CHAPTER XII.
But the fly was still in the ointment. General Yozarro showed in innumerable ways that his passion swayed him more absolutely, if possible, than before. It appeared in the touch of his hand when assisting Miss Starland to mount or alight from her horse on which she rode with her friends through the picturesque country that surrounded the capital,—in the glance of his ardent black eyes, in the sigh which he pretended to try to keep from her, and in the many hints which he dropped of his lonely life since the death of his wife. The young woman could not touch upon these themes, lest he accept it as encouragement; so she contented herself with parrying them. She began to long for the time when she should turn her back upon Atlamalco forever.
On a certain balmy forenoon, General Yozarro, his niece and Miss Starland rode out from the town and over the trail leading into the Rubio Mountains. They were on their way to Castillo Descanso, which had been the cause of much fighting between the republics, and which had finally fallen into the possession of the Dictator of Atlamalco. It was a considerable way in the mountains and stood upon an elevation that brought it out in clear view from the capital.
“It is fully three centuries old,” explained Señorita Estacardo to her friend, “and is unlike anything I have ever seen in this part of the world. I suppose there are plenty of similar buildings along the Rhine and perhaps on your own Hudson, which has been called the Rhine of America.”
“How came it to be built?”
“I can only repeat the legends that have come down to us. Some great pirate or general of Spain or Portugal—I don’t know which—came up the river in quest of gold mines of which he had heard stories from the natives. You know that the first Spaniards who crossed the ocean to our continent cared more for gold than any or everything else, and stopped at no crimes to obtain it.”
“That was the case with many other nations.”