Chapter Eighteen.
Golden Dreams.
I saw Lilla but once alone, and then the encounter was not of my seeking. She came up to me, though, with a sweet, sad expression in her face and a trusting look in her eyes that made my heart bound, as she laid her hands in mine and thanked me for what she called my gallantry; and I was so taken up by her words that I hardly noticed the scowl Garcia gave as he came in. In fact, just then my heart felt so large that in my joy I could have shaken hands with him so warmly that I should have made the bones of that fishy fin of his crack again.
But there was no handshaking: Garcia walking to the window and lighting a cigar, while Lilla hurried from the room, as was now her custom when Garcia came.
The first flush of joy passed and I was alone with the half-breed, to feel how impossible any friendly feeling was between us; and seeing that he was disposed to do nothing but stare at me in a half-sneering, half-scowling fashion, I strolled out, paying no heed to the burning sun as I made for the woods, where the trees screened me; and then on and on I went, mile after mile, through the hot steamy twilight, amidst giants of vegetation hoary with moss. Beast or reptile, harmless or noxious, troubled me little now, for I was in pursuit of the golden idol of my thoughts, winning it from its concealment, and then, with everything around gilded by its lustre, living in a future that was all happiness and joy.
But I was not always dreaming. At times I searched eagerly in places that I thought likely to be the homes of buried Peruvian treasure; without avail, though, for I had no guide—nothing but tradition and the misty phantoms of bygone readings.
To the people at the hacienda my wanderings must have seemed absurd, for though I took my gun I never brought anything back. This day game was in abundance, but I did not heed it—only wandered on till I came to a rugged part of the forest far up the mountain-side, and seated myself on a lump of moss-grown rock in a gloomy, shady spot, tired and discouraged by the thought that I was pursuing a phantom.
What should I do, then? I asked myself. Go, as my uncle advised, to Texas? That meant separation; and yet I knew that I could not stay, and, in spite of all my golden hopes, the future looked very black to me. I kept putting it off, but it would come. I must look the difficulty in the face—the end must arrive; and I laughed bitterly as I thought of my prospect—even if such treasures as I had heard of did exist—of finding either of them in the vast wilds spread for hundreds of miles around.
My meditations were interrupted by the sharp crackle made by a dry twig trampled upon by a foot; there was a rustling noise close behind me, and as I turned I became aware of a face peering out at me from a dense bank of creepers, as a voice whispered: