I sat till it was already near midnight, gazing on the sea, my eyes still turned to the track by which the vessel had disappeared, and at last rose to retire, when, to my amazement, I perceived my friend the banker, accompanied by another person, approaching towards me.
“Señhor Condé,” said he, in a mysterious whisper, “this is his Excellency the Governor;” and with these words, uttered in all the reverence of awe, he retired, leaving me face to face with a tall, dignified-looking personage, whose figure was concealed in the folds of a great cloak.
In all the formal politeness of his rank and country, the Governor begged I would be seated, and took his place beside me. He explained how the banker, one of the richest and most respected men in the Havannah, had informed him of my gracious intentions respecting them, and the sad mishap by which my mediation was foiled. He entered at length into the question of the debt, and all its financial difficulties,—which, even had they been far less intricate and complicated, would have puzzled a head which never had the bump arithmetical. How he himself saw his way through the labyrinth, I know not; but had the sum been a moderate one, I vow I would rather have paid it myself than investigate it any farther, such an inextricable mass of complications, doubles, and difficulties did it involve.
“Thus, you perceive,” said he, at the close of a formidable sum of figures, “that these eighteen millions made no part of the old loan, but were, in fact, the first deposit of what is called the 'Cuba debt;' not that it ever should have had that name, which more properly belonged to the original Poyais three-and-a-half—You understand me?”
“Perfectly; proceed.”
“That being the case, our liability is reduced to the sum of twenty-seven millions on the old four-and-a-quarters.”
“Clearly so.”
“Now we approach the difficult part of the matter,” said he, “and I must entreat your most marked attention; for here lies the point which has hitherto proved the stumbling-block in the way of every negotiation.”
I promised the strictest attention, and kept my word till I found myself in a maze of figures where compound interest and decimal fractions danced a reel together, whose evolutions would have driven Mr. Babbage distracted; while the Governor, now grown “warm in the harness,” kept exclaiming at every instant, “Do you see how the 'Ladrones' want to cheat us here? Do you perceive what the Picaros intend by that?”
If I could not follow his arithmetic, I could at least sympathize in his enthusiasm; and I praised the honor of the Mexicans, while I denounced “the cause of roguery” over the face of the globe, to his heart's content.