“What’s the matter with you? Do you expect to get something from the wop feller when he dies? What is it to you whether we work or not? Say, cut that stuff! He hasn’t been around here for days!”
Another laborer, with a suggestive laugh, broke out,
“He’s following that pretty gringa around like a dog, you know, the one that’s always perfumed to the king’s taste, and that they call the marquesa. Well, I don’t blame him.... I would too if there was any chance....”
And he added something that made his hearers burst out into savage and bestial laughter. Suddenly a boy, one of the apprentices, who was keeping a look-out from a slight rise of ground, gave the alarm.
“Engineer coming!”
With a jump they picked up their tools and went to work, bending to the task as though they were all models of diligence, while Robledo walked his horse slowly through the groups.
But all the while they were pretending to work they kept an eye on the engineer, and no sooner was his back turned than they let their tools fall once more to the ground. Robledo turned several times to look back. And each time he did so he felt more and more convinced of Gualicho’s presence in the colony. The demon was busying himself there, every one was feeling the touch of his evil hand; work itself was crumbling away in his presence....
Leaving Pirovani’s peons to their own devices he came to that part of the works where his own men were digging canals.
Here something was being accomplished. Torre Bianca was directing the men and keeping close watch of every move, letting no effort go to waste, and lending an example by his own activity. As soon as he caught sight of Robledo he led him away to a spot where they could talk unheard. From his manner Robledo guessed that he had unpleasant news to impart.
“The bad example set by those fellows at the dam is beginning to affect these men up here. They won’t work any longer than the other laborers, they say. I can’t make out what’s got into poor old Pirovani. He seems to have given up his work entirely.”