And, while Torres waited on the beach and held the Caroo’s horse and an extra horse, the Caroo ascended on foot the winding road that led to the hacienda of the Solanos. Little did Torres guess that twenty feet away, in the jungle that encroached on the beach, lay a placid-sleeping, pulque-drunken, old peon, with, crouching beside him, a very alert and very sober Chinese with a recently acquired thousand dollars stowed under his belt. Yi Poon had had barely time to drag the peon into hiding when Torres rode along in the sand and stopped almost beside him.
Up at the hacienda, all members of the household were going to bed. Leoncia, just starting to let down her hair, stopped when she heard the rattle of tiny pebbles against her windows. Warning her in low whispers to make no noise, José Mancheno handed her a crumpled note which Torres had written, saying mysteriously:
“From a strange Chinaman who waits not a hundred feet away on the edge of the shrubbery.”
And Leoncia read, in execrable Spanish:
“First time, I tell you secret about Henry Morgan. This time I have secret about Francis. You come along and talk with me now.”
Leoncia’s heart leaped at mention of Francis, and as she slipped on a mantle and accompanied the Caroo it never entered her head to doubt that Yi Poon was waiting for her.
And Yi Poon, down on the beach and spying upon Torres, had no doubts when he saw the Caroo murderer appear with the Solano senorita, bound and gagged, slung across his shoulder like a sack of meal. Nor did Yi Poon have any doubts about his next action, when he saw Leoncia tied into the saddle of the spare horse and taken away down the beach at a gallop, with Torres and the Caroo riding on either side of her. Leaving the pulque-sodden peon to sleep, the fat Chinaman took the road up the hill at so stiff a pace that he arrived breathless at the hacienda. Not content with knocking at the door, he beat upon it with his fists and feet and prayed to his Chinese gods that no peevish Solano should take a shot at him before he could explain the urgency of his errand.
“O go to hell,” Alesandro said, when he had opened the door and flashed a light on the face of the importunate caller.
“I have big secret,” Yi Poon panted. “Very big brand new secret.”
“Come around to-morrow in business hours,” Alesandro growled as he prepared to kick the Chinaman off the premises.