The half-breed laughed softly.
“Even that wouldn’t be so strange a thing as what has really happened, señor. No one knows who the lady is. One man, a distant cousin of mine, told me he heard she landed from a ship only late last night.”
“Great Scott!” muttered Maseden in English, “what a Sphinx-like person! She must be descended from the Man in the Iron Mask.” Then he went on:
“Didn’t your cousin know where she was staying in Cartagena? Surely there must have been a good deal of public curiosity about her. Twenty people were present at the marriage. It was no secret.”
“I understand that she had gone to Señor Steinbaum’s house. She fainted after the ceremony, my cousin said, and had to be carried into an automobile, but he knew nothing more.”
The veiled Madeleine had felt the strain, then! Somehow the knowledge of her collapse touched a chord of sentiment in Maseden’s heart, but his own desperate plight effectually banished all other considerations at the moment.
True, he was safe for the night, and for many days to come, if the foreman’s fidelity remained unshaken. The ranch was called Los Andes because it contained a chain of little hills all covered with valuable timber, among which he could hide without real difficulty.
But of what avail this precarious lurking on his own estate? He must take speedy and effectual steps to get clear of San Juan altogether until such time as he could secure adequate protection, and have his case thrashed out by a tribunal to whose decision even Enrico Suarez, the president of the Republic, must bow.
One thing was quite certain—never again could he settle down in unmolested possession of his property. Though the shooting of Suarez was an unfortunate necessity, its effect would be enduring and disastrous.
He had thought out every phase of the problem during the long, hot hours beneath the trees, and the half-breed’s account of the trend of public feeling decided his adoption of the boldest course of all. He would go to Cartagena, where he was hardly known, save to a few merchants and shopkeepers, a banker and one or two members of the Consular community, and board some outward-bound vessel.