“You never used many of those!” she interposed.
“No. From the first I never could stand Murcia; he was such an oily scoundrel, and an awful liar; so mean and treacherous and cruel, both to men and animals. He drank a lot of that frightfully strong spirit that’s made out there—fermented cane—and sometimes he was stark mad, knocking the servants and the peons about; and as to the horses, he was a fiend to them. He killed lots of the poor brutes by way of training; lassoed them—and broke their hearts. It made my blood boil, and, as much as I could, I took over the breaking-in business. When I used to jaw him and remonstrate, it made him wild, and he always had his knife into me on the sly.”
“How?”
“The stiffest jobs, the longest days, the largest herds, were naturally for the English ‘Gringo.’”
“What is that?”
“A dog. He never called it to my face—he was too much of the cur—but we had several shakes up, and the last was final. One afternoon I caught him half-killing a wretched woman that he said had been stealing coffee. It was pay-day, all the employés, to a man and child, were assembled in the patio—you know what that is? An enclosed courtyard with the house round it. This was a grand old dilapidated Spanish Estancia, with a fine entrance of great iron gates. It was a warm, still sort of afternoon. As I cantered across the campo I heard harrowing shrieks, and, when I rode in, I soon saw what was up! Murcia, crazy with drink, was holding a wretched creature by her hair and belabouring her with a cattle-whip, whilst the crowd looked on, and no one stirred a finger.”
“You did?” leaning forward eagerly.
“Rather! I shouted to him to hold hard, and he only cursed; so I jumped off the horse and went for him straight. He dropped his victim and tried to lay on to me with the whip; but the boot was on the other leg, and I let him have it, I can tell you. It was not a matter of fists, but flogging. My blood was up, and I scourged that blackguard with all my soul and all my strength. He ran round and round the patio yelling, whilst the crowd grinned and approved. I settled some of Murcia’s scores on the spot and paid for many blows and outrages! In the end he collapsed in the dust, grovelling at my feet, blubbering and groaning, ‘a worm and no man.’ I think that’s in the Bible. Yes, I gave that hulking, drunken brute a thrashing that he will never forget—and those who saw it won’t forget it either. Naturally, after such a performance I had to clear. You may do a lot of things out there; you may even shoot a man, but you must never lay hands on an overseer; so I made tracks at once, without pay, bonus, character, or anything except the adoration of the employés, my clothes, and a few pounds. Murcia would have run me in, only he would have shown up badly about the woman. Well, I came down country in a cattle-train, and found I was just short of coin to pay my way home.”
Leila stared into the fire in silence; her warm imagination transported her to the scene her brother had described. She, too, was on the campo, and heard the cries of the woman; she saw the Englishman gallop through the gates, saw the cowardly crowd, the maddened ruffian, the victim, and the punishment!
“But what did you do with your salary?” she asked, after an expressively long pause; “surely you had no way of spending it?”