When the voluble Rotiro had vanished round the end of the counting-house, Silencio retired to his inner sanctum and closed and locked the door. The contrast between this room and the bare front office was marked. Here cretonne draped the walls, its delicate white and green relieving the plain white of the woodwork. Coming from the outer glare, the cool coloring was more than grateful to the senses. The large wicker chairs with which the room was furnished were painted white, their cushions being of the same pale green whose color pervaded the interior. The white tables, with their green silken cloths, the white desk, the mirrors with white enameled frames, the white porcelain lamps with green shades, all of the same exquisite tint, made the sanctum a symphony of delicate color, a bower of grateful shade. Pull one of the hangings aside, ever so little, and a fortress stared you in the face—a fortress known of, at the most, to but two persons in the island.

It is true that the more curious of the peons had wondered somewhat why Don Gil had brought down from the es-States those large sheets of iron[Pg 121] with clamps and screws; but the native is not inquisitive as a rule, and certainly not for long. All se?ors do strange things, things not to be accounted for by any known rule of life, and the Se?or Don Gil was rich enough to do as he liked. What, then, was it to a hard-working peon, what a grand se?or like the Don Gil took into his mahogany house?

The man who had come down in the steamer with the sheets of iron had remained at Palmacristi for a month or more. He had brought two workmen, and when he sailed for Nueva Yorka no one but the owner of the Casa de Caoba and the old Guillermina knew that the inner counting-house had been completely sheathed with an iron lining, whose advent the peons had forgotten.

"This is my bank," said Don Gil to Don Juan Smit'.

"It may become a fort some day, who knows?" answered the Don Juan Smit', "if those rascally Spaniards come over here and create another rumpus." Strange to say, Don Gil did not resent this remark about the nation which had produced his ancestors. But, then, Don Gil was a revolutionist, and had fought side by side with the bravest generals of the ten years' Cuban war.

"It is a very secure place to detain a willing captive," smiled Don Gil.

[Pg 122]

"Well, I guess!" assented the Se?or Don Juan Smit', with a very knowing wink of the eye, which proved that he had not understood his employer's meaning in the very slightest.

Old Guillermina, who had reared Don Gil's mother, was the only person allowed within the counting-house.

"A very fine place for the black spiders to hide," remarked Guillermina, as she twitched aside the green and white hangings, and exposed the iron sheathing. "There is no place they would prefer to this."

When Don Gil had locked the door, he seated himself and took Escobeda's note from his pocket. He examined the flap of the envelope; it was badly soiled and creased. He was morally certain that Rotiro had possessed himself of the contents of the letter. He had told Rotiro that peons should not think, but they would think, semi-occasionally, and more than that, they would talk. When a peon was found clever enough to carry a message, he also possessed the undesirable quality of wishing to excite curiosity in others, and to make them feel what a great man he was to be trusted with the secrets of the Se?or. By evening the insolence of Escobeda would be the common property of every man, woman, and child on the estate, and, what Silencio could bear least of all, the insulting news[Pg 123] as to the ultimate destination of Raquel would be gossiped over in every palm hut and rancho far and near. All his working people would know before to-morrow the message which had been brought to him by Rotiro, and it was his own rum that would loosen Rotiro's tongue and aid materially in his undoing. His face grew red and dark. His brow knotted as he perused the vile letter for the fourth time. Escobeda's handwriting was strong, his grammar weak, his spelling not always up to par. The letter was written in Spanish, into which some native words had crept. The translation ran:

    "To the Se?or Don Gil Silencio-y-Estrada.

    "Se?or:—You are forbidden to set foot in my house. You are forbidden to try to see or speak to the Se?orita Raquel. I do not continue the farce of saying my niece; she is not more than a distant relative of mine. But in this case, might makes right. I control her and she is forever lost to you. You refused me the trocha farm for a fair price. See now, if it would not have been better to yield. The Se?orita Raquel starts for the Port of Entry this afternoon. She sails to-night for the government town. The Governor desires her services. Knowing the Governor by repute, you may imagine what those services are."

Silencio struck the senseless sheet with his clenched fist. His ring tore a jagged hole in the paper, so that he had difficulty in smoothing it for re-perusal.

    "It pays me better to sell her to him than to give her to you."

[Pg 124]

Wild thoughts flew through the brain of Silencio. He started up, and had almost ordered his horse. He was rich. He would offer all, everything that he possessed, to save Raquel from such a fate, but he sadly resumed his seat after a moment of reflection. Escobeda hated him, there had been a feud between the families since the old Don Gil had caused the arrest of the elder Escobeda, a lawless character; and the son had made it the aim of his life to annoy and insult the family of Silencio. Here was a screw that he could turn round and round in the very heart of his enemy, and already the screwing process had begun. Don Gil took up the mutilated letter and read to the end:

    "We start for the coast this afternoon. Do not try to rescue her. I have a force of brave men who will protect me from any number that you may bring. We have colinos and escopetes in plenty. Your case is hopeless. You dare not attack me on land; you cannot attack me on the water."

Don Gil dashed the paper on the floor and ground savagely beneath his heel the signature "Rafael Escobeda."

"It is true," he said, shaking his head. "It is true; I am helpless!"

With a perplexed face and knitted brow he went into the outer room, closed the entrance door and took a flat bar of iron from its resting-place against the wall. This he fitted into the hasps[Pg 125] at each side of the door, which were ready to receive it. Then he returned to the inner room, and secured the iron-sheathed door with two similar bars. After this was done, he looked somewhat ruefully at his handiwork. "The cage is secure," he said, "if I but had the bird."

Silencio opened the door which connected the office with the main part of the house. He closed and locked it behind him, and proceeded along a passage so dark that no light crept in except through the narrow slits beneath the eaves. When he had traversed this passage, he opened a further door and emerged at once into the main part of the house. Here everything was open, attractive, and alluring. Here spacious apartments gave upon broad verandas, whose flower boxes held blooms rare even in this garden spot of the world. Here were beauty and colour and splendour and glowing life.

Don Gil threw himself down in a hammock which stretched across a shady corner. Through the opening between the pilotijos, he could see the wooded heights in the distance, those heights beyond which Troja lay, Troja, which held his heart and soul. What to do? To-night she would set sail for the government town in the toils of Escobeda, her self-confessed betrayer and barterer—set sail for that hateful place where her[Pg 126] worse than slavery would begin. The person to whom she was to be sold—none the less sold because the price paid did not appear on paper—was possessed of power and that might of which Escobeda had spoken in his letter—that might which makes right. He could give countenance to speculators and incorporators, he could grant concessions for an equivalent; into such keeping Escobeda, with his devil's calculation, was planning to deliver her—his Raquel, his little sweetheart. That she loved him he knew. A word and a glance are enough, and he had received many such. A note and a rose at the last festin, where she had been allowed to look on for a while under the eye of her old duenna! A pressure of her hand in the crowd, a trembling word of love under her breath in answer to his fierce and fiery ones!

The cause for love, its object does not know nor question. The fact is all that concerns him, and so far Silencio was secure. And here was this last appeal from the helpless girl! They had started by this time perhaps. Don Gil looked at the ancient timepiece which had descended from old Don Oviedo. Yes, they had started. It was now twenty minutes past six; they needed but two hours to ride to the Port of Entry. The steamer would not sail until between nine and ten o'clock. Very shortly Escobeda's party would cross the[Pg 127] trocha, which at that point was a public highway. It ran through the Palmacristi estate, and neared the casa on the south. Could he not rescue her when they were so near? There were not three men within the home enclosure. The others had gone direct to their huts and ranchos from their work in the fields. He could not collect them now, and if he could, of what use a skirmish in the road? Escobeda was sure to ride with a large force, and a stray shot might do injury to Raquel herself. No, no! Some other way must be thought of.

Silencio arose, passed quickly through the casa and entered the patio. He ran up the stairs which ascended from the veranda to the flat roof above. He stood upon the roof, shading his eyes with his hand, and straining his vision to catch the first sight of Escobeda and his party of cut-throats. He was none too early. A cloud of dust on the near side of the cacao grove told him this, and then he heard the jingling of spurs and the sound of voices. A group of some thirty horsemen swept round the curve and came riding into full view. In their center rode a woman. She was so surrounded that by no effort of hers could she break through the determined-looking throng. One glance at those cruel faces, and Silencio's heart sank like lead.

The woman was gazing with appealing eyes at the Casa de Caoba. Silencio was not near enough[Pg 128] to distinguish her features, but her attitude was hopeless and appealing, and he knew that it was Raquel the moment that he discovered her.

Suddenly she drew a handkerchief from her bosom and waved it above her head. There was something despairing and pitiable in her action. Silencio whirled his handkerchief wildly in the air. He was beside himself! Escobeda turned and struck the girl, who dropped her signal hand and drooped her head upon her breast.

Silencio put his hands to his mouth and shouted: "Do not fear; I will save you!" He shook his clenched hand at Escobeda. "You shall pay for that! By God in Heaven! you shall pay for that!"

Yes, pay for it, but how? How? Oh, God! how? He was so helpless. No one to aid him, no one to succour.

At this defiance of Silencio's there came an order to halt. The men faced the Casa de Caoba, Escobeda placed his rifle to his shoulder, but as he fired, Raquel quickly reached out her hand and dashed the muzzle downward. A crash of glass below stairs told Silencio where the shot had found entrance.

"And for that shot, also, you shall pay. Aye, for twenty thousand good glass windows." Glass windows are a luxury in the island.

A burst of derisive laughter and a scattering[Pg 129] flight of bullets were thrown back at him by the motley crew. They reined their horses to the right, turned a corner, and were lost in their own dust.

Silencio descended the stairs, how he never knew. He ran through the patio and the main rooms, and out on to the veranda, from which the path led toward the gate of the enclosure. He was beside himself. He seized his gun from the rack; he cocked it as he ran.

"He said that I could not reach him upon the w............