Part 3 (1/2)
”He is smoking a cigar in the bower at the end of the garden,” she answered. ”If you want to see him you will find him there.”
I knew the place in question, and, pa.s.sing through the house, made my way down the garden towards the little summer-house in question.
Seated in it, looking just the same as when I had last seen him, was the Spaniard, Don Guzman de Silvestre.
CHAPTER III
On seeing me Don Guzman sprang to his feet and held out his hand.
”My dear friend,” he cried, ”it is very good of you to come here. I called at your house this afternoon, to learn that you were in London, but that you were expected back this evening. Doubtless you are surprised at seeing me, but when I tell you everything, I fancy your wonderment will cease. Won't you sit down and let me offer you a cigar? A more delightful spot than your village I have never met with.”
I accepted his cigar, and seated myself in the wicker chair he pushed forward for my accommodation. What he was doing in our quiet neighbourhood I could not for the life of me imagine. But when I remembered the questions he had put to me on board the _Pernambuco_, I began to feel my hopes rising. It would be a stroke of luck indeed if he were to offer me a good berth, just at the moment when I needed it so badly.
”And so our mutual acquaintance, Captain Harveston, played you a shabby trick after all?” he remarked after a short pause.
”He could not very well have done me a greater injury,” I replied.
”What is worse, I fear he has not only lost me my berth, but that he has prejudiced other owners against me. Did the s.h.i.+p strike you as being in a badly-kept condition when you were on board?”
”I never saw one better managed in my life,” he answered. ”At the same time I must confess that I am not sorry that Harveston has got you your discharge.”
”As matters stand with me just now, that's not a particularly civil thing to say, is it?” I inquired with some asperity, for, if the truth must be confessed, I was not in a very good humour.
”My friend, I mean it in all kindness,” he answered, ”and presently I will tell you why. Do you remember that story I told you on board, about my acquaintance who had played the vagabond all over the world?”
”The man who was President of one of the Republics of South America?”
I inquired.
”Exactly, the same man.”
”I recollect the story perfectly,” I replied. ”But what makes you speak of that man?”
”Well, what I am going to say to you concerns that man. He has a very strong notion that if he could only get his rival out of the country in question, he might manage to win his way back to his old position.”
”But will the other allow himself to be enticed out of the country?
That seems to me to be the question. Besides, it's one of the rules of the game, is it not, that the President shall never cross the Border?”
”That is certainly so, but circ.u.mstances alter cases. In this affair, if the man cannot be induced to go out of his own free-will, others must make him do so.”
”Rather a risky concern, I should fancy.”
”Everything in this world possesses some element of risk,” he replied, ”whether it is a question of buying Mexican Rails or English Consols, backing a racehorse, or going a long railway journey. In this affair there is a little more than usual, perhaps; at the same time the reward is great.”
”On the other hand, supposing you fail,” I returned, ”what then? You would probably find yourself, in a remarkably short s.p.a.ce of time, standing against a wall, with your eyes bandaged, and half-a-dozen rifles preparing to pump lead into you. Have you taken that fact into your calculations?”
”I have not omitted to think of it,” he replied gravely, as if it were a point worthy of consideration. ”Still, that is not what I am concerned about just at present.”
”But what have I to do with this?” I inquired, for, though it seems wonderful now that I should not have thought of it, I had not the very faintest notion of what he was driving at then.