Chapter Forty Three.
The “Bonanza.”
The infamous ceremony duly ratified, a drink of the fiery spirit of the mescal plant—a fit finale—is quaffed. Then they take up their stilettos, replace them in their sheaths, and again sitting down, listen to De Lara, to learn from him the nature of that deed, for doing which they have so solemnly compacted.
In a short time he makes it known, the disclosure calling for but a few words. It is after all but a common affair, though one that needs skill and courage. Simply a “bit of burglary,” but a big thing of its kind. He tells them of three hundred thousand dollars’ worth of gold-dust lying in a lone country-house, with no other protection than that of its owner, with some half-dozen Indian domestics.
There are but two of them to whom this is news—Diaz and Calderon. Rocas smiles while the revelation is being made; for he has been the original discoverer of the so-called “bonanza.” It was that he communicated to De Lara, when, on the day before, he stopped him and Calderon at the tinacal of Dolores.
It is not the first time for the seal-hunter to do business of a similar kind in conjunction with the gambler; who, like himself, has been accustomed to vary his professional pursuits. But, as now, he has always acted under De Lara—whose clear, cool head and daring hand assure him leadership in any scheme requiring superior courage, with intelligence for its execution.
“How soon?” asks Diaz, after all has been declared. “I should say the sooner the better.”
“You’re right about that, Don Manuel,” rejoins Rocas.
“True,” assents De Lara. “At the same time caution must not be lost sight of. There’s two of you aware of what danger we’d be in, if just now we went near the town, or anywhere outside this snug little asylum of Señor Rocas—whose hospitality we may have to trench upon for some time. I don’t know, Don Rafael, whether friend Diaz has told you of what happened last night?”
“He’s given me a hint of it,” replies the smuggler.
“Oh, yes,” puts in Diaz; “I thought he might as well know.”
“Of course,” agrees De Lara. “In that case, then, I’ve only to add, that there will be no safety for us in San Francisco, so long as the English man-o’-war stays in port. He who broke our bank is rich enough to buy law, and can set its hounds after us by night, or by day. Until he and his ship are gone—”
“The ship is gone,” says Rocas, interrupting.
“Ha! What makes you say that?”
“Because I know it.”
“How?”
“Simply by having seen her. Nothing like the eyes to give one assurance about anything—with a bit of glass to assist them. Through that thing up there,”—he points to an old telescope resting on hooks against the wall—“I saw the English frigate beating out by the Farrallones, when I was up on the cliff about an hour ago. I knew her from having seen her lying in the bay. She’s gone to sea for sure.”
At this the others looked surprised as well as pleased; more especially Calderon. He need no longer fear encountering the much-dreaded midshipman either in a duel or with his dirk.
“It’s very strange,” says De Lara. “I’d heard she was to sail soon, but not till another ship came to relieve her.”
“That ship has come,” returns Rocas—“a corvette. I saw her working up the coast last evening just before sunset. She was making for the Gate, and must be inside now.”
“If all this be true,” says the chief conspirator, “we need lose no more time, but put on our masks and bring the affair off at once. It’s too late for doing anything to-night; but there’s no reason why we shouldn’t act to-morrow night, if it prove a dark one. We four of us will be strength enough for such a trifling affair. I thought of bringing Juan Lopez, our croupier; but I saw he wouldn’t be needed. Besides, from the way he’s been behaving lately I’ve lost confidence in him. Another reason for leaving him out will be understood by all of you. In a matter of this kind it isn’t the more the merrier, though it is the fewer the better cheer. The yellow dust will go farther among four than five.”
“It will,” exclaims the cockfighter with emphasis, showing his satisfaction at what De Lara has done. He adds: “To-morrow night, then, we are to act?”
“Yes, if it be a dark one. If not, ’twill be wiser to let things lie over for the next. A day can’t make much difference; while the colour of the night may. A moonlit sky, or a clear starry one, might get us all where we’d see stars without any being visible—through a noose round our neck?”
“There’ll be no moon to-morrow night,” puts in the smuggler, who, in this branch of his varied vocations, has been accustomed to take account of such things. “At least,” he adds, “none that will do us any harm. The fog’s sure to be on before midnight; at this time of year, it always is. To-morrow night will be like the last—black as a pot of pitch.”
“True,” says De Lara, as a man with some experience of the sea, also having meteorological knowledge. “No doubt, ’twill be as you say, Rocas. In that case we’ll have nothing to fear. We can get the job done, and be back here before morning. Ah, then seated round the table, we’ll not be like we are now—poor as rats; but every one with his pile before him—sixty thousand pesos.”
“Carramba!” exclaims Diaz, in a mocking tone, “while saying vespers to-night, let’s put in a special prayer for to-morrow night to be what Rocas says it will—black as a pot of pitch.”
The profane suggestion is hailed with a burst of ribald laughter; after which they set about preparing the mascaras, and other disguises, to be used in their nefarious enterprise.