“And—then?”
“There will be no ‘then.’ I know these gringos. They will disappear like their vanishing gold.”
Her slight flush indicated defiant unbelief. But knowing that this was in deadly earnest, that Seyd’s life hung by a hair, she let him go on. “Let there be no misunderstanding. I shall require your promise, on the word of a Garcia, not to attempt communication.” He added, turning away, perhaps in pity for the misery of her face: “There is no hurry. Take time to think it over—an hour, two if you wish.”
He could easily afford, too, the concession, for her love was playing into his hands. None knew better than she that a contrary answer would make of Seyd an Ishmaelite with every man’s hand raised against his life. He could never escape. With that dread fact staring her in the face she could give but one answer; and while, later, she spent hours pacing her bedroom in restless strivings to find a way out, she reached her decision before he gained the end of the gallery.
“I will go.”
CHAPTER XVI
“
Really, I don’t know what to make of it. That last car load of machinery rusted for a month in the damp heat of the Tehuantepec tropics before we got it traced. It has happened so often now that I’m almost tempted to suspect a design.”