It was the first word Murguía had ever heard from his future tyrant, and even then the cool tone of authority nettled him. But he reflected that here might be a passenger, and a passenger 31through the blockade usually meant five hundred dollars in gold. He ordered the plank held for a moment.
“They tell me–whoa, Demijohn!–you are going to Tampico?” hallooed the same voice.
“Yes,” Murguía answered, and was going to name his price, when without more ado the cavalier rode across, dismounted on the deck, and tossed his bridle to the first sailor.
“Ca-rai!” sneered the astonished Mexican, “one would think you’d just reached your own barnyard, señor.”
“My own barnyard?” echoed the stranger bitterly. “I haven’t seen my own barnyard, or anything that is mine, during these four years past. But you were about to start?”
“Not so fast, señor. Fare in advance, seven hundred dollars.” Murguía looked for the haggling to come next, but somehow the sniff he heard was not promising.
“Usurer, viper, blanketed thief, benevolent old rascal,” the trooper enumerated as courteously as “Señor Don” or “Your Mercy,” “you don’t surprise me a bit, not when you charge us three thousand dollars gold for freight on a trunk of quinine!”
“G-g-get back on your horse! G-get off this boat!”
But the intruder calmly drew off his great coat, and Murguía saw the butts of pistols at his waist. Yet they had no reference to the removal of the cape. The latter was a simple act of making oneself at home.
“I reckon,” said the newcomer cheerily, “there’s no question of fare. Here, I’ve got a pass.”