She points to a man, moving along the shore-road in the direction of the house.
“I think so,” responds Don Gregorio, after a glance through the glass. “He appears to be in seaman’s dress.”
“Would he be coming here?” inquires Carmen, naïvely.
“I shouldn’t be surprised; probably with a message from our young friends. It may be the man they recommended to me.”
“That’s why somebody went ashore in the little boat,” whispers Iñez to her aunt. “He’s bringing us billetitas. I was sure they wouldn’t go away without leaving a last little word.”
Iñez’s speech imparts no information: for Carmen has been surmising in the same strain.
She replies by one of those proverbs, in which the Spanish tongue is so rich:
“Silencio! hay Moros en la costa,”—(Silence! there are Moors on the coast).
While this bit of by-play is being carried on, the sailor ascends the hill, and is seen entering at the road-gate. There can now be no uncertainty as to his calling. The blue jacket, broad shirt-collar, round-ribboned hat, and bell-bottomed trousers, are all the unmistakable toggery of a tar.
Advancing up the avenue in a rolling gait, with an occasional tack from side to side—that almost fetches him up among the manzanitas—he at length reaches the front of the house. There stopping, and looking up to the roof, he salutes those upon it by removing his hat giving a back-scrape with his foot, and a pluck at one of his brow-locks.