CHAPTER IX.

THE WAY LAYERS.

"What do I say to that offer?" returned Gladsden; "That it is a queer

one, not to say a mad one! Señor, I am morally certain that you would

lose your ship."

"You mean, you refuse," triumphantly, whilst the auditors smiled

flatteringly on their leader for having "bluffed" the foreigner.

"Oh, no, since you insist on it," replied the latter, coldly, though he

felt his heart contract within him; "but since I have set out to show I

can play cards, I'll sell you the present turn up for ten thousand!"

"Don't! Don't do anything of the sort!" interrupted the host, turning

pale. "I'll give you fifteen thousand for it myself!"

"Thank you; but now, since an outsider has intervened, I must stick to

it myself."

"You are very right," remarked Captain Matasiete, with a scowl and an

angry glance at the banker; "for it is the right one."

Gladsden had tossed the card down without looking at it.

"Cinco de Basto!" exclaimed all the lookers-on in the one voice.

"Prodigious! What a splendid game!"

"You were right, right along, about your luck--_at cards_!" observed

don Aníbal, with the most genial smile he could beam with. "The _Little

Joker_ is yours."

Gladsden had truly won, for there was the requisite card before him. He

had been inwardly persuaded when he vaunted so boldly that he was bound

to lose, and had only accepted his mortal enemy's challenge out of

recklessness. The emotion he experienced in payment of his false glory

was so deep for a couple of moments that he was like one stunned, and

stared, still, with no possibility to get out a word.

In that brief interval the banker had conferred with the

bandit-gambler, and to some purpose, moreover, for the latter loudly

set to felicitating the Englishman on his continued good fortune; and,

as at the end of his speech don Stefano put before him the corner of a

sheet of paper, on which he had hastily written some lines, he went on

to say:

"Gaming debts must be settled in four-and-twenty hours. Here is the

transfer of my property in the Chilian goleta, the _Little Joker_, as

she floats at this moment, with all she holds, in consideration of the

sum of twenty-five thousand dollars, which I hereby acknowledge, before

all this honourable company, to have received!"

As Gladsden, from the tone and the railing glances of more than one

hearer of this pretty little presentation speech, conceived no doubt

whatever that he would never be let set foot on the deck of the

_Burlonilla_, even if he reached Guaymas intact, he made no to-do about

accepting the paper, and merely faltered a simple remonstrance at what

he had said being taken too seriously.

"Oh, don't be scrupulous," said don Stefano, with a kind of pride in

his friend, "the sum which our Chilian gentleman has lost against you,

though apparently no joking matter, is nothing to him in reality. I

know something of his pecuniary standing, and I assure you, if he will

pardon the breach of banking confidence, that don Aníbal Cristobal de

Luna y Almagro y Pizarro de Cortes has not suffered the least injury in

purse!"

He hardly had the title pat himself, but nobody noticed the error, or

cared to correct it.

It was, perhaps, pardonable in the loser, after all the fine words, to

be glum, but a mournfulness infested the entire assembly, and the few

gentlemen whom Gladsden charitably looked upon as innocent neighbours,

merchants, or planters, oozed away gradually. Then the remainder, in

more probability the allies or sworn adherents of the salteador leader,

went forth in a mass.

The banker offered to house the English guest till morning, and he

pretended to accept the offer, which had the result of precipitating

the farewell of don Aníbal, _alias_ Matasiete. Thereupon, alone with

don Stefano, the Englishman refused a nightcap of French brandy, and

as his servant, a man engaged at Guaymas, had entered to receive his

orders for the night, he seemed suddenly to have gone right round to

the other point of the compass, and said resolutely:

"Ruben, we are going at once back to town. While I come down and wait

at the gate, bring the mules!"

Don Stefano began a courteous remonstrance, but the Englishman, after

having stood undaunted among a score of bandits, was not going to

be prevailed on by one single opponent. So he smiled knowingly, and

replied,

"I never sleep in the house of a friend, or in a strange bed. I have

infallibly the nightmare--one of those bad sleeps, my dear banker, when

a man fires off his revolver, and lays about him with the leg of a

table so as to inflict damages that would make your quickest accountant

sit up overnight to reckon. You had better let me go."

Don Stefano still mumbled something.

"Perhaps I shall overtake our dear don Aníbal on the road, and if we do

meet the chances are that the time will be short for the rest of the

way to him, for I want to make myself very agreeable to your honourable

friend."

There was a mighty muster of servants, though it was better than three

in the morning, at the door, and Gladsden who saw that the two mules

were coming round in the courtyard, in charge of his faithful man,

seriously contemplated seizing don Stefano by the collar and holding

him as a buckler, whilst he cowed the domestics with his revolver and

rushed for the saddle. But his host made no sign, and so the Englishman

mounted and rode out into the road without any bar.

He reasoned, therefore, that he would be attacked on the highway by

the bandits on their return to cut his throat in the villa, since don

Stefano's servitors were above the business.

Hence he was rather relieved than startled, about an hour before

sunrise, when he heard a couple of gunshots not far ahead of him and

his man. The latter was so frightened, or so much of an accomplice in

the ambush, that he belabored his mule, turned and vanished in the

darkness, increasing his speed with a shout of terror as there rushed

after him a horseman who had just passed Gladsden with the dizzy

rapidity of a meteor, screaming, "_Muerte, hombre_--murder ahead man!"

Pretty well on the alert, and his eyes quite accustomed to the

darkness, to say nothing of the night breeze off the sea having blown

away the last trace of the long stay in the heated room, Gladsden

divined that the fugitive had been mistaken for himself, and had been

fired upon by his own chosen assassins.

There was a clump of trees ahead, from around which the fleeing

cavalier had come. On the instant, Gladsden imagined a trick. He flung

himself off his mule, to whose flank he applied a stroke of his whip,

which started it off not leisurely, and lay down, half across the road.

He had his revolver ready in his hand. There was a yellow stripe in his

riding cloak, which made him tolerably distinguishable in the gloom.

Way layers have good eyes. Two men, advancing on foot, speedily spied

this stumbling block, and were so flattered by that evidence, as they

conceived it, to the goodness of their aim, that they forbore to delay

to recharge their guns which they carried easily "at the trail."

One of them was more eager than the other to examine the prey, and

threw himself before the second. Gladsden judged this an excellent

opportunity to kill two birds with one bullet, on the expectation of

the missile perforating the foremost and then burying itself in his

comrade. He waited only long enough to see his teeth gleaming in a

savage and gleeful smile, and pulled the trigger.

The robber uttered a scream of pain and surprise, and fell back upon

his mate, who instinctively pushed him aside so that he measured his

length in the deep water cart furrows. The other, paralysed with fear,

was not at all disenchanted by seeing the supposed victim of their

double shots rise and present the revolver of which one chamber had

furnished a quietus to his friend, whilst he said, having seen the

man's face in the flash--

"Good morning, Master Ignacio, otherwise the lieutenant of our dear

acquaintance, don String of names, chief of the bandoleros, and skipper

of the _Little Joker_. If you will just give me the address of your

sister, so that I can deliver your last dying message, and that of

your dear brother, Pepillo, I shall require nothing further before I

rid me of your company!"

Ignacio gave a howl of rage which exemplified the reason for his

nickname of "the Mountain Cat," at facing the avowed witness of his

brother's decease, the probable slayer, but the revolver daunted him,

and the allusion to his sister riveted him to the spot, so that he did

not budge, even so much as an eye, to look at his companion who gave a

last groan in the rut.

As Mr. Gladsden had no notion of ever again bestowing so much of his

time on this nocturnal cavalier, he now designed to inform him about

the inheritance of his brother bandit. With a quick transition of

feeling, the hearer ejaculated a prayer, luckily short, and springing

on the speaker dragged him into the thicket at the roadside.

"Oh, gentleman!" he cried, "You must not be seen by the others. They

line the road to the town. You will surely be killed even running the

gauntlet, though we believed you would be stifled in your own bedroom

at don Stefano's, but you shall not be harmed now! I swear it!" he

added vehemently. "You are under the charge of the Saints; your escape

from our bullets showed that!"

Gladsden did not trouble just then to undeceive him in his conceit

about the horseman who had drawn the fire of the ambuscade.

"Come! You are not so bad a fellow, I grant!"

"And you are a brave heart, Señor. I watched you close while you played

the captain disguised."

"Oh, were you there? Now well, I won't say fraternal love would make

you help me, but there is a prospect of a bushel of pearls, for your

sister, the orphans, and yourself, and, in faith--as you would say--I

honestly believe you had better be my safe guide to the port! What say

you?"

"It's a bargain, Señor. Besides--" (here he could not help laughing

heartily, though in a low tone) "with me you can trick that humbug, the

captain, lovely!"

"In what way? Will he not burst with vexation if I slip past his dogs

unhurt?"

"He will with disappointment when you sail away in the _Burlonilla_."

"I believe that."

"And that you may do, with my help, if we are on the alert! I am the

chief officer of that barque."

"Which is no more Chilian than you are an honest man."

"Pardon me, Señor! I am honest on occasion, and I will deliver you up

the ship if I may still retain my post aboard."

"It strikes me, man, that it is you who are making conditions."

But the Englishman, who realised all the danger of his situation, had

not used an angry tone. The bold and merry rogue accordingly proceeded.

"¡Caramba! What is there strange in that? I save your life; you

safeguard my neck! Besides, on land, here, I am not afraid of our

judges; but on the sea, if the American naval officers catch us, I have

always counted it as certain that I should hang!"

"I am with you there!"

"Let me go with you, there, Señor! I will not only pilot you to the

town, but do so on the cutter, and take you to the pearl store, surely,

steadfastly, under your honour's direction!"

"Your cool impudence is much to my taste. See, day is peeping. Lead on!

And if we reach the town without having to burn powder or take the edge

off a knife, you have excellent hopes of being my lieutenant on the

cocky little craft."

"She's a beauty! But, silence! They come, and will tread on poor

Ricardo; so, away!"