Rainbow's End. Rex Beach

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      "No doubt," the widow agreed. "Times have been hard since poor

       Esteban's death."

      "What a terrible calamity that was! I shudder when I think of it," said he. "I was his guest on the night previous, you remember? In fact, I witnessed his wager of the negro girl, Evangelina—the root of the whole tragedy. Well, well! Who would have believed that old slave, her father, would have run mad at losing her? A shocking affair, truly! and one I shall never get out of my mind."

      "Shocking, yes. But what do you think of a rich man, like Esteban, who would leave his family destitute? Who would die without revealing the place where he had stored his treasure?"

      Dona Isabel, it was plain, felt her wrongs keenly; she spoke with as much spirit as if her husband had permitted himself to be killed purely out of spite toward her.

      De Castano shook his round bullet head, saying with some impatience: "You still believe in that treasure, eh? My dear senora, the only treasure Varona left was his adorable children—and your admirable self." Immediately the speaker regretted his words, for he remembered, too late, that Dona Isabel was reputed to be a trifle unbalanced on this subject of the Varona treasure.

      "I do not believe; I KNOW!" the widow answered, with more than necessary vehemence. "What became of all Esteban's money if he did not bury it? He never gave any to me, for he was a miser. You know, as well as I, that he carried on a stupendous business in slaves and sugar, and it was common knowledge that he hid every peso for fear of his enemies. But where? WHERE? That is the question."

      "You, if any one, should know, after all the years you have spent in hunting for it," the merchant observed. "Dios mio! Almost before Esteban was buried you began the search. People said you were going to tear this house down."

      "Well, I never found a trace. I had holes dug in the gardens, too."

      "You see? No, senora, it is possible to hide anything except money. No man can conceal that where another will not find it."

      Isabel's face had grown hard and avaricious, even during this brief talk; her eyes were glowing; plainly she was as far as ever from giving up her long-cherished conviction.

      "I don't ask anybody to believe the story," she said, resentfully. "All the same, it is true. There are pieces of Spanish gold and silver coins, in boxes bound with iron and fitted with hasps and staples; packages of gems; pearls from the Caribbean as large as plums. Oh? Sebastian told me all about it."

      "Of course, of course! I shall not argue the matter."' Don Mario dismissed the subject with a wave of his plump hand. "Now, Dona Isabel—"

      "As if it were not enough to lose that treasure," the widow continued, stormily, "the Government must free all our slaves. Tse! Tse! And now that there is no longer a profit in sugar, my plantations—"

      "No profit in sugar? What are you saying?" queried the caller.

      "Oh, you have a way of prospering! What touches your fingers turns to gold. But you are not at the mercy of an administrador."

      "Precisely! I am my own manager. If your crops do not pay, then Pancho Cueto is cheating you. He is capable of it. Get rid of him. But I didn't come here to talk about Esteban's hidden treasure, nor his plantations, nor Pancho Cueto. I came here to talk about your step-daughter, Rosa."

      "So?" Dona Isabel looked up quickly.

      "She interests me. She is more beautiful than the stars." Don Mario rolled his eyes toward the high ceiling, which, like the sky, was tinted a vivid cerulean blue. "She personifies every virtue; she is—delectable." He pursed his wet lips, daintily picked a kiss from between them with his thumb and finger, and snapped it into the air.

      Inasmuch as Isabel had always hated the girl venomously, she did not trust herself to comment upon her caller's enthusiasm.

      "She is now eighteen," the fat suitor went on, ecstatically, "and so altogether charming—But why waste time in pretty speeches? I have decided to marry her."

      De Castano plucked a heavily scented silk handkerchief from his pocket and wiped a beading of moisture from his brow and upper lip. He had a habit of perspiring when roused from his usual lethargy.

      "Rosa has a will of her own," guardedly ventured the stepmother.

      Don Mario broke out, testily: "Naturally; so have we all. Now let us speak plainly. You know me. I am a person of importance. I am rich enough to afford what I want, and I pay well. You understand? Well, then, you are Rosa's guardian and you can bend her to your desires."

      "If that were only so!" exclaimed the woman. "She and Esteban—what children! What tempers!—Just like their father's! They have never liked me; they disobey me at every opportunity; they exercise the most diabolical ingenuity in making my life miserable. They were to be their father's heirs, you know, and they blame me for his death, for our poverty, and for all the other misfortunes that have overtaken us. We live like cats and dogs."

      Don Mario had been drumming his fat fingers impatiently upon the arm of his chair. Now he exclaimed:

      "Your pardon, senora, but I am just now very little interested in your domestic relations; they do not thrill me—as my own prospective happiness does. What you say about Rosa only makes me more eager, for I loathe a sleepy woman. Now tell me, is she—Has she any-affairs of the heart?"

      "N-no, unless perhaps a flirtation with that young American, Juan

       O'Reilly." Dona Isabel gave the name its Spanish pronunciation of

       "O'Rail-ye."

      "Juan O'Reilly? O'Reilly? Oh yes! But what has he to offer a woman? He is little more than a clerk."

      "That is what I tell her. Oh, it hasn't gone far as yet."

      "Good!" Don Mario rose to leave, for the exertion of his ride had made him thirsty. "You may name your own reward for helping me and I will pay it the day Rosa marries me. Now kindly advise her of my intentions and tell her I shall come to see her soon."

      It was quite true that Johnnie O'Reilly—or "The O'Reilly," as his friends called him—had little in the way of worldly advantage to offer any girl, and it was precisely because of this fact that he had accepted a position here in Cuba, where, from the very nature of things, promotion was likely to be more rapid than in the New York office of his firm. He had come to this out-of-the-way place prepared to live the lonely life of an exile, if an O'Reilly could be lonely anywhere, and for a brief time he had been glum enough.

      But the O'Reillys, from time immemorial, had been born and bred to exile; it was their breath, their meat and drink, and this particular member of the clan thrived upon it quite as well as had the other Johnnies and Michaels and Andys who had journeyed to far shores. The O'Reillys were audacious men, a bit too heedless of their own good, perhaps; a bit too light-hearted readily to impress a grave world with their varied abilities, but sterling men, for all that, ambitious men, men with lime in their bones and possessed of a high and ready chivalry that made friends for them wherever their wandering feet strayed. Spain, France, and the two Americas had welcomed O'Reillys of one sort or another; even Cuba had the family name written large upon her scroll. So Johnnie, of New York and Matanzas, although at first he felt himself a stranger in a strange land, was not so considered by the Cubans.

      A dancing eye speaks every language; a singing СКАЧАТЬ