated with a paltry treasure the creature
possesses. And this is the Gringo Francis you have welcomed into the
bosom of your family, the slimy snake of a Gringo Francis who has even
dared to sully the fair Leoncia by casting upon her the looks of a
lover. Oh, I know of what I speak. I have seen——”
A joyous outburst from the hound drowned his voice, and he beheld
Francis and the Queen, as deep in conversation as the two who had
preceded them, walk down the room. The Queen paused to caress the hound,
who stood so tall against her that his forepaws, on her shoulders,
elevated his head above hers; while Torres licked his suddenly dry lips
and vainly cudgeled his brains for some fresh lie with which to
extricate himself from the impossible situation.
Enrico Solano was the first to break down in mirth. All his sons joined
him, while tears of sheer delight welled out of his eyes.
“I could have married her myself,” Torres sneered malignantly. “She
begged me on her knees.”
“And now,” said Francis, “I shall save you all a dirty job by throwing
him out.”
But Henry, advancing swiftly, asserted:
“I like dirty jobs equally. And this is a dirty job particularly to my
liking.”
Both the Morgans were about to fall on Torres, when the Queen held up
her hand.
“First,” she said, “let him return to me, from there in his belt, the
dagger he stole from me.”
“Ah,” said Enrico, when this had been accomplished. “Should he not also
return to you, lovely lady, the gems he filched?”
Torres did not hesitate. Dipping into his pocket, he laid a handful of
the jewels on the table. Enrico glanced at the Queen, who merely waited
expectantly.
“More,” said Enrico.
And three more of the beautiful uncut stones Torres added to the others
on the table.
“Would you search me like a common pickpocket?” he demanded in frantic
indignation, turning both trousers’ pockets emptily inside out.
“Me,” said Francis.
“I insist,” said Henry.
“Oh, all very well,” Francis conceded. “Then we’ll do it together. We
can throw him farther off the steps.”
Acting as one, they clutched Torres by collar and trousers and started
in a propulsive rush for the door.
All others in the room ran to the windows to behold Torres’ exit; but
Enrico, quickest of all, gained a window first. And, afterward, into the
middle of the room, the Queen scooped the gems from the table into both
her hands, and gave the double handful to Leoncia, saying:
“From Francis and me to you and Henry——your wedding present.”
* * * * *
Yi Poon, having left the crone by the beach and crept back to peer at
the house from the bushes, chuckled gratifiedly to himself when he saw
the rich caballero thrown off the steps with such a will as to be sent
sprawling far out into the gravel. But Yi Poon was too clever to let on
that he had seen. Hurrying away, he was half down the hill ere overtaken
by Torres on his horse.
The celestial addressed him humbly, and Torres, in his general rage,
lifted his riding whip savagely to slash him across the face. But Yi
Poon did not quail.
“The Senorita Leoncia,” he said quickly, and arrested the blow. “I have
great secret.” Torres waited, the whip still lifted as a threat. “You
like ‘m some other man marry that very nice Senorita Leoncia?”
Torres dropped the whip to his side.
“Go on,” he commanded harshly. “What is the secret?”
“You no want ‘m other man marry that Senorita Leoncia?”
“Suppose I don’t?”
“Then, suppose you have secret, you can stop other man.”
“Well, what is it? Spit it out.”
“But first,” Yi Poon shook his head, “you pay me six hundred dollars
gold. Then I tell you secret.”
“I’ll pay you,” Torres said readily, although without the slightest
thought of keeping his word. “You tell me first, then, if no lie, I’ll
pay you.—See!”
From his breast pocket he drew a wallet bulging with paper bills; and Yi
Poon, uneasily acquiescing, led him down the road to the crone on the
beach.
“This old woman,” he explained, “she no lie. She sick woman. Pretty soon
she die. She is afraid. She talk to priest along Colon. Priest say she
must tell secret, or die and go to hell. So she no lie.”
“Well, if she doesn’t lie, what is it she must tell?”
“You pay me?”
“Sure. Six hundred gold.”
“Well, she born Cadiz in old country. She number one servant, number one
baby nurse. One time she take job with English family that come
traveling in her country. Long time she work with that family. She go
back along England. Then, bime by——you know Spanish blood very hot——she
get very mad. That family have one little baby girl. She steal little
baby girl and run away to Panama. That little baby girl Senor Solano he
adopt just the same his own daughter. He have plenty sons and no
daughter. So that little baby girl he make his daughter. But that old
woman she no tell what name belong little girl’s family. That family
very high blood, very rich, everybody in England know that family. That
family’s name ‘Morgan.’ You know that name? In Colon comes San Antonio
men who say Senor Solano’s daughter marry English Gringo named Morgan.
That Gringo Morgan the Senorita Leoncia’s brother.”
“Ah!” said Torres with maleficent delight.
“You pay me now six hundred gold,” said Yi Poon.
“Thank you for the fool you are,” said Torres with untold mockery in his
voice. “You will learn better perhaps some day the business of selling
secrets. Secrets are not shoes or mahogany timber. A secret told is no
more than a whisper in the air. It comes. It goes. It is gone. It is a
ghost. Who has seen it? You can claim back shoes or mahogany timber. You
can never claim back a secret when you have told it.”
“We talk of ghosts, you and I,” said Yi Poon calmly. “And the ghosts are
gone. I have told you no secret. You have dreamed a dream. When you tell
men they will ask you who told you. And you will say, ‘Yi Poon.’ But Yi
Poon will say, ‘No.’ And they will say, ‘Ghosts,’ and laugh at you.”
Yi Poon, feeling the other yield to his superior subtlety of thought,
deliberately paused.
“We have talked whispers,” he resumed after a few seconds. “You speak
true when you say whispers are ghosts. When I sell secrets I do not sell
ghosts. I sell shoes. I sell mahogany timber. My proofs are what I sell.
They are solid. On the scales they will weigh weight. You can tear the
paper of them, which is legal paper of record, on which they are
written. Some of them, not paper, you can bite with your teeth and break
your teeth upon. For the whispers are already gone like morning mists. I
have proofs. You will pay me six hundred gold for the proofs, or men
will laugh at you for lending your ears to ghosts.”
“All right,” Torres capitulated, convinced. “Show me the proofs that I
can tear and bite.”
“Pay me the six hundred gold.”
“When you have shown me the proofs.”
“The proofs you can tear and bite are yours after you have put the six
hundred gold into my hand. You promise. A promise is a whisper, a ghost.
I do not do business with ghost money. You pay me real money I can tear
or bite.”
And in the end Torres surrendered, paying in advance for what did
satisfy him when he had examined the documents, the old letters, the
baby locket and the baby trinkets. And Torres not only assured Yi Poon
that he was satisfied, but paid him in advance, on the latter’s
insistence, an additional hundred gold to execute a commission for him.
* * * * *
Meanwhile, in the bathroom which connected their bedrooms, clad in fresh
underlinen and shaving with safety razors, Henry and Francis were
singing:
“Back to back against the mainmast,
Held at bay the entire crew....”
In her charming quarters, aided and abetted by a couple of Indian
seamstresses, Leoncia, half in mirth, half in sadness, and in all
sweetness and wholesomeness of generosity, was initiating the Queen into
the charmingness of civilized woman’s dress. The Queen, a true woman to
her heart’s core, was wild with delight in the countless pretties of
texture and adornment with which Leoncia’s wardrobe was stored. It was a
maiden frolic for the pair of them, and a stitch here and a take-up
there modified certain of Leoncia’s gowns to the Queen’s slenderness.
“No,” said Leoncia judicially. “You will not need a corset. You are the
one woman in a hundred for whom a corset is not necessary. You have the
roundest lines for a thin woman that I ever saw. You ...” Leoncia
paused, apparently deflected by her need for a pin from her dressing
table, for which she turned; but at the same time she swallowed the
swelling that choked in her throat, so that she was able to continue:
“You are a beautiful bride, and Francis can only grow prouder of you.”
In the bathroom, Francis, finished shaving first, broke off the song to
respond to the knock at his bedroom door and received a telegram from
Fernando, the next to the youngest of the Solano brothers. And Francis
read:
_Important your immediate return. Need more margins. While market
very weak but a strong attack on all your stocks except Tampico
Petroleum, which is strong as ever. Wire me when to expect you.
Situation is serious. Think I can hold out if you start to return at
once. Wire me at once._
_Bascom._
In the living room the two Morgans found Enrico and his sons opening
wine.
“Having but had my daughter restored to me,” Enrico said, “I now lose
her again. But it is an easier loss, Henry. To-morrow shall be the
wedding. It cannot take place too quickly. It is sure, right now, that
that scoundrel Torres is whispering all over San Antonio Leoncia’s
latest unprotected escapade with you.”
Ere Henry could express his gratification, Leoncia and the Queen
entered. He held up his glass and toasted:
“To the bride!”
Leoncia, not understanding, raised a glass from the table and glanced to
the Queen.
“No, no,” Henry said, taking her glass with the intention of passing it
to the Queen.
“No, no,” said Enrico. “Neither shall drink the toast which is
incomplete. Let me make it:
“To the brides!”
“You and Henry are to be married to-morrow,” Alesandro explained to
Leoncia.
Unexpected and bitter though the news was, Leoncia controlled herself,
and dared with assumed jollity to look Francis in the eyes while she
cried:
“Another toast! To the bridegrooms!”
Difficult as Francis had found it to marry the Queen and maintain
equanimity, he now found equanimity impossible at the announcement of
the immediate marriage of Leoncia. Nor did Leoncia fail to observe how
hard he struggled to control himself. His suffering gave her secret joy,
and with a feeling almost of triumph she watched him take advantage of
the first opportunity to leave the room.
Showing them his telegram and assuring them that his fortune was at
stake, he said he must get off an answer and asked Fernando to arrange
for a rider to carry it to the government wireless at San Antonio.
Nor was Leoncia long in following him. In the library she came upon him,
seated at the reading table, his telegram unwritten, while his gaze was
fixed upon a large photograph of her which he had taken from its place
on top the low bookshelves. All of which was too much for her. Her
involuntary gasping sob brought him to his feet in time to catch her as
she swayed into his arms. And before either knew it their lips were
together in fervent expression.
Leoncia struggled and tore herself away, gazing upon her lover with
horror.
“This must stop, Francis!” she cried. “More: you cannot remain here for
my wedding. If you do, I shall not be responsible for my actions. There
is a steamer leaves San Antonio for Colon. You and your wife must sail
on it. You can easily catch passage on the fruit boats to New Orleans
and take train to New York. I love you!—you know it.”
“The Queen and I are not married!” Francis pleaded, beside himself,
overcome by what had taken place. “That heathen marriage before the
Altar of the Sun was no marriage. In neither deed nor ceremony are we
married. I assure you of that, Leoncia. It is not too late——”
“That heathen marriage has lasted you thus far,” she interrupted him
with quiet firmness. “Let it last you to New York, or, at least, to ...
Colon.”
“The Queen will not have any further marriage after our forms,” Francis
said. “She insists that all her female line before her has been so
married and that the Sun Altar ceremony is sacredly binding.”
Leoncia shrugged her shoulders non-committally, although her face was
stern with resolution.
“Marriage or no,” she replied, “you must go—to-night—the pair of you.
Else I shall go mad. I warn you: I shall not be able to withstand the
presence of you. I cannot, I know I cannot, be able to stand the sight
of you while I am being married to Henry and after I am married to
Henry.—Oh, please, please, do not misunderstand me. I do love Henry, but
not in the ... not in that way ... not in the way I love you. I—and I am
not ashamed of the boldness with which I say it—I love Henry about as
much as you love the Queen; but I love you as I should love Henry, as
you should love the Queen, as I know you do love me.”
She caught his hand and pressed it against her heart.
“There! For the last time! Now go!”
But his arms were around her, and she could not help but yield her lips.
Again she tore herself away, this time fleeing to the doorway. Francis
bowed his head to her decision, then picked up her picture.
“I shall keep this,” he announced.
“You oughtn’t to,” she flashed a last fond smile at him. “You may,” she
added, as she turned and was gone.
* * * * *
Yet Yi Poon had a commission to execute, for which Torres had paid him
one hundred gold in advance. Next morning, with Francis and the Queen
hours departed on their way to Colon, Yi Poon arrived at the Solano
hacienda. Enrico, smoking a cigar on the veranda and very much pleased
with himself and all the world and the way the world was going,
recognized and welcomed Yi Poon as his visitor of the day before. Even
ere they talked, Leoncia’s father had dispatched Alesandro for the five
hundred pesos agreed upon. And Yi Poon, whose profession was trafficking
in secrets, was not averse to selling his secret the second time. Yet
was he true to his salt, in so far as he obeyed Torres’ instructions in
refusing to tell the secret save in the presence of Leoncia and Henry.
“That secret has the string on it,” Yi Poon apologized, after the couple
had been summoned, as he began unwrapping the parcel of proofs. “The
Senorita Leoncia and the man she is going to marry must first, before
anybody else, look at these things. Afterward, all can look.”
“Which is fair, since they are more interested than any of us,” Enrico
conceded grandly, although at the same time he betrayed his eagerness by
the impatience with which he motioned his daughter and Henry to take the
evidence to one side for examination.
He tried to appear uninterested, but his side-glances missed nothing of
what they did. To his amazement, he saw Leoncia suddenly cast down a
legal-appearing document, which she and Henry had read through, and
throw her arms, whole-heartedly and freely about his neck, and
whole-heartedly and freely kiss him on the lips. Next, Enrico saw Henry
step back and exclaim in a dazed, heart-broken way:
“But, my God, Leoncia! This is the end of everything. Never can we be
husband and wife!”
“Eh?” Enrico snorted. “When everything was arranged! What do you mean,
sir? This is an insult! Marry you shall, and marry to-day!”
Henry, almost in stupefaction, looked to Leoncia to speak for him.
“It is against God’s law and man’s,” she said, “for a man to marry his
sister. Now I understand my strange love for Henry. He is my brother. We
are full brother and sister, unless these documents lie.”
And Yi Poon knew that he could take report to Torres that the marriage
would not take place and would never take place.