"Would I could, Don Miguel—Heaven is my witness, that I should be delighted to enjoy your charming company for a short time; unfortunately, that is utterly impossible."
"Why so?"
"Alas! an imperious duty compels me to leave you this very day; I am really in despair at this vexatious mischance."
"What motive can be so powerful as to force you to leave us so suddenly?"
"A very trivial motive, and which will probably make you smile. I am a merchant of Santa Fé; a few days back, the successive failures of several houses at Monterey, with which I am extensively connected, obliged me to leave my house suddenly, in order to try and save, by my presence, a few waifs from the shipwreck with which I am threatened; I set out without asking anybody's advice, and here I am."
"But," Don Miguel objected, "you are still along way from Monterey."
"I know it; and it is that which drives me to despair. I have a frightful fear of arriving too late; the more so, as I have been warned that the people with whom I have to do are rogues: the sums they owe me are large, and form, I am sorry to say, the largest part of my fortune."
"Cáspita! if that is the case, I can understand that you are anxious to get there. I could not suspect that you had so serious a motive for pressing on."
"You see how it is; so pity me, Don Miguel."
All this conversation was carried on by the two men with a charming ease, and a simplicity perfectly well assumed on both sides; still neither was duped: Don Stefano, as so often happens, had committed the enormous fault of being too clever, and advancing beyond the limits of prudence, while trying to persuade this man of the sincerity of his words. This feigned sincerity had aroused Don Miguel's suspicions for two reasons: in the first place, if Don Stefano were going from Santa Fé to Monterey, he was not only off the road he ought to have followed, but was completely turning his back on those two towns—an error which his ignorance of the topography of the country made him commit without suspecting it. The second instance was equally premature: no merchant would have ever attempted, however grave the motive of such a journey, to cross the desert alone, for fear of the Indian bravos, the pirates, the wild beasts, and countless other dangers no less great, to which he would be exposed, without possible hope of escaping them.