SPANISH TREASURE!
A different man in fresh white pajamas and straw slippers, Richard Cary idled in a shady corner of the patio. A razor had reaped the heavy stubble clean. Not in the least resembling the Yellow Tiger that gobbled naughty children, he looked amiable enough to purr. His status in this household was even more perplexing than at his arrival. Señor Bazán seemed to be afraid of his disfavor. Afraid? It should have been the other way about. It was for the helpless fugitive to exert himself, by every means in his power, to win and hold the regard of the eccentric old gentleman who held his life in the hollow of his hand.
Every precaution was taken to guard the secret of his presence in this house. The outer doors were kept locked. The only servants were the Indian lad and a fat black woman in the kitchen. These two mortally feared the wrath of Señor Bazán, and were close-mouthed by habit. He had taught them the doctrine of assiduously minding their own business. Moreover, it was a thing far more perilous to risk the vengeance of El Tigre Amarillo should they drop even a whisper outside the house. How calm and harmless he seemed, but imagine him in one of those rages! It was common report that no bullet could slay him.
Señor Bazán endeavored to display his very best behavior. The flighty fits of temper were restrained and he was thoughtful of the small courtesies. As Teresa had said, he was a very old man, brittle and easily tired. At times the wheezing spells almost choked him. Quite often he dozed off with a book in his lap. Otherwise he was diabolically wide awake.
More like himself every day, Richard Cary knew that inaction would soon fret him beyond endurance. In the New Hampshire farmhouse at home he could sit and look at the fire through long lazy spells, but this senseless confinement was very different. He was living and waiting for the arrival of the Tarragona. After that? Ramon Bazán insisted that it was impossible to flee this hostile coast, nor did he offer the smallest hint of willingness to coöperate in any attempt. Why, then, had Richard Cary been fetched into Cartagena? It was a question that pursued itself in a tedious circle.
With all the leisure in the world to mull it over, Cary found solace in the briar pipe with the amber bit which was the sole possession left him. Through his tempestuous escapades it had stayed in a trousers pocket. A pipe with a charmed life, he thought, and a precious reminder of Teresa Fernandez and their last glimpse of each other.
Now he laid it on the stone flagging beside his canvas chair, and the little brown monkey came frisking over from the trellis. It snatched the pipe in a tiny black paw and was about to stick it in his mouth when Cary interfered. He laughed at the indignant little beast which squeaked profane opinions of a man who would deny a petted monkey a morning pipe. The puckered countenance, the spiteful grimace, the gusty temper, were absurdly like Señor Bazán when things displeased him. At one moment the Spanish gentleman of culture and manners, in the next he might be a chattering, scolding tyrant with no manners whatever.
Crack-brained? So Teresa had expressed herself, but her relations with her uncle appeared to be uncertain, an intermittent feud, and she was not apt to give the devil his due. As a rule, Richard Cary’s verdicts were slowly formulated and uncolored by prejudice. In this instance he felt more and more convinced that there was some unseen method in the madness of Señor Ramon Bazán. He had enticed El Tigre Amarillo Grande into a comfortable cage and proposed to keep him there.
Meanwhile the wizened keeper of the tiger was frequently leaving the house on some affairs of his own. He went jogging off in a hired carriage and was not seen again for hours. He brought back American magazines and tobacco, phonograph records, delicacies from the market, anything to amuse the restless Ricardo, who chafed under the increasing burden of obligation. Nothing was said to explain why Señor Bazán should spend so much time away from his house. Secretiveness enwrapped him. He moved like an industrious conspirator.
On the day before the Tarragona was due in port, Richard Cary took occasion to say: