"No," decreed Leoncia. "He is a wonderful liar. He is a very Wonderful liar, as we've all found out. Let us have some fun, He is dismounting now. Let the four of us dis— appear. Father!" With a wave of hand she indicated Enrico and all his sons. "You will sit around desolated over the loss of me. This scoundrel Torres will enter. You will be thirsty for information. He will tell you no one can guess what astounding lies about us. As for us, we'll hide behind the screen there. Come! All of you!"
And, catching the Queen by the hand and leading the way, with her eyes she commanded Francis and Henry to follow to the hiding place.
And Torres entered upon a scene of sorrow which had been so recently real that Enrico and his sons had no difficulty in acting it. Enrico started up from his chair in eagerness of welcome and sank weakly back. Torres caught the other's hand in both his own and manifested deep sympathy and could not speak from emotion.
"Alas!" he finally managed heart-brokenly. "They are dead. She is dead, your beautiful daughter, Leoncia. And the two Gringo Morgans are dead with her. As Eicardo, there, must know, they died in the heart of the Maya Mountain.
"It is the home of mystery," he continued, after giving due time for the subsidence of the first violent outburst of Enrico's grief. "I was with them when they died. Had they followed my counsel, they would all have lived. But not even Leoncia would listen to the old friend of the Solanos. No, she must listen to the two Gringos. After incredible dangers I won my way out through the heart of the mountain, gazed down into the Valley of Lost Souls, and returned into the mountain to find them dying-"
Here, pursued by an Indian man-servant, the white hound bounded into the room, trembling and whining in excitement as with its nose it quested the multitudinous scents of the room that advertised his mistress. Before he could follow up to where the Queen hid behind the screen, Torres caught him, by the neck and turned him over to a couple of the Indian house-men to hold.
"Let the brute remain," said Torres. "I will tell you about him afterward. But first look at this." He pulled forth a handful of gems. "I knocked on the doors of the dead, and, behold, the Maya treasure is mine. I am the richest man in Panama, in all the Americas. I shall be powerful-"
"But you were with my daughter when she died." Enrico interrupted to sob, "Had she no word for me?" "Yes," Torres sobbed back, genuinely affected by the death-scene of his fancy. "She died with your name on her lips. Her last words were-"
But, with bulging eyes, he failed to complete his sentence, for he was watching Henry and Leoncia, in the most natural, casual manner in the world stroll down the room, immersed in quiet conversation. Not noticing Torres, they crossed over to the window still deep in talk.
"You were telling me her last words were…?" Enrico prompted.