"You sent every one aside, and remained alone with the guards—for a long time. Oh, for a long time! Then you called out, and your men came back, and found you alone with your horses and your carts. How you had persuaded the guards to leave you alone——"
"Quien sabe?" said Medina, with a smile.
"But you had persuaded them, even on that first venture. So," and now Hillyard smiled. "So we took your carts up in to the mountains."
"We?" exclaimed José. He took a step forward, and gazed keenly into Martin Hillyard's face. Hillyard nodded.
"I was one of your companions on that first night venture of yours thirteen years ago."
"Claro! You were certainly there," returned José Medina, and he was no longer speaking either with doubt or with the exaggerated politeness of a Spaniard towards a stranger. He was not even speaking as caballero to caballero the relationship to which, in the beginning, Hillyard had most wisely invited him. He was speaking as associate to associate, as friendly man to friendly man. "On that night you were certainly with me! No, let me think! There were five men, yes, five and a boy from Valencia—Martin."
He pronounced the word in the Spanish way as Marteen.
"Who led the horse in the first cart," said Hillyard, and he pointed to his visiting card which José Medina still held in his hand. José Medina read it again.
"Marteen Hillyard." He came close to Hillyard, and looked in his eyes, and at the shape of his features, and at the colour of his hair. "Yes, it is the little Marteen," he cried, "and now the little Marteen swings into Palma in his great steam yacht. Dios, what a change!"
"And José Medina owns two hundred motor-feluccas and employs eighteen thousand men," answered Hillyard.