“Now, blind swine, that will serve for a while!” Sebastien’s cold voice broke in. “Off with you and build a fire, then stake out the mules.” Seyd’s suspicion gave a little more before his quiet assurance. “You will have to stay here till morning, señors, for it is many miles along the rim to the other trail. Unfortunately, it was your supply mule that went into the cañon, so you must needs go hungry. However, we have a proverb, ‘A warm fire helps the empty belly,’ and to-morrow you will be able to recover your goods.”
Neither did his expression, as presently revealed by the fire, offer evidence for doubt. As he stood looking down at the blaze Seyd was vividly reminded of the Aztec god, for its cold stone face was not more inscrutable than this quiet brown mask. Its inscrutability provoked him to ask a sudden question.
“Did I not see you at the hotel last night?”
But the sudden challenge produced only an indifferent shrug. “Perhaps. I was there.”
He did look up at Billy’s vigorous comment on his answer as translated by Seyd: “Then why didn’t he show himself this morning? Goodness knows we left late enough.”
He even asked, “What does he say?” And the sense having been softened in translation to an expression of mild wonder at his non-appearance, he quietly replied, “I do not doubt that the señor’s departure was fraught with enormous significance for the country at large, but not being informed of it, there was no reason for me to cut my sleep.”
Though the smile which marked his appreciation of the blush that drowned out Billy’s freckles when Seyd translated was so slight as to be almost imperceptible, it yet increased his anger. “The dago!” he growled. “I’d punch his head for five cents Mex. The gall of him! Standing there poking fun at us after we have just missed death at the hands of his brigands. And you really think that he planned it all?”
“Looks like it. He chose the men, the trail. Was seen last night at the hotel. Appears now at the psychological moment. Any jury would—”
“—Pronounce me guilty. They would be mistaken, sir.”
Utterly confounded at the interruption which was delivered in fluent English—so surprised, indeed, that Billy glanced around to make sure that nobody else had spoken—they stared at him across the fire in red confusion. When Seyd at last found his tongue he could only stammer the obvious question, “You speak English?”