The stranger pushed the door, which yielded to the pressure, and entered a large room, which might be considered to be furnished with a certain degree of luxury for Mexico, and especially for a province so remote as Sonora. But this luxury was in bad taste, and smelled of the parvenu. The furniture and pictures that decorated the room had been probably purchased or exchanged with the captain of the vessels that at times put into Guaymas, and presented the strangest possible discordance of style.
A man was seated in a butaca, almost in the centre of the room, and carelessly smoking a pajillo. When the stranger entered, he nodded to him, pointed to a chair, and said laconically,—
"Shut the door, and sit down."
The stranger took off his cloak and hat, which he threw on a sideboard; and, after closing the door as he had been recommended, he fell into a butaca with a sigh of satisfaction. We will describe these two new characters in a few words.
The first—that is to say, the master of the house—was a plump little fellow, as broad as he was long, with ordinary features, while his little sharp eyes gave his face an expression of soothing falseness and cowardly villainy. He was about fifty years of age, though he did not appear so, owing to the freshness of his apoplectic complexion, and long, flat, and greasy masses of black hair, which fell below his red and coarse ears. This worthy personage was dressed in the European fashion, with a profusion of jewellery, and rings on his fingers; and, through his costume and manners, which were made up of effrontery and timidity, he bore a considerable likeness to a butcher or a cattle dealer in his Sunday clothes.
His visitor, whom we have met before by the way, formed a perfect contrast with him. He was a half-breed, of Indian and Mexican descent, tall, dry, and thin as a lath; his face, like a knife blade, was adorned with an enormous beaked nose, which overshadowed a mouth stretching from ear to ear, and full of teeth white as almonds; round eyes with blood-shot eyelids, constantly agitated by a convulsive movement, completed the strangest and most sinister face that could be conceived. A cruel mocking smile continually moved his thin lips, and added to the feeling of discomfort his entire person inspired. In a word, his approach produced that clammy coldness felt in touching a viper or any other reptile. Beneath his cloak he wore the gold embroidered uniform of the higher Mexican officers. His name was Don Francisco Florés, and he wore the badge of a colonel in the Mexican service. We shall soon learn who was the hideous person, concealed under this borrowed name.
The colonel, after seating himself, took out some tobacco, made a cigarette, and began smoking with the most superb nonchalance. For some minutes the two men remained silent, examining each other with the corner of the eye. At last, the former, doubtlessly fatigued by this obstinate inquisition, which weighed upon him, and from which he could not escape, resolved to take the word.
"Caballero," he said, "you see that the instructions conveyed in the letter you did me the honour of writing to me, have been followed out point for point."
The colonel made a sign of assent, while emitting an enormous puff of smoke. The other continued,—
"Now I will take the liberty of observing that I do not at all understand your singular missive, and that I see no reason why you should surround yourself with so great a mystery."