The girl’s tone was deep and mellow, like the low note of a cello.
“So am I,” said Johnny, “but only sorry for you, you and your wonderful old grandfather.”
“For us?” She let forth a merry little laugh. “We shall get on, one way or another. One always does down here you know.”
“It is rather bad, though,” she admitted, sitting down upon the ground. “You see—”
She paused to glance away at the sun. Where the sun should have been, there was no sun, only a dull, veiled sky. Her brow wrinkled, but she did not comment upon it.
“It is bad,” she went on. “We may have to sell the orchard.”
“Sell the orchard!” Johnny was surprised. “To whom?”
“Diaz.” She leaned far forward as she answered. “He wishes to buy it. That was what he and grandfather were talking about when you came the other night.”
“Diaz!” Johnny took in a long breath. The picture of the stout, prosperous American and the crafty Spaniard passed before him. “So that’s his game,” he thought. “He’s got Kennedy in a hole. The sale of his grapefruit would let him out. Diaz is determined to block the shipment, and is in the position to do it. The scoundrel!”
“The Spaniards down here don’t love us, the English and Scotch, too much,” Madge Kennedy went on. “The trouble goes clear back to the days of buccaneers and the Spanish Main. The English and Scotch logwood gatherers drove the Spaniards from the mouth of the Belize River. They have never forgiven us.