"Years ago," his story began, after an outburst that left him nearly exhausted, "my father, my mother, my sister, and I lived in Seville. There it was that I was born; so you see, señores, I am not of Mexico, but of Spain. There it was that I was happy, though cruelly poor. I was young and strong, and from a small lad up to manhood I was ever working to perfect myself in all the tricks of a juggler's calling. Ah, señores, I made an art of it. At one time I, Fernando del Castillo, was the greatest, the most adept juggler in the whole of Europe. There is none who knew me then that will deny it. But it came natural to me, señores; even before I was twenty I excelled them all, just as my sister, the little Paquita, the sunshine and gladness of my father's house, was more beautiful, more graceful, and lighter of foot—ah, such a tiny foot it was!—than any woman within the length and breadth of Spain.
"Señores, it is her brother who is telling the tale; he loved her with a tenderness beyond the power of words to express. But you should have beheld her in those days: beautiful—beautiful she was, her voice like a bird's for very sweetness; and there was none who could make such a living, breathing poem of a tango or a joto; none who could glance at you with such sparkling eyes, firing the blood and the brain like old wine; none that could flash such pearly teeth between such coaxing lips—lips like the soft petals of a crimson rose. It was her fame that spread beyond Seville to Madrid, and even to Paris.
"In Paris the fame of Paquita and Fernando—for so were we known—was on every tongue. God knows she was innocent enough then, and content with the love and companionship of her brother. God knows that in those days we were sufficient each unto the other, and happy, señores—happy....
"But it ended."
De Sanchez, at that time attending college in Paris, on the strength of his knowledge of Castillo's uncle, Don Juan Sebastian del Castillo, attained an intimacy with Paquita and Fernando that led to disaster for the girl. Don Juan had long been a resident of Mexico, and was a man of wealth and affairs.
"There was a certain dance of my sister's," said Vargas,—or Castillo, to give him his proper name,—"that always held the audience spellbound. It was of her own devising; born of her warm Southern blood and her romantic heart. Ah, señores, it was a thing of beauty—a perfect treasure of art. With the lithe movements of her dainty body, the dropping of her lashes, the flashing of her starlike eyes, the curving of her ripe, crimson lips—either in a smile of witchery or of scorn and disdain,—she told a tale of love and disappointment, of betrayal and revenge. Truly was it inspired of the evil that later was to befall herself.
"When, at the end, she would flash a dagger from her garter with the swiftness of a serpent darting from its coil, the audience would rise to her and cry 'Brava!' until the walls reverberated. Ah, it was marvellous! Is it strange that I adored her?
"Upon the very night, señores, that she innocently revealed her love for De Sanchez, he brought to her a dagger. Many days passed before I knew of this, because, for the first time, I was not remembered with a gift also.
"'Paquita mia!' I cried, holding the pretty toy in my hand, 'Paquita mia, how could you do me, your brother, this cruel wrong?'"
"'He loves me,' she whispered, for the first time in her life not daring to look me in the eyes.