The Treasure of Pearls: A Romance of Adventures in California

by Gustave Aimard

  CHAPTER IX.

  THE WAY LAYERS.

  "What do I say to that offer?" returned Gladsden; "That it is a queerone, not to say a mad one! Senor, I am morally certain that you wouldlose your ship."

  "You mean, you refuse," triumphantly, whilst the auditors smiledflatteringly on their leader for having "bluffed" the foreigner.

  "Oh, no, since you insist on it," replied the latter, coldly, though hefelt his heart contract within him; "but since I have set out to show Ican 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, turningpale. "I'll give you fifteen thousand for it myself!"

  "Thank you; but now, since an outsider has intervened, I must stick toit myself."

  "You are very right," remarked Captain Matasiete, with a scowl and anangry 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_!" observeddon Anibal, with the most genial smile he could beam with. "The _LittleJoker_ is yours."

  Gladsden had truly won, for there was the requisite card before him. Hehad been inwardly persuaded when he vaunted so boldly that he was boundto lose, and had only accepted his mortal enemy's challenge out ofrecklessness. The emotion he experienced in payment of his false glorywas so deep for a couple of moments that he was like one stunned, andstared, still, with no possibility to get out a word.

  In that brief interval the banker had conferred with thebandit-gambler, and to some purpose, moreover, for the latter loudlyset 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 asheet of paper, on which he had hastily written some lines, he went onto say:

  "Gaming debts must be settled in four-and-twenty hours. Here is thetransfer of my property in the Chilian goleta, the _Little Joker_, asshe floats at this moment, with all she holds, in consideration of thesum of twenty-five thousand dollars, which I hereby acknowledge, beforeall this honourable company, to have received!"

  As Gladsden, from the tone and the railing glances of more than onehearer of this pretty little presentation speech, conceived no doubtwhatever 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 aboutaccepting the paper, and merely faltered a simple remonstrance at whathe had said being taken too seriously.

  "Oh, don't be scrupulous," said don Stefano, with a kind of pride inhis friend, "the sum which our Chilian gentleman has lost against you,though apparently no joking matter, is nothing to him in reality. Iknow something of his pecuniary standing, and I assure you, if he willpardon the breach of banking confidence, that don Anibal Cristobal deLuna y Almagro y Pizarro de Cortes has not suffered the least injury inpurse!"

  He hardly had the title pat himself, but nobody noticed the error, orcared to correct it.

  It was, perhaps, pardonable in the loser, after all the fine words, tobe glum, but a mournfulness infested the entire assembly, and the fewgentlemen whom Gladsden charitably looked upon as innocent neighbours,merchants, or planters, oozed away gradually. Then the remainder, inmore 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 hepretended to accept the offer, which had the result of precipitatingthe farewell of don Anibal, _alias_ Matasiete. Thereupon, alone withdon Stefano, the Englishman refused a nightcap of French brandy, andas his servant, a man engaged at Guaymas, had entered to receive hisorders for the night, he seemed suddenly to have gone right round tothe other point of the compass, and said resolutely:

  "Ruben, we are going at once back to town. While I come down and waitat the gate, bring the mules!"

  Don Stefano began a courteous remonstrance, but the Englishman, afterhaving stood undaunted among a score of bandits, was not going tobe prevailed on by one single opponent. So he smiled knowingly, andreplied,

  "I never sleep in the house of a friend, or in a strange bed. I haveinfallibly the nightmare--one of those bad sleeps, my dear banker, whena man fires off his revolver, and lays about him with the leg of atable so as to inflict damages that would make your quickest accountantsit up overnight to reckon. You had better let me go."

  Don Stefano still mumbled something.

  "Perhaps I shall overtake our dear don Anibal on the road, and if we domeet the chances are that the time will be short for the rest of theway to him, for I want to make myself very agreeable to your honourablefriend."

  There was a mighty muster of servants, though it was better than threein the morning, at the door, and Gladsden who saw that the two muleswere coming round in the courtyard, in charge of his faithful man,seriously contemplated seizing don Stefano by the collar and holdinghim as a buckler, whilst he cowed the domestics with his revolver andrushed for the saddle. But his host made no sign, and so the Englishmanmounted and rode out into the road without any bar.

  He reasoned, therefore, that he would be attacked on the highway bythe bandits on their return to cut his throat in the villa, since donStefano's servitors were above the business.

  Hence he was rather relieved than startled, about an hour beforesunrise, when he heard a couple of gunshots not far ahead of him andhis man. The latter was so frightened, or so much of an accomplice inthe ambush, that he belabored his mule, turned and vanished in thedarkness, increasing his speed with a shout of terror as there rushedafter him a horseman who had just passed Gladsden with the dizzyrapidity of a meteor, screaming, "_Muerte, hombre_--murder ahead man!"

  Pretty well on the alert, and his eyes quite accustomed to thedarkness, to say nothing of the night breeze off the sea having blownaway the last trace of the long stay in the heated room, Gladsdendivined that the fugitive had been mistaken for himself, and had beenfired upon by his own chosen assassins.

  There was a clump of trees ahead, from around which the fleeingcavalier had come. On the instant, Gladsden imagined a trick. He flunghimself 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 hisriding cloak, which made him tolerably distinguishable in the gloom.

  Way layers have good eyes. Two men, advancing on foot, speedily spiedthis stumbling block, and were so flattered by that evidence, as theyconceived it, to the goodness of their aim, that they forbore to delayto recharge their guns which they carried easily "at the trail."One of them was more eager than the other to examine the prey, andthrew himself before the second. Gladsden judged this an excellentopportunity to kill two birds with one bullet, on the expectation ofthe missile perforating the foremost and then burying itself in hiscomrade. He waited only long enough to see his teeth gleaming in asavage and gleeful smile, and pulled the trigger.

  The robber uttered a scream of pain and surprise, and fell back uponhis mate, who instinctively pushed him aside so that he measured hislength in the deep water cart furrows. The other, paralysed with fear,was not at all disenchanted by seeing the supposed victim of theirdouble shots rise and present the revolver of which one chamber hadfurnished a quietus to his friend, whilst he said, having seen theman's face in the flash--

  "Good morning, Master Ignacio, otherwise the lieutenant of our dearacquaintance, don String of names, chief of the bandoleros, and skipperof the _Little Joker_. If you will just give me the address of yoursister, so that I can deliver your last dying message, and that ofyour dear brother, Pepillo, I shall require nothing further before Irid me of your company!"

  Ignacio gave a howl of rage which exemplified the reason for hisnickname of "the Mountain Cat," at facing the avowed witness of hisbrother's decease, the probable slayer, but the revolver daunted him,and the allusion to his sister rivete
d him to the spot, so that he didnot budge, even so much as an eye, to look at his companion who gave alast groan in the rut.

  As Mr. Gladsden had no notion of ever again bestowing so much of histime on this nocturnal cavalier, he now designed to inform him aboutthe inheritance of his brother bandit. With a quick transition offeeling, the hearer ejaculated a prayer, luckily short, and springingon the speaker dragged him into the thicket at the roadside.

  "Oh, gentleman!" he cried, "You must not be seen by the others. Theyline the road to the town. You will surely be killed even running thegauntlet, though we believed you would be stifled in your own bedroomat don Stefano's, but you shall not be harmed now! I swear it!" headded vehemently. "You are under the charge of the Saints; your escapefrom our bullets showed that!"

  Gladsden did not trouble just then to undeceive him in his conceitabout 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, Senor. I watched you close while you playedthe captain disguised."

  "Oh, were you there? Now well, I won't say fraternal love would makeyou help me, but there is a prospect of a bushel of pearls, for yoursister, the orphans, and yourself, and, in faith--as you would say--Ihonestly believe you had better be my safe guide to the port! What sayyou?"

  "It's a bargain, Senor. Besides--" (here he could not help laughingheartily, though in a low tone) "with me you can trick that humbug, thecaptain, lovely!"

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

  "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 thechief officer of that barque."

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

  "Pardon me, Senor! I am honest on occasion, and I will deliver you upthe 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, hadnot used an angry tone. The bold and merry rogue accordingly proceeded.

  "iCaramba! What is there strange in that? I save your life; yousafeguard my neck! Besides, on land, here, I am not afraid of ourjudges; but on the sea, if the American naval officers catch us, I havealways counted it as certain that I should hang!"

  "I am with you there!"

  "Let me go with you, there, Senor! I will not only pilot you to thetown, 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 edgeoff a knife, you have excellent hopes of being my lieutenant on thecocky little craft."

  "She's a beauty! But, silence! They come, and will tread on poorRicardo; so, away!"