"I bring news of the little Felicidad."
"God grant it is good news!"
"Good and bad. She is safe in my native pueblo, but she is sick. She is sick of the same disease that killed off my own poor mother only a few days ago. It is a plague, Tio Pedro. The whole village is sick with the dread cholera."
The old servant ejaculated in horror.
"It is the hand of God, Jacintito!" he went on with warning sententiousness. "It is a scourge of God striking down those about you because of the terrible vile things you have been doing, these last nights, throughout the peninsula. Take heed, Jacintito mio; take heed ere it is too late, and all you love are dead!"
There was something in the old man's words which sounded startlingly and disagreeably reminiscent of the three dorados, their sullenness, their mutterings.
"Disparate!" exclaimed Quesada. "What nonsense is this? Just tell me, tio; is Don Jaime still away?"
The white head nodded energetically behind the mullion window.
"Si; seguramente, si! Ever since that affair of the Seville-to-Madrid, the senor doctor has been scouring the plains and hills of La Mancha for his stolen daughter and all his money. Ah, Don Jaime is indeed a hard man. God pity Felicidad when he finds her!"
"I come," said Quesada brusquely, tiring of the old man's continual whine—"I come to get medicines from the hidalgo doctor's chest in order to combat the pestilence. Once Don Jaime returns, you will tell him of our plight."