Robledo threw himself down on the ground in a paroxysm of weeping. Four years of work had melted away like so much sugar before his eyes. “All to do over again ... from the very beginning!”
His fellow countryman, the owner of the boliche, saw ruin staring him in the face also. In that once prosperous establishment the money-drawer beside the counter was now empty; and with his customers had vanished all his hopes of transforming his sandy acres into fertile irrigated fields. He was a poor man now, poorer than when he had come to find his fortune in this accursed spot!
The Gallego was plunged in heavy gloom; but his faith in Robledo, and his desire to cheer him up, made the store-keeper try to appear optimistic.
“It will all come right some time,” he would say over and over again, but without conviction.
Don Manuel, however, as he watched the merciless stream continue its work of destruction, felt rage growing within him. He no longer watched the river. His eyes had the vague expression of one whose thoughts have wandered far, who sees what is hidden to others.
Canterac and Pirovani appeared before his mind’s eye as clear and distinct as though he had seen them only the day before. And then came a woman’s face, smiling, but with the look of one intent on mischief in her tawny eyes.
Through time and space this woman exerted her evil influence on this distant corner of the globe. She, not nature’s forces, was the real destroyer of the work of many men.
Robledo clenched his fists. He thought of Rojas, and of how the rancher had wanted to punish this woman with whip-lashings. At that moment he would have devised for her something far worse.
“Gualicho, accursed Gualicho! Betrayer and tormentor of men, destroyer of men and of things!... perish the evil hour in which I brought you here!”