I shuddered. He had very fierce whiskers, Don Carlos, and as he
did not offer to go on we dared not move. At last, blowing the smoke of
my cigar into the air through his nostrils, he said, 'Senor, it would be
perhaps better for you if I rode behind your party. You are not very far
from Sulaco now. Go you with God.' What would you? We went on. There
was no resisting him. He might have been Hernandez himself; though my
servant, who has been many times to Sulaco by sea, assured me that he
had recognized him very well for the Capataz of the Steamship Company's
Cargadores. Later, that same evening, I saw that very man at the corner
of the Plaza talking to a girl, a Morenita, who stood by the stirrup
with her hand on the grey horse's mane."
"I assure you, Senor Hirsch," murmured Charles Gould, "that you ran no
risk on this occasion."
"That may be, senor, though I tremble yet. A most fierce man--to look
at. And what does it mean? A person employed by the Steamship Company
talking with salteadores--no less, senor; the other horsemen were
salteadores--in a lonely place, and behaving like a robber himself! A
cigar is nothing, but what was there to prevent him asking me for my
purse?"
"No, no, Senor Hirsch," Charles Gould murmured, letting his glance
stray away a little vacantly from the round face, with its hooked beak
upturned towards him in an almost childlike appeal.
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