Silencio tapped with his key upon the trunk of the dead palm tree which arose grand and straight opposite its mate at the side of the doorway.
"Now watch, Raquel," he said.
The tall trunk had sent back an answering echo from its hollow tube. Then there was a strange stir within the tree. Raquel looked upward. Numberless black beaks and heads protruded from the holes which penetrated the sides of the tall stem from the bottom to the top, as if to say, "Here is an inquisitive stranger. Let us look out, and see if we wish to be at home."
Raquel laughed gleefully. She took the key from her husband's fingers, crossed the path, and tapped violently upon the barkless trunk of the second palm tree. As many more heads were thrust outward as in the first instance. Some of the birds left their nests in the dead tree, flew a little way off, and alighted upon living branches, to watch for further developments about the shell where they had made their homes. Others cried and chattered as they flew round and round the palm, fearing they knew not what. Raquel watched them until they were quiet, then tapped the tree again. As often as she knocked upon the trunk the birds repeated their manœuvres. She laughed with delight at the result of each recurring invasion of the domestic quiet of the carpenter birds.
So engaged was Raquel that she did not perceive the entrance of a man into the small enclosure of the counting-house, nor did she see Silencio walk to the gate with the stranger. The two stood there talking hurriedly, the sound of their voices quite drowned by the cries of the birds.
As Raquel wearied of teasing the birds, she dropped her eyes to earth to seek some other amusement. A man was just disappearing round the corner of the paling. Silencio had turned and was coming back to her along the path which led from the gate to the door of the counting-house.
She met him with smiles, her lips parted, her face flushed.
"Who was that, Gil—that man? I did not see him come."
"You have seen him go, dear Heart. Is not that enough?"