"Bien venido, Andres! Bien venido!"
No dearest friend could have been greeted with a more joyous note of welcome. Andres raised his eyes in astonishment to the face of the young Señor. He had expected to meet with Guillermina's reproaches because he had forgotten to lower the lantern from the asta that morning, and had left it burning all the long day, so that now it must be refilled. Here was a very different reception. He had been thinking over his excuses. He had intended to say at once how ill El Rey had been all night, and how he had forgotten everything but the child; and here, instead of the scolding of the servant, he was greeted with the smiles of the master. Truly, this was a strange world; one never knew what to expect.
"I come for oil for the lantern, Don Gil. It is a very good farol de señales, but it is a glutton! It is never satisfied! It eats, and eats!"
"Like the rest of you." Don Gil laughed aloud. Andres gazed at him with astonishment. "That blessed glutton! Let us feed it, Andres! Give it plenty to eat to-night, of all nights. I will hoist it upon the headland myself to-night." At Andres's still greater look of astonishment, "Yes, yes, leave it to me. I will hoist the blessed lantern myself to-night upon my headland."
"The Señor must not trouble himself. It is a dull, dark night! The Señor will find the sendica rough and hard to climb."
"What! that little path? Have not I played there as a child? Raced over it as a boy? I could go there blindfold. How is the little king, Andres?" Andres's face fell.
"He is not so well, Señor. That is why I forgot the lantern. He was awake in the night talking to her. I have left him for barely an hour to fill the lantern and return it again to the asta. He talks to her at night. Sometimes I think she has returned. He begged me to leave the door unlocked; he thinks she may come when I am gone." Andres turned away his heavy face, and brushed his sleeve across his eyes.
"You shall go home early to-night, Andres; as I said, I will hoist the lantern."
The dull face of Andres lighted up with a tender smile, a smile which glorified its homely lineaments—that smile which had always been ready to appear at the bidding of El Rey. Poor little El Rey, who had never ceased to call, in all his waking hours for Roseta, Roseta who had found the charms of Dondy Jeem, with his tight-rope and his red trunk-hose and his spangles and his delightful wandering life, much more to be desired than the palm-board hut down on the edge of the river, with El Rey to care for all day, and Andres to attend when he returned at night from the sucker planting or banana cutting.
"How is the sea, Andres?"