"Enough said, with your permission, señor. Horses and guide shall be found, of course; and meantime you will honor me by spending the night. You would gain nothing by attempting the trip before morning. The trail is bad enough, by day. This is the Hacienda las Flores, and I am Don Antonio de Soto. Let your men drop your baggage, which will be properly attended to, and be pleased to enter."
Mr. Adams introduced himself and party; and with Don Antonio refusing to listen to any apologies, into the house they went. It was delightfully cool there, where the rooms were high and large and simply furnished with cane chairs and couches. Don Antonio's wife, the Señora Isabella (and a beauty), came forward also to welcome them. In white dress, with a red rose stuck into her black hair, she took Charley's fancy at once. Then there was a boy, Pascal, about Charley's age—a handsome young fellow, slim and dark, with wonderful black-brown eyes and dazzling white teeth. Servants glided hither-thither, to bring glasses of lemonade and pine-apple juice, and to distribute the bed-rooms; and when Charley found himself confronted by a real bed, with a bath at his disposal, he thought that they all were in right good hands. He wished that his mother was here, too. The Señora made him rather homesick. How his mother would enjoy this place!
"We noticed the tents of some of the new railroad engineers, at the edge of town, sir," remarked Mr. Adams, at supper, where Charley, arrayed in his last clean suit of white, found the creamy beaten cocoa, served on a spotless table, was the most delicious thing that he had ever tasted. "I wonder how the work is going on."
"Excellently," responded Don Antonio. "I believe that a partial survey has been made clear across. From the Atlantic end at Limon Bay the line follows up along the right bank of the Chagres, about to Gorgona, where it crosses and uses the old treasure-trail over Culebra Pass to Panama."
"Then we'll see the survey, to-morrow?"
"No, señor, I fear not. You will follow the Camina Reale (Royal Road) from Cruces, which runs far to the northward of the other trail from Gorgona. But tell me, you being so lately from the United States, what is the report upon this Panama Railroad? The Americans are to build it, we hear."
"Yes, sir. A French company had the contract to cross this part of New Granada with a railroad, but they didn't do anything, and at the beginning of this year an American company got the right. The company is formed by William Henry Aspenwall, John Lloyd Stevens, and Henry Chauncy, of New York. The contract runs for forty-nine years from date of completion of the road, which must be finished within six years. No doubt the active construction will begin this fall or winter, at Colon; and I am glad to know that the preliminary survey is already being made. A railroad is badly needed."
"Ah, but the difficulties will be immense, señors," said the Dona Isabella. "Swamps, mountains, fevers, wild beasts, rains—!" and she exclaimed in Spanish, with despairing gesture of her white hands.
"It will be done, if the Americans go at it," asserted Don Antonio. "You Americans are a wonderful people. I shall send our Pascal north, this coming winter, to be an American. Eh, Pascal? He must learn English, too. I myself was educated at Lima, where there are many Americans and English."
"If I was going to be home you could send Pascal to St. Louis, Don Antonio," spoke Charley, impulsively. "Then I could show him 'round."