Part 40 (1/2)
”My father!” cried a startled feminine voice from the doorway.
Then Francesca, her eyes filled with fright, hastened across the porch. She would have thrown her arms around the neck of the manacled man had not the stranger caught her by one arm and held her back.
”How dare you, senor?” panted the girl, turning upon the stranger.
”And who are you?”
”Do not touch this felon with your clean hands,” warned the stranger, with a sternness that was tempered with gentleness.
”Who are you, senor?” the girl insisted.
”Can't you guess?” broke out Tom Reade, wonderingly. ”Senorita Francesca, I helped take care of this man while he was ill in our cook tent. In his fever I heard some words fall from his lips that started me to wondering. But the other day I beheld this gentleman gazing upon you from a distance. In his eyes, as he looked at you, Senorita, I saw a light that I had never seen in the eyes of this manacled brute. Then my guess was turned to knowledge!”
”Then, Senor Reade,” begged the girl, ”who is this man who would hold me back from my--”
”Tell her, sir,” Tom urged the stranger.
”Child,” said the latter, with wonderful gentleness and tenderness, ”I am the real Don Luis Montez--your father!”
”Then who is _he_?” cried Francesca, pointing to the handcuffed Mexican, who had sunk upon a chair looking more dead than alive.
”His true name,” said the stranger, ”is Paulo Rabasco. He was born of good family, but was always dissolute and criminal. Once he was my friend, I am ashamed to say; at least, I believed myself his. We traveled, once, in a part of Mexico in which we were both strangers. While there Rabas...o...b..came engaged in a budding revolution, that was quickly nipped by the central government.
In my efforts to s.h.i.+eld my supposed friend from the consequences of supposed rebellion, I myself became suspected. In the night Rabasco stole my papers, putting his own in my pocket. When the police came they searched us both. I was believed to be Rabasco, and this scoundrel insisted that I was. The papers in our respective pockets seemed to prove it. The papers in mine connected me with the intended rebellion. A swift military trial, and within a few hours I was on my way to serve a life sentence of imprisonment in Yucatan.
”Rabasco, the self-a.s.serted Don Luis, was turned loose. We looked not unlike in those days. Rabasco, as I have since learned, grew a beard. Then he went back to my home. My wife had died within a few days. Most of the old servants had gone. Rabasco, the unutterable scoundrel, set himself up as Don Luis Montez. He imposed on the nurse, and took her away with my infant child whom I had never seen after she was three months old. Rabasco went to the United States as soon as he had established a flimsy t.i.tle to my modest property. In after years he returned, an older and more successful impostor. Yet he feared to live on my estate, dreading that some day his treachery might be discovered. So, still calling himself Don Luis Montez, this scoundrel sold my estate and took my child away to other parts of Mexico. My estate was a modest one. On that foundation this fellow has been building a larger fortune--but fate has overtaken him at last. There are still friends of mine alive who will help me to unmask this scoundrel and prove him Paulo Rabasco. He never would have been known, had I not, after many years, escaped from Yucatan. I did not dare proclaim myself at once, for fear of being arrested as Paulo Rabasco and sent back to Yucatan. But now I no longer fear.
I am Don Luis Montez. I shall prove it without difficulty at last.”
”Then, if this be so, we haven't bought this mining property of the rightful owner,” interposed Mr. Haynes. ”I imagine that the real Don Luis will establish full claim to a property that was founded on his stolen fortune. We shall recover our money from the sham Don Luis, but I fear we shall not be able to obtain this rich mineral property.”
”Tell me the particulars,” begged the real Don Luis.
Tom Reade stated the case fully, though in the fewest words that would accomplish the telling.
”You shall have the property by transferring the purchase price to me after I have recovered this estate at law,” promised the real Don Luis simply.
”But, my dear sir,” objected Mr. Haynes, honestly, ”do you realize that we paid two and a half millions for the property, and that our trusted engineers a.s.sure us that it may be worth more.”
”That makes no difference, Senor,” replied the new Don Luis.
”The money you were first willing to pay is far more money than I shall ever need. I crave only life and my child. If you journeyed down into Mexico, expecting to buy a property at a certain figure, and if you did do it, acting in perfectly good faith, then that is enough. I will ratify the bargain.”