“Ah, indeed! You are welcome, señor captain. I was about to make a business call on a tenant in this street. May I ask if you will make my house your own till I return? I shall be absent but a few moments. I will go back with you and open the door. Enter, if you please. The sherry is on the sideboard. Cigars you will find on the table. Call my servant, if you require anything.” Then, hurrying out once more, the lawyer almost ran upon his errand. In a quarter of an hour he returned and the two began their discussion over a decanter of choice Madeira.
“It still seems to me,” said the young officer, after the talk had been going on for some minutes, “that the bold policy is the better, though we may need secrecy in certain cases, for these devils of brigands smell powder a mile away. On my life, they do. I’ve dealt with them in Pinar del Rio, and they tell me they are more slippery and far-seeing, or far-smelling, in this province. They must have confederates here in town.”
“Confederates? Preposterous, señor! Why do you think that?”
“Oh, I’ve been investigating a little. Either the brigands here are clever, or some man who is more clever has them in hand, and knows enough not to mix with them,—some man who can persuade them, or terrorize them, or shield them. Have you no conceit as to who in this city is fitted for a chieftainship like that?”
“I? None.”
“I had hoped you knew your fellow-citizens well enough to advise me whom to watch. No? Then, at least, tell me where it would be best to place my men.”
“The trails toward Sibanicu.”
“Trails? Sibanicu? Why, there’s no travel in that quarter. The robberies have happened between here and Minas.”
“Exactly. So many have happened that the brigands must abandon it henceforth. They know they are watched, and I’ll warrant your coming here, and the object of it, are already common talk among them.”
“Humph!”