“You go to the boat—understand? Go now!”
The little red eyes of the tame monster blinked with painful attention in the mass of hair.
“Well? Why don't you get? Forgot human speech, eh? Don't you know any longer what a boat is?”
“Si—boat,” the creature stammered out doubtfully.
“Well, go there—the boat at the jetty. March off to it and sit there, lie down there, do anything but go to sleep there—till you hear my call, and then fly here. Them's your orders. March! Get, vamos! No, not that way—out through the front door. No sulks!”
Pedro obeyed with uncouth alacrity. When he had gone, the gleam of pitiless savagery went out of Ricardo's yellow eyes, and his physiognomy took on, for the first time that evening, the expression of a domestic cat which is being noticed.
“You can watch him right into the bushes, if you like. Too dark, eh? Why not go with him to the very spot, then?”
Heyst made a gesture of vague protest.
“There's nothing to assure me that he will stay there. I have no doubt of his going, but it's an act without guarantee.”
“There you are!” Ricardo shrugged his shoulders philosophically. “Can't be helped. Short of shooting our Pedro, nobody can make absolutely sure of his staying in the same place longer than he has a mind to; but I tell you, he lives in holy terror of my temper. That's why I put on my sudden-death air when I talk to him. And yet I wouldn't shoot him—not I, unless in such a fit of rage as would make a man shoot his favourite dog. Look here, sir! This deal is on the square. I didn't tip him a wink to do anything else. He won't budge from the jetty. Are you coming along now, sir?”