“No matter what comes I shall always love you.”
Steady rain all that day and night had given the floods another lift and sent the river roaming wide through the jungle. Once again the valley opposite the mine was converted into a great lake dotted with wooded islands between which swift currents hurtled floating debris. Profiting by last year’s lesson, Seyd had had two roomy dugouts fitted with oars and rowlocks, and early the next morning he rowed Caliban across himself. Returning, he was to send a smoke signal to call the boat, and when, on the afternoon of the fourth day, Seyd spied the thin blue spiral through a break in the drifting rain he almost cracked his back rowing across the flood.
But his glowing hope died at the shake of the hunchback’s head. “The señorita is gone with her mother and Don Luis to San Nicolas, señor. But she is to return to El Quiss in a few days. The cousin of my woman had it from Roberta, the little maid. She is still there, and will deliver the letter when the señorita returns.”
The news was not altogether bad, for Francesca, at least, was now at San Nicolas. Within the hour Seyd crossed the river to the inn—where a horse was to be had for hire—and his purpose gained strength from a wire that he found waiting there from Billy.
“San Francisco burned to the ground. Not a cent to be raised in California. Am going east.”
In view of the aforesaid game of hide and seek he had been playing with Don Luis the situation looked very dark. But, serious as it was, when, halfway to San Nicolas, he met Paulo riding at the head of a mule train loaded with fagots it was wiped altogether out of his mind.
“We go to build beacons along the rim of the Barranca to give warning against the bursting of the gringo dam,” he answered Seyd. “Si, Don Luis and the señora are at the casa. The señorita?” His creases drew into a malevolent grin. “The señora, you mean. She was married two hours ago to Don Sebastien.”