“Still, I beg you to try ours, friend, we grow it ourselves and are proud of its flavour.”
“It is poison to me, I dare not,” he said. “But pray tell me, do the gentlemen whom I have the honour to see at table cultivate your plantations?”
“Yes, yes, they cultivate the coffee and the cocoa, and other things also when they have a mind. I daresay you think them a rough-looking lot, but they are kind-hearted, ah! so kind-hearted; feeble as I am they treat me like a father. Bah! señor, what is the good of hiding the truth from one of your discernment? We do business of all sorts here, but the staple of it is smuggling rather than agriculture.
“The trade is not what it was, those sharks of customs officers down on the coast there want so much to hold their tongues, but still there are a few pickings. In the old times, when they did not ask questions, it was otherwise, for then men of pluck were ready for anything from revolution down to the stringing up of a coach-load of fat merchants, but now is the day of small profits, and we must be thankful for whatever trifles Providence sends us.”
“Such as the two Americans who got drunk and killed each other,” suggested the señor, whose tongue was never of the most cautious.
Instantly Don Pedro’s face changed, the sham geniality born of drink went out of it, and was replaced by a hard and cunning look.
“I am tired, señor,” he said, “as you must be also, and, if you will excuse me, I will light another cigar and take a nap in my hammock. Perhaps you will amuse yourself with the others, señor, till you wish to go to rest.” Then rising, he bowed and walked somewhat unsteadily to the far end of the room.
When Don Pedro had retired to his hammock, whither the Indian girl, Luisa, was summoned to swing him to sleep, I saw his son José and the Texan outcast, Smith, both of whom, like the rest of the company, were more or less drunk, come to the señor and ask him to join in a game of cards. Guessing that their object was to make him show what cash he had about him, he also affected to be in liquor, and replied noisily that he had lost most of his money in the shipwreck, and was, moreover, too full of wine to play.
“Then you must have lost it on the road, friend,” said Don José, “for you forget that you made those sailors a present from a belt of gold which you wore about your middle. However, no gentleman shall be forced to gamble in this house, so come and talk while the others have their little game.”
“Yes, that will be better,” answered the señor, and he staggered to an empty chair, placed not far from the table at which I remained, and was served with spirits and cigars. Here he sat watching the play, which was high, although the counters looked innocent enough,—they were cocoa beans,—and listened to the conversation of the gamblers, in which he joined from time to time.