“Money is very scarce with me, my friend,” said Morales dryly.
Harding nodded sympathetically, and dropped his voice to a lower tone. “One would be content with a little less profit if it meant security,” he said. “It would pay me to make certain that the hacienda would not be meddled with—by the Sin Verguenza.”
There was a little gleam of comprehension in the officer’s eyes, and he thoughtfully flicked the ash from his cigar. “I think I could promise that,” he said. “We will talk again, senor, but now—if I have your excuses—I think I will be wanted at the cuartel.”
He rose, made Miss Harding a little punctilious inclination, and moved away, while the lamplight flung his shadow black upon the pink-washed walls. It seemed to the girl suggestively sinister.
“I do not like that man,” she said. “He has wicked eyes, and his face is cruel!”
Harding laughed. “Anyway, it’s evident he has his price, and I think I’ll buy the hacienda, though I’ll want a man to run it, since I can’t stay here. He will have to be the right kind of man.”
Nettie Harding appeared reflective. “I wonder what has become of Mr. Broughton whom we met on board the ‘Aurania’?” she said.
“The folks I gave him letters to told me he was here in Cuba; but I’m not quite sure his name was Broughton. He had got himself mixed up in some kind of trouble in England.”
“Then,” said the girl decisively, “somebody else made the trouble.”
“It’s quite likely. I don’t think there’s any meanness in that man; but I wouldn’t worry about him. It wouldn’t please Julian.”