“Counting my friend, thirteen,” he answered.
“I thought so,” said our host, with an oath, “and it is too late to mend matters now. Well, may the Saints, and they should be thick about a monastery, avert the omen. I see you think me a fool.”
“Not at all,” he replied; “I am rather superstitious myself and dislike sitting down thirteen to table.”
“So do I, so do I, Señor Strickland. Listen; last time we dined thirteen in this room, there were two travellers here, Americanos, friends of Don Smith, who were trying to open up a trade in these parts. They drank more than was good for them, and the end of it was that in the night they quarrelled and killed each other, yonder in the abbot’s chamber, where you are sleeping,—poor men, poor men! There was trouble about the matter at the time, but Don Smith explained to his countrymen and it came to nothing.”
“Indeed,” answered the señor; “it was strange that two drunken men should kill each other.”
“So I say, señor. In truth for a while I thought that Indians must have got into their rooms and murdered them, but it was proved beyond a doubt that this was not so. Ah! they are a wicked people, the Indians; I have seen much of them and I should know. Now the Government wishes to treat them too well. Our fathers knew better how to deal with them, but luckily the arm of the Government scarcely reaches here, and no whining padres or officials come prying about my house, though once we had some soldiers,” and he cursed at the recollection and drank another glass of Burgundy.
“I tell you that they are a wicked people,” he went on, “the demonios their fathers worshipped still possess them, also they are secret and dangerous; there are Indians now who know where vast treasures are buried, but they will tell nothing.
“Yes,”—and suddenly growing excited under the influence of the strong drink, he leaned over and whispered into his guest’s ear,—“I have one such in the house at this moment, an old Lacandone, that is, an unbaptised Indian, not that I think him any the worse for that, and with him his daughter, a woman more beautiful than the night—perhaps if I go on liking you, Englishman, I will show her to you to-morrow, only then I should have to keep you, for you would never go away. Beautiful! yes, she is beautiful, though a devil at heart. I have not dared to let these little ones see her,” and he winked and nodded towards the villains at the table, “but José is to pay her and her papa a visit to-night, and he won’t mind her tempers, though they frighten me.
“Well, would you believe it? this girl and her old father have the secret of enough treasure to make every man of us here rich as the Queen of England. How do I know that? I know it because I heard it from their own lips, but fill your glass and take a cigar and I will tell you the story.”