The Man and His Kingdom E-Book

E. Phillips Oppenheim

• Herausgeber: Ktoczyta.pl
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

A best-selling author of novels, short stories, magazine articles, translations, and plays, Oppenheim published over 150 books. He is considered one of the originators of the thriller genre, his novels also range from spy thrillers to romance, but all have an undertone of intrigue. „The Man and His Kingdom” is set in an imaginary South American Republic. The hero is a benevolent English millionaire and ex-Member of Parliament who, after many adventures, marries the President’s beautiful daughter and attempts to rules in his stead. It is a brilliant, nervous, intensely dramatic tale of love, intrigue, and revolution in a South American State. If you have a fondness for early 20th century adventure you should find this to be an entertaining read.

Leseprobe

Contents

CHAPTER I. FELLOW-TRAVELLERS

CHAPTER II. A DEAL WITH THE REPUBLIC

CHAPTER III. THE PRESIDENT AT HOME

CHAPTER IV. THE GREEN CARMENITA

CHAPTER V. A MEETING AT THE HOTEL

CHAPTER VI. FOR A MAN'S LIFE

CHAPTER VII. THE PRESIDENT IS FIRM

CHAPTER VIII. BY ORDER OF THE STATE

CHAPTER IX. A DINNER PARTY AT THE PRESIDENCY

CHAPTER X. SAGASTA

CHAPTER XI. A RESCUE

CHAPTER XII. THE WARNING GUN

CHAPTER XIII. THE CRY OF THE PBOPLE

CHAPTER XIV. THE SHOT ACROSS THE SQUARE

CHAPTER XV. AN AMBASSADOR

CHAPTER XVI. BEAU DÉSIR

CHAPTER XVII. A STRANGER FROM THE MOUNTAINS

CHAPTER XVIII. THE TEMPTER

CHAPTER XIX. THE COMING OF GREGORY DENE

CHAPTER XX. THE SEÑORA HAS PLANS

CHAPTER XXI. THE RIFLE-SHOT AT DAWN

CHAPTER XXII. A FACE AMONGST THE SHADOWS

CHAPTER XXIII. A YELLOW RIBBON

CHAPTER XXIV. A TRAGEDY ON THE MOUNTAIN

CHAPTER XXV. THE DICTATOR

CHAPTER XXVI. A MAN AND HIS WIFB

CHAPTER XXVII. THE THWARTING OF RIMAREZ

CHAPTER XXVIII. THE CONFESSION OF TERNISSA

CHAPTER XXIX. DOM PEDRO'S SCHEME

CHAPTER XXX. THE DAYS OF TOIL

CHAPTER XXXI. THE TREASURE IN THE SCHOOL-HOUSE

CHAPTER XXXII. THE PRESIDENT AND LUCIA

CHAPTER XXXIII. THE SONG OF DEATH

CHAPTER XXXIV. A NIGHT OF DREAMS

CHAPTER XXXV. THE SALVATION OF RIMAREZ

CHAPTER XXXVI. TERNISSA IN PERIL

CHAPTER XXXVII. THE PRESIDENT'S SUSPICION

CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE SECRET PATH

CHAPTER XXXIX. THE BLACK FEVER

CHAPTER XL. A WONDERFUL VISIT

CHAPTER XLI. SAN MARTINA EN FÊTE

CHAPTER XLII. POLITICS AND LOVE

CHAPTER XLIII. DENE'S LOVEMAKING

CHAPTER XLIV. A DRAMATIC ELOPEMENT

CHAPTER I. FELLOW-TRAVELLERS

“This is,” he remarked cheerfully, “our last morning.”

“I suppose so,” she answered, without enthusiasm.

“In a few hours,” he continued, “you will be receiving your first impressions of your new home. I think I understood you to say. Miss Denison, that you were going to live, for some time at any rate, in San Martina?”

She assented, but without raising her eyes, and with certain indications of uneasiness.

“It is probable,” she said. “My plans are very unsettled, however. It will depend largely upon–upon–”

He waited patiently, but she did not conclude her sentence. Throughout that long voyage from England he had noticed on her part a marked and singular avoidance of any discussion as to her destination or future. Until this last hour he had respected her obvious wishes–he had, indeed, very little curiosity in his nature, and her avoidance of the subject was quite sufficient for him. But latterly another idea had occurred to him. San Martina was the last place in the world likely to attract chance visitors or tourists; it was also one of the least suitable spots on earth for a woman to find herself in, alone and unprotected. Had she by any chance been deceived in her reports of the place?

“I wonder,” he said, “if you understand the sort of country you are going to–what you will think of the life.”

The sun was very hot, even under their awning. Yet she shivered as she answered him, and he caught a strange gleam in her eyes which he had noticed there once before when some reference had been made to their journey’s end.

“If you do not mind,” she answered slowly, “I would rather not think about it I would rather talk about something else.”

The man’s face was clouded. Yet he turned towards her with a certain air of resolution.

“Every day throughout this long voyage,” he said, “you have avoided all mention of the future. You have talked as though the day of our arrival at San Martina was the natural end of all intercourse between us.”

“That is–what it must be,” she murmured.

He smiled indulgently.

“That,” he said, “is impossible. It is a proof to me that you know nothing of San Martina. It calls itself a city–it ranks as a state. Yet it contains only eight thousand inhabitants, and there are not half a dozen European families there. Now, how can you expect that we shall not meet in such a place as this. We–”

She stopped him with a little gesture.

“You do not understand,” she said. “It is impossible for me to make you understand.”

“Perhaps,” he said, after a moment’s hesitation, “I am not quite so much in the dark as you imagine. You may remember that on the first day of our voyage I picked up a letter which you had dropped, and restored it to you.”

She gave a little gasp. He could see the colour slowly fading from her cheeks.

“You–you did not read it?” she faltered.

“I need not tell you that I did not,” he answered. “But curiously enough as I stooped to pick it up I saw my own name on the open page. Of course I looked at it for a moment. The sentence in which my own name occurred stared me in the face. That was all I saw. But it struck me as being curious.”

“Tell me,” she begged, “exactly what you read.”

“I think that this was the sentence,” he continued. “‘If by any evil chance Gregory Dene is your fellow-passenger,–remember.’ That is every word I saw, but you will admit that it read oddly to me.”

“You read no more–no more than that?”

“I pledge you my word,” he answered gravely. “If I could have seen less, I would.”

She sat quite still for several moments with half-closed eyes. Gregory Dene began to fed a little uncomfortable.

“At any rate,” he said, “we have had a pleasant voyage. It has been something to remember.”

“It has been something–to remember–always.” she murmured.

“I had hoped,” he continued, “that our friendship would become a permanent thing–that you would allow me to visit you when we landed.”

She opened her eyes and fixed them upon him. He felt that he had never before understood how beautiful grey eyes may be.

“In a few hours,” she said, “this voyage comes to an end. With it our friendship–if you will call it so–also terminates.”

“You mean that–seriously?”

“I mean it.”

“Of your own will?”

She paused for a moment. Then she answered him.

“Of necessity.”

Gregory Dene rose slowly to his feet and walked away to the rail of the little steamer; For some little time he remained with his back to her, thinking. The thing was so incomprehensible that the more he thought the more bewildered he became. It was one of the furthermost corners of the world for which he was bound, a tiny little Republic without history or any possible attraction for travellers or chance visitors. The girl who had been his fellow-traveller from England had not mentioned her destination to him until they had left the great Ocean Liner at Buenos Ayres, only to meet again on the little tramp steamer in which they were completing their journey. His surprise at seeing her had been great. Of all places in the world San Martina was one of the most impossible for a woman of her age and looks, to arrive at alone and without powerful friends. Had she been deceived in any way–misled? Her voice broke in upon his wondering.

“Mr. Dene.”

He stooped once more beneath the shabby little stretch of awning, and returned to her side. There was a slight nervous flush on her cheeks. Her soft eyes sought his appealingly.

“Won’t you be reasonable, please?” she begged. “Don’t spoil the memory of these last six weeks. They will always remain to me the pleasantest part of my life–to look back upon. I am a very unhappy and a very unfortunate woman. You will not add to my troubles, will you?”

“God forbid,” he answered fervently. “Indeed, I am very foolish, perhaps you may think impertinent, to ask you so many questions. Only I sincerely trust that you know the sort of place you are going to.”

She shuddered a little.

“My voyage,” she said, “is not one of pleasure.”

“At least,” he remarked, “we must meet.”

“That will be,” she said softly, “as fate directs. Who can tell what is in store for us?”

He strolled away with a shrug of the shoulders, and a sensation of annoyance. She was altogether too sentimental and enigmatic. He was not in the least in love with her–he was only a little disturbed by the fear lest she might in some way have been deceived as to the nature of the life which lay before her. He had done his best to warn her.

The rest was no matter of his. There was a mystery about her journey and her destination in which he himself, according to that letter which he had picked up, seemed to figure in some hidden and mysterious way. Whatever it was, a few days must make it all clear. Till then he could leave it.

He climbed the steps on to the bridge and entered into conversation with the fat little Portuguese captain, who was dad in a white linen suit, and who held above his perspiring head a green umbrella. He had relinquished the care of his ship to the pilot who stood by his side. Already they were drawing very close to the harbour of San Martina. The captain was disposed for conversation, and accepted Dene’s agar with a florid little outburst of thanks.

“The voyage?–yes, it had seemed long to Señor Dene, no doubt Four days and three nights–yes, it was tedious without doubt after the sixteen knots of the great English steamer which had brought them from Liverpool. But, after all, was it a matter for wonder? San Martina was but a hole, a veritable hole–a home for dogs, no more. Few people indeed went there save dealers in horses and grain, and they for the most part were half-breeds, and far from being desirable companions for one holding”–the little man drew himself up–“an official position. It was many voyages since he had carried an Englishman, certainly never before an Englishwoman so young and so beautiful as the Señorita. Without doubt, the Señor knew her destination and the object of her visit to San Martina. She would be going, of course, to the President’s–whose house else was fit to receive her?” The little man’s black bead-like eyes were twinkling with curiosity, but Dene’s amiability had vanished. He answered curtly, and turned upon his heel. He walked down the deck of the narrow evil-smelling little steamer, and stood once more before the girl.

She had not moved. The book had fallen from her lap, and her eyes were fixed steadily seaward. Dene noticed that she had chosen the side of the steamer remote from the shore which they were nearing, and that she kept her face always turned along the ocean path by which they had come. She moved a few of her belongings from his empty chair by her side, and looked up at him with a ghost of a smile upon her lips.

“Come,” she said, “we have an hour or two longer. Talk to me. I want to escape from my thoughts. Tell me once more of this strange colony of yours. Let us talk of Beau Desir.”

He saw that she was on the point of a nervous breakdown, and perhaps for the first time he appreciated the tragedy of her pale, terror-stricken face. He was ashamed of certain half-formed suspicions which had crept into his mind, and sitting down by her side they fell easily enough into one of their long talks. It was a subject which she seemed never weary of discussing with him. In the little state of San Martina, a day’s ride from the city, was a colony of his own founding, consisting chiefly of men who in more thickly populated countries had found the struggles of life too great for them. There were men and women there whom he had rescued from starvation, from despair, even from crime. In the valley of Beau Desir they had started life afresh. There was the land, fruitful and virgin soil most of it, and their labour. He had brought them to it, supplied the machinery, and there all suggestions of charity ended. From the very first, the scheme had proved successful. They were easily able to raise from the land more than enough for their own subsistence. The profits of the great horse ranche which was Dene’s especial hobby sufficed for all their extraneous needs. Dene had been to England to buy more machinery and stock, and to fetch money to purchase the valley outright from the Republic.

The increasing noise on deck broke in upon their conversation. They were in the bay of San Martina, and rapidly nearing the dock. Then Dene made his last effort.

“It is the end of our journey. Miss Denison,” he said quietly. “I am not going to ask you any more questions. I do not wish to say anything likely to give you pain, but I cannot let you go without asking you to remember one thing. You are coming as a stranger to a wild, unformed country where I am afraid you will find what we are used to reckon as civilisation an unknown quantity. I do not know what connections you may have here, but I want you to remember that at any time a single word or message will bring you a friend.”

He held out his hand. She looked into his face with streaming eyes.

“Thank you,” she said. “I will remember.”

Then she hurried from him with a strange look of pain in her face and disappeared down the companion way. Dene looked after her with a puzzled expression. The situation was altogether beyond him. Ternissa Denison he had recognised during the first few hours of their acquaintance as belonging outwardly at least to one of the best types of English womanhood. She was young, certainly not more than twenty-five, obviously well-bred, and without the shadow of a doubt belonging to the same little world as Dene himself, before he had shaken himself free from the environment of social life. She was dressed always with the spotless and tasteful simplicity of her class, her deportment throughout the voyage had been irreproachable. From the first they had been friends. They had been neighbours at the captain’s table. Their after-dinner walks and moonlight téte-à-têtes on deck had been accepted by their fellow-voyagers as a natural and reasonable thing. Once or twice they had certainly come very near to a flirtation. Perhaps it was only Dene’s inexperience–for, as a rule, women were outside his scheme of life–which had kept them from embarking upon something of the sort. Yet every little action and speech had clearly denoted that fastidiousness of mind and person which is the one irradicable trait of the best of her sex. She was a well-bred, a charming, and a beautiful young woman. All these things made her present position the more extraordinary. She was travelling alone to an out-of-the-way little State where there was not a single English family, where law and order were certainly conspicuous by their absence, and where morals were distinctly upon the laissez faire order. Not only this, but as they approached their destination she showed every Symptom of unhappiness and nervous strain. She firmly but tearfully refused to answer his questions, however delicately put, and she had a correspondent in San Martina who regarded the fact of his being her fellow-traveller as an “evil chance.” No wonder Dene was bewildered.

He walked away presently to the other side of the steamer, and looked out upon the town which was now well in sight. The quay was crowded as usual with a motley throng of half-breeds, natives, and planters in their white clothes and huge broad hats. Behind was the little amphitheatre of wooden houses, painted green and white, dotted irregularly about upon the hillside, and in the centre of the place the more solid buildings, square and white, with flat roofs and sunblinds. In the background were the towering mountains of the Andiguan range, between which and the town stretched the valley of Beau Desir.

As they slowly backed against the quay, and the bridge was thrown over and made fast, a young man passed on to the steamer before whom every one gave way with servility if not with deference. He was dressed in military uniform, a long blue coat, and white trousers tucked into riding-boots. He was undersized, he wore a small black moustache curled upwards, his eyes were black and his complexion dusky. He came face to face with Dene, whose presence seemed to cause him some uneasiness.

“Back again, Señor Dene,” he said, with an attempt at suaveness. “I shall have the pleasure of seeing you at the Presidency. For the present, will you excuse me? Out of the way, you rascal,” he added, kicking a sailor who had momentarily impeded his progress, and hastening on across the gangway.

Dene looked after him in surprise. Then he saw a sight which for a moment deprived him of his self-possession. Ternissa Denison was standing on the deck as white as a ghost, her lips parted id the feeblest and most tremulous of smiles, and Rimarez, with outstretched hands, was welcoming her with all the warmth and volubility which seemed to belong to the man–the heritage of his French descent. Dene turned away with a savage imprecation upon his lips. This was worse even than anything which he had feared.

CHAPTER II. A DEAL WITH THE REPUBLIC

The President of the Republic of San Martina paused for a moment with the pen in his fingers. At his right hand stood Colonel Juan Sanarez, second in command of the army and a man of note in San Martina. On his other side was Señor Mopez, secretary and general adviser to the President himself, and the principal attorney of his dominion. In a chair on the opposite side of the table was Dene.

“Before I sign this deed, Señor Dene,” the President said, laying down his pen and taking the long black cigar from his mouth, “there is a clause which, if it be acceptable to you, I should desire to add. Mine is a small dominion. My army, brave and well-disciplined though it certainly is, numbers but a few hundreds. The population of San Martina has in it many troublesome elements; it is necessary to keep always a firm hand over them.”

Dene, who a few months ago had seen a policeman hung from a lamp-post to commemorate a Saint’s day, felt himself able to agree with the President so far. He signified the same gravely and waited for more.

“Now by this deed,” the President continued, tapping it with a plump forefinger, “I yield to you on lease for nine hundred and ninety-nine years the valley of Beau Desir. It is very well. Now you have there already dependents of yours over two hundred, English most of them I believe. Their numbers will increase. You will become a power in my country. Is it not so, Señor?”

“It is more than likely,” Dene answered, comparing for a moment in his mind the heterogeneous mob who thronged the streets of San Martina with the sturdy hard-working kind of men who were making fertile the valley of Beau Desir.

“To-day,” the President continued, “San Martina is at peace and free from dissensions owing to our judicious arrest and imprisonment of the most troublesome miscreant who ever cursed an unfortunate country by making it his place of residence. But, how long will this continue? Who can say?”

“Who can say?” echoed Sanarez.

“Who, indeed, can say?” repeated Mopez gloomily.

“If I did my duty,” the President declared solemnly, “I should have that man shot. But I am too merciful Is it not so, my friends? I am too merciful. I shrink from taking human life.”

Sanarez and Mopez exchanged glances, and a covert smile lurked for a moment on the lips of both of them. They knew very well that if President Rimarez dared, he would order this traitor to be shot that very instant without hesitation, and with a light heart–that he was even now engaged in completing arrangements for his secret assassination. But the ways of small Republics in the southern hemisphere are peculiar, and they held their peace.

“No,” President Rimarez continued with a sigh, “it is a weakness, Señor, for which I trust you will not despise me, but I cannot bring myself to sign this man’s death-warrant. At the same time, he has stirred up a troublesome spirit amongst my people, closely though he is confined. Whilst he lives, he is a source of secret danger to the Republic. A rising is not probable, but as time goes on, who can say? One must be prepared. The clause, Señor, which I propose to add to our agreement is simply this, that in the event of any insurrection in my dominion you engage yourself to bear arms for the government who grants you this charter.”

Dene moved uneasily in his chair, and looked thoughtful. The prospect opened up by the President’s words, carefully guarded though they had been, was not a pleasant one. He spoke slowly and thoughtfully.

“This comes rather as a surprise to me. President,” he said. “My men are men of peace, farm labourers and artisans most of them. I doubt whether one in twenty of them can even handle a revolver.”

The President smiled indulgently.

“They are mostly English,” he said, “and Englishmen with their fists alone are a match for most of these low half-breeds with their shoddy weapons. Do not let that concern you. If there should be an insurrection it would be an insurrection of ill-armed cowards whom my few brave soldiers would scatter like chaff. Yet it is well to make provision. Some such clause, as this should, I think, be inserted.”

Dene remained silent.

“I must admit,” he said, after a lengthy pause, “that this opens up to me a fresh view of the matter before us. If civil war is a possibility here, am I wise to invest so much money in land whose crops and cattle might be liable to destruction at any moment by a raid on the part of the rebels? To tell you the truth, I had fancied that your state was too small for any trouble of this sort.”

A shade of anxiety crossed the President’s face. He stole a glance at the great pile of bills which lay between them on the table. The Republic, and particularly its President, was in urgent need of funds–this money was like a godsend. An uncomfortable sensation chilled him at the bare idea of any hitch in the negotiations.

“Civil war,” he said slowly, “is possible anywhere. At the same time, I do not wish to give you a false impression. I say it is possible anywhere, but I think I may add that I could think of no spot in Central or South America where it is so unlikely to occur as here.”

The Colonel and the Secretary exchanged glances of admiration. Truly President Rimarez was a great man. Their morning had been pleasantly spent in trying and shooting two of the secret agents of the popular party in San Martina, and the disclosures which they had elicited by means not altogether in vogue amongst civilised nations, had greatly increased the President’s desire to obtain possession of this very useful sum of money.

“Then why insert it at all?” Dene asked.

The President shrugged his shoulders.

“In a document of this nature,” he said, tapping with his forefinger the sheets of folded paper, “many contingencies have to be provided for, which are, to say the least of it, very unlikely to occur. I look upon civil war, under our present administration, as about as improbable as an earthquake. Yet, as our friend Señor Mopez will tell us, some mention of such an event is legally a necessity. But come, we shall not quarrel. Bah! the idea is absurd. This suggestion is not welcome to you? Very good. I will amend it. We will insert a clause by which you guarantee to supply with neither food or shelter, arms or men any person or persons engaged in rebellion against or outlawed from the State of San Martina. This you cannot object to, for you take the oath of allegiance to the Republic and to myself as President when you take possession of Beau Desir.”

“That,” Dene said, “I agree to. But I will be frank with you. The mere suggestion of war here has made me a little uneasy. It is most distasteful to me. Now, I shall ask you to insert some such clause as this–that in the event of any of the possessions, crops, machinery or domiciles of myself or any of my people being destroyed or damaged by any insurrection in San Martina, that we are at liberty to claim compensation from the Government.”

The President and his two advisers exchanged rapid glances. The same thought was in the minds of each of them. A claim for compensation in their courts would be rather a joke. The ghost of a smile flickered upon the lips of the Secretary. They conferred for a moment in whispers. Then the President turned round and gravely announced that they had decided to waive their natural objections to such a clause.

“We have given you, Señor Dene,” the President said, “a very favourable charter because we believe in you and your system, and because we know that where Englishmen are, prosperity follows. We are now agreed.”

He dipped his pen in the ink, and with a magnificent splutter wrote his name with many flourishes across the great red seal. Dene followed his example. The notary took the pile of bills to another table, and carefully counted them.

“You have made, Señor Dene,” the President said, leaning back in his chair and lighting a fresh cigar, “a very excellent bargain. I will not conceal it from you that we have yielded to your wishes on many points, because your money comes to us at a time when it can very profitably be made use of.”

“In the extension of our new system of schools,” the notary put in quietly, glancing up from his task.

“Precisely,” the President remarked, thinking of that little French schooner laden with rifles and revolvers which lay in the bay waiting for the money before she would consent to land her cargo.

“We are anxious,” he continued, “to establish a scheme of free education throughout San Martina on a broad and sound basis.”

“A very excellent thing,” said Dene, rising and thrusting the charter into his pocket.

The President laid his hand upon his shoulder.

“You must come with me,” he said, “and be presented to my wife and daughter. They await us now. In your honour they have, I believe, prepared your national refreshment; afternoon tea–is it not–you call it?”

Dene expressed his delight, and the President took his arm. They left the room together.

Colonel Sanarez and the Secretary exchanged glances as soon as they found themselves alone.

“What an imbecile!” exclaimed the former.

“It is the folly of his thick-skulled nation,” agreed the Secretary.

“The money is all right, is it not?” the Colonel asked eagerly.

The other nodded.

“Yes–except that I wish it had been all in bills. The draft here we must send to Buenos Ayres. It cannot be paid into the National Bank.”

“And why not?” demanded the Colonel.

Mopez smiled.

“Unfortunately, as our most distinguished President remarked, the finances of San Martina are scarcely in that condition which one would expect in so admirably governed a State. The National Bank have refused to honour our bonds, and the Manager is at this moment hiding in the cellar and expecting to be hauled out and shot. As a matter of fact, the Republic of San Martina is to-day without a banking account.”

“I will tell you,” the Colonel said, “how we can dispose of the draft. We can pay it to the Frenchman for that cargo of arms.”

“It would be,” the notary said thoughtfully, “a scandalous waste of public money to pay cash for the whole shipment.”

“He will never leave them without,” the Colonel replied gloomily. “He is a person without breeding or any sense of delicacy. We sent a boat this morning for a hundred rifles, with an order signed by the Government, and he refused–positively refused to send them.”

“Miscreant.”

“He was worse. He sent back a message which was an insult. He said the money with the order, or no rifles. He had been here before. The rascal!”

The Secretary smiled softly.

“We must see, my friend,” he said, “whether it may not be possible for us to give him a lesson in manners. Meanwhile, a cigarette.”

CHAPTER III. THE PRESIDENT AT HOME

“It was by a chance, my child, the veriest chance, that your father discovered it,” the Señora Rimarez explained, folding her plump little hands together in ecstasy. “But it is as I say. He is noble, rich, and eccentric. You are indeed fortunate, my Lucia. It is a gift from the Saints to you.”

The girl who was lounging on the broad piazza by her mother’s side looked languidly up. She had the big black eyes and hair of the Señora, but otherwise there was little likeness between them. The President’s wife was plump, short, and possessed an amiable air of contentment. Lucia was tall and slim, almost to frailty, her complexion and features were perfect, but her dark eyebrows were contracted in a perpetual frown. She was handsome, but morose.

“A gift,” she exclaimed scornfully. “Why, as yet I have not even seen the man, and I am very sure that I do not want to. He must be a fool to come and live in a country like this, and I detest fools.”

The Señora smiled placidly.

“As for that, my child,” she said, “he is an Englishman, and all Englishmen are fools until they are married, and then they are what their wives choose to make of them. What was it that you said–‘that as yet he had not looked at you’? Bah! The poor man, he has not had the chance. This afternoon he will be here. He will see you as you are now. Who is there in this little country to compare with you? Bah! We know! There is no one. Are you not, too, the daughter of the President? You will look at him, and he will be your slave. Come, I foretell it. We shall see. Oh, we shall see.”

The Señora nodded her head vigorously, and used her fan. Lucia yawned and leaned back in her chair with half-closed eyes.

“Englishmen,” the Señora continued, “are not, it is true, the most charming of lovers, but as husbands–oh! they are excellent. Do I not know, for have I not met many of them in the old days at Paris? You were right, my dear Lucia, to have nothing to do with that bold young Señor Sagasta. Alas! I fear that he was a bad friend for Eugène. But all Englishmen are not like that. This Sagasta, he was nobody. He is where he deserves to be. But the Señor Dene, he is different. He is noble, he is rich, he is the fitting husband for you.”

Lucia lifted her great eyes, and looked steadily across the gardens below towards a great stone building a mile or more away. It was the prison of San Martina. She looked at it for several moments steadily, and then she sighed. Her voice grew softer.

“In a moment or two,” the Señora continued, a note of excitement creeping into her complacent voice, “he will be here. You are adorable to-day, my Lucia, in that white gown, but you will look more amiable, will you not? He will be shy, this Englishman–all big Englishmen are shy–and if you look at him like that he will forget that your eyes are beautiful, he will be frightened. You must smile, my Lucia. You smile too seldom.”

The girl gave vent to a little exclamation of contempt

“How can one smile who lives here, I wonder,” she cried. “Oh, with you it is different, I know. You can sit and fan yourself and drink lemonade with that old Mopez woman for ever. For you it is life sufficient. For me it is slavery. I hate it.”

A shade of genuine astonishment passed across the elder woman’s plump good-natured features.

“But, Lucia,” she said, “what would you have? You are a child. You have not yet a husband. When that is settled–well, your liberty will come then. You will do what you choose. Why are you impatient? You are very young. All your life is before you.”

The girl looked steadily away. Her face was black as night, but she made no answer. What was the use? One might as well seek to effect by speech an opening in those thick stone walls as make this fat, contented little woman understand So she remained silent, only she wondered, as she sat there listening to the murmuring of insects in the garden below and the far-off clamour of tongues in the Plaza, whether indeed the day of her release would ever come–whether she would ever really be able to step out from her enervating environment and take her life into her own hands. She sighed, and then she turned round with a frown as the sound of voices in the room beyond announced the arrival of the visitor for whose sake she had been bidden to wear that newest and most “chic” of her white muslin gowns, whom she had been told, if not in words at least with nods and veiled hints, that it was her business to captivate.

She looked at him with a certain half-sullen curiosity, as he stepped out on to the broad piazza by her father’s side. Dene, if he was not, judged by the usual standards, a good-looking man, was at least a man whom it was good to look upon. He was tall and fair and grave, with wonderfully broad shoulders, well-shaped features and clear grey eyes. His riding suit was plainly made, but it was cut by one of the best English tailors, and he had always that peculiar neatness and freshness of appearance which goes to the making of a well-groomed man. He carried himself with distinction, and his face, fortunately for him, showed not the least appearance of interest at the introduction which her father was making.

“The Señor Gregory Dene, my dear,” he said, “wishes to renew the acquaintance which he formed with you here at a previous visit. I have also the honour, Señor Dene, to present you to my daughter, who was, I believe, away on the previous occasion when you favoured us with a call.”

Dene shook hands with the President’s wife, and bowed quietly to Lucia, who was looking at him languidly with her great black eyes half closed. He accepted the chair to which the President courteously motioned him, and made some remark as to the beauty of the garden which stretched away below. The Señora, who understood flowers and flowers only outside the culinary art, engaged him at once in a horticultural conversation. Lucia, without even the pretence of apparent interest, yawned and picked up her book.

But the Señora was too good a mother to be carried away even by the pleasure of discussing this her chief interest in life with a stranger who certainly knew something about orchids. She watched for her opportunity and grasped it.

“So it is possible that you who have seen so much, you have really never seen a green carmenita?” she exclaimed with animation. “Ah well, to-day you shall see such a specimen as there is not in the whole of Europe. Lucia, my dear, I want you to take Señor Dene into the orchid garden. You know exactly where the green carmenita is. It is only a few steps, Señor Dene.”

Dene glanced towards the girl, and rose to his feet. She looked up from her book, but kept her finger in the place.

“What is it that you wish me to show Señor Dene, mother?” she asked.

“The green carmenita, my love. You know where it is.”

Lucia laid down her book, but she did not rise at once.

“It is a small green flower, Señor Dene, whose only distinction is a most appalling ugliness. Is it worth braving this terrible heat for?” she asked.

In his heart he did not think so, but he wished to be polite, and the girl’s indolence amused him.

“It seems too bad to disturb you,” he said, “but you must remember that I am a mild enthusiast, and a green carmenita is a very wonderful thing. Perhaps if you are tired one of the gardeners could show it to me.”

The Señora made a sign at her daughter, and waved them away.

“It is folly,” she declared. “The heat is little and the distance is nothing. Besides, they are so seldom in flower. Lucia, my love, see that the sun does not reach your head. Señor Dene, when you return I shall give you an English cup of tea.”

Lucia rose slowly, and opening a parasol of white lace, pushed aside the mosquito netting and swept down the broad steps. Then, as though repenting an abruptness which bordered upon discourtesy, she turned suddenly round and addressed him.

“It is only a few yards, Señor Dene. Will you come this way.”

He followed her across a brown burnt lawn and into a winding shrubbery. He had already decided that she was a particularly sulky and disagreeable young woman, and having no desire to make himself agreeable he did not attempt to start a conversation.

They remained silent until they reached a little opening, in the centre of which was another lawn and a brilliant little bed of flowers. Here she paused.

“That,” she said, pointing downwards with her parasol towards a little cluster of blossoms in the centre of the bed, “is the green carmenita.”

CHAPTER IV. THE GREEN CARMENITA

Dene looked gravely down at a particularly insignificant specimen of a rare but unlovely orchid, and then some impulse prompted him to glance quickly into Lucia’s face. Her eyes were slightly contracted, the shadow of a smile was twitching at the corners of her lips. His own sense of humour was swiftly aroused. He laughed outright, and, to his surprise, she joined in.

“How shocking!” she remarked, a moment later. “After all, then, you are not an enthusiast!”

“On the contrary,” he assured her, “I dislike orchids.”

She lowered her parasol and glanced, doubtless by accident, towards a wooden seat which encircled a gigantic tropical shrub.

“You have brought me out,” she said demurely, “under false pretences. And I was so comfortable.”

“Your trees at least are magnificent,” he said. “May we not sit down for a few moments? It seems cooler to me out here than on the piazza.”

“Just as you like,” she answered, with a touch of her old ungraciousness. “This is the coolest part of the garden.”

They moved slowly towards the seat and sat down. Her manner showed no signs of relaxation; the smile, after all, seemed to have been merely an interlude. She relapsed for a moment or two into cold silence. Then, as Dene ventured upon some conventional remark, she brushed it away and turned to him abruptly.

“Will you tell me,” she said, “about your people at Beau Desir? I have heard so many strange things, and I want to know the truth.”

He smiled.

“I will tell you all about them, with pleasure,” he said, “if you are sure that it will interest you.”

She twirled her parasol for a moment and then looked from the clear blue sky into his face.

“It may,” she said. “It probably will I have only met one man yet in all my life who thought about anything but his own pleasure. They say that you are rich and yet that you are a worker, that you live simply and study the welfare of other people. It sounds like a fairy tale. I should like to know why you do it–why you consider it worth while to think of anything else but yourself.”

“That sounds,” he said gravely, “a little cynical.”

“Oh, I am purely a negative quantity,” she said. “I have no individuality–it is a luxury which is denied me. I am not allowed to live for myself at all My ideas are only echoes. You must not consider me as a responsible person. Only I should like to hear.”

“And where,” he asked, having made up his mind to humour her, “am I to begin?”