"Oh, now I smell it, Gremo!" said Agueda, sniffing up her straight little nose. "Now I smell it! It is delicious!"
"It is better than the perfume down below there," said Gremo, with a grimace. Agueda turned pale again.
"And what do you do with them, Gremo?" asked she.
"I take them to the Port of Entry, Señorita. I get good payment there. Sometimes a half-dollar, Mex. They stick them in the earth. They last a long, long time."
"Were you going there when you called me from—from—down there?"
"Si, Señorita. I was walking along the bank. I had just come from my casa"—Gremo gestured backward with a dignified wave of the hand—"when I heard El Castaño's hoofs on the hard sand there below." He turned and looked along the beach to where the noisome birds hovered. "I was too late to warn the Señor. Had I been here, I should even have laid down my plants and have run to the edge of the cliff"—Gremo jerked his head towards the humped-up pit of sand—"and called, 'Olá! Porque hace Usted eso? It is Gremo who has the kind heart, muchacho.'"
"I am not a boy, Gremo," said Agueda, glancing down at her riding costume.
"It is the same to me, Señorita," said Gremo, who in common with his fellows had but one gender of speech.
Agueda was looking at the hand which thrust itself out from the sand of the shore. It seemed as if the fingers beckoned. She shuddered.
"They should put up a sign," she said, quickly. "I shall tell the Señor Don Beltran. He will put up a notice—a warning."