"El Negrito!" she whispered. "You think he came from Alvarez? But what dealings does the Americano Wiley have with El Negrito?"
The old woman muttered and her withered, clenched hand struck her breast.
"It is that which I would see in the cauldron," she hissed. "Before El Negrito, comes always his creature, De Soria, and with him come fire and looting and death! The Señor Wiley turns all things to his purpose and if he has sold himself to the Evil One and traffics with El Negrito, I would be warned. I have seen one of his raids, Señorita; it was as if the sky rained destruction and slaughter!"
Her head sank on her breast and a brief, tense silence ensued.
"I do not believe such evil of the Señor Wiley," Billie remarked at last. "Cruel he is and like a madman in his anger, but between him and El Negrito there could be no covenant. It may be that he came upon Sawyer skulking about and was warning him off the hacienda. Sawyer has been in Limasito for many days, and he plays high at my father's casa."
"With what gold?" the old woman retorted. "He who has been beggar and thief since the hour of his birth. Much gold he could not steal for he has not the wit. For what evil compact has he been paid in riches?"
The girl shrugged.
"Luck turns," she said laconically. "Once a man came to the Blue Chip with pesos ciento and broke the faro bank. Fortune—buena suerte—has smiled on as worthless ones as Sawyer. But you, Tia Juana; what did you do last night when you saw?"
"I crept away, silently, so that none knew of my presence and returned to José." Tia Juana chuckled mirthlessly. "My vengeance can wait. The Señor Wiley is a fool, and the son of fools! It was not to the boy he should have gone for knowledge of the Pool; José knows no more than the idle words he repeated one evil day to the Señor Hallock, for which I beat him soundly! It is I who have seen the Pool of the Lost Souls, only I who knows where Dolores and her lover sleep."
Her voice died in an unintelligible murmur, and the rhythmic swaying recommenced. The legend of the Lost Souls' Pool was no new one to Billie; she had heard it often from the lips of the old crone, who could never be persuaded to divulge its supposed location and the myth had become an old settlers' joke around Limasito.