“As I was saying, craving your patience, honorable senor, as I was saying, I am a very poor man. There are days when I cannot spend ten centavos for a morsel of spoiled fish. There are days when I cannot afford a sip of the cheap red wine I learned was tonic to my system when I was a lad, far from Barcelona, serving my apprenticeship in Italy. I am so very poor that I do not buy costly pretties——”
“Not to sell again at a profit?” Torres cut in.
“If I am sure of my profit,” the old man cackled. “Yes, then will I buy; but, being poor, I cannot pay more than little.” He picked up the gem and studied it long and carefully. “I would give,” he began hesitatingly, “I would give——but, please, honorable senor, know that I am a very poor man. This day only a spoonful of onion soup, with my morning coffee and a mouthful of crust, passed my lips——”
“In God’s name, old fool, what will you give?” Torres thundered.
“Five hundred dollars—but I doubt the profit that will remain to me.”
“Gold?”
“Mex.,” came the reply, which cut the offer in half and which Torres knew was a lie. “Of course, Mex., only Mex., all our transactions are in Mex.”
Despite his elation at so large a price for so small a gem, Torres play-acted impatience as he reached to take back the gem. But the old man jerked his hand away, loath to let go of the bargain it contained.
“We are old friends,” he cackled shrilly. “I first saw you, when, a boy, you came to San Antonio from Boca del Toros. And, as between old friends, we will say the sum is gold.”
And Torres caught a sure but vague glimpse of the enormousness, as well as genuineness, of the Queen’s treasure which at some remote time the Lost Souls had ravished from its hiding place in the Maya Mountain.