Suddenly Captain Forest started, gasped, and gripped one of the veranda pillars with his right hand. "No—it can't be!" he muttered, passing his free hand across his eyes as though to dispel an illusion.
"What's the matter, Jack?" asked Dick.
"God in heaven! what can have brought them here?" he cried, ignoring his companion's question and leaning out over the veranda rail, his gaze riveted on the stage.
"Friends of yours?" asked Dick again.
"Friends? It's the whole family!"
Dick gave a prolonged whistle.
The women and peons, clamoring vociferously, instantly surrounded the stage as it drew up before the Posada with a great clatter of wheels and hoofs; assisting its occupants to alight and carrying the luggage into the house.
On the box beside the driver sat Blanch Lennox, looking a trifle pale the Captain thought, and Bessie Van Ashton, his cousin, a pretty blond with large violet eyes and small hands and feet that matched her slender, willowy figure.
"Is this the infernal place?" came a voice from the interior of the coach that sounded more like a snarl of a wild beast than a human voice. "If ever I pass another night in such a damned ark—" came the voice again, as its possessor, Colonel Van Ashton, enveloped in a much wrinkled traveling coat, stepped with difficulty from the coach to the ground. "I'm so stiff I can hardly walk! Ough!" he cried, and his right hand went to his back as a fresh spasm of pain seized him.
"It's just what I told you it would be like! The country's beastly—beastly!" and Mrs. Forest, white with dust and completely exhausted by the journey, followed the Colonel, supported on either side by her maid and her brother's valet.