“Mr. Forrester!” repeated her mother. “But I thought—I was told only just now that he knew nothing of our plans.”
“That is quite true,” Colonel Vega assured her. “He was not with us. He was there by accident.”
“Let us rather say,” corrected Señora Rojas piously, “he was placed there by a special Providence to save you.”
That the Almighty should be especially concerned in his well-being did not appear to Vega as at all unlikely.
He nodded his head gravely.
“It may be so,” he admitted.
Through force of habit Señora Rojas glanced about her; but the open windows showed the empty garden, and around her, seated in two rows of rocking-chairs, the ladies facing the door, the men facing the ladies, she saw only friends.
“But why,” she asked, “is young Mr. Forrester not in the confidence of his father? Can he not trust his own son?”
As though sure of her answer she cast a triumphant glance at the daughter who had dared, against Captain Codman and herself, to champion Mr. Forrester’s son. Pino frowned mysteriously. He did not like to say that with any action of the great Mr. Forrester he was not acquainted. So he scowled darkly and shook his head.
“It is a puzzle,” he said; “the young man is a fine fellow. To him I owe my life.” He appealed to his friends, who, in time to the sedate rocking of the chairs, nodded gravely. “But his father is very decided. He cables us to send him at once to Porto Cabello. He instructs us not to let him know what we plan to do. I learned that in Porto Cabello he is only a workman, or, a little better, the foreman of the Jamaica coolies. I do not say so,” Pino pointed out, as though if he wished he might say a great deal, “but it looks as though he were here for some punishment—as though he had displeased his father. Or,” he demanded, “why should his father, who is so wealthy, give his son the wages of a foreman?”