“My dear little daughter,” he responded, sadly, “I fear there will be more than one lot of poor fellows drowned to-night. This storm is fearful!”
It seemed, in fact, to be getting worse every minute, and Ned was thinking of the Goshawk and the state of her cable, even while he was being introduced to the pretty Señorita Felicia Tassara, and then to her mother, a stately woman, who came to meet her husband without condescending to say how badly she had been alarmed on his account.
“She’s just about the proudest-looking woman I ever saw,” thought Ned, for, although she welcomed him politely, she at once made him aware that she did not consider him of any importance whatever. He was only a young gringo, from nobody knew where, and she was a Mexican lady of high rank, who hated Americans of all sorts.
Ned’s only really hearty greeting came from Señor Zuroaga, who seemed to him, under the circumstances, like an old friend.
“Carfora, my dear fellow,” he said, “you and the colonel must come in to your supper——”
“Why, señor,” expostulated Ned, “I’m wet through, and so is he.”
“I declare!” exclaimed Zuroaga. “What’s in my head that I should overlook that? You must change your rig. Come this way with me.”
Ned followed him, bag in hand, through a narrow passage which opened at the right, and they went on almost to the end of it. The room which they then entered was only seven feet wide, but it was three times as long, and it was oddly furnished. Instead of a bedstead, a handsome hammock, with blankets, sheets, and a pillow in it, hung at one side, and the high window was provided with mosquito nettings. There was no carpet on the floor, but this was clean, and a good enough dressing-bureau stood at the further end of the room. Before the mirror of this, the señor set down the lamp he had been carrying, and said to Ned:
“My dear Carfora, I have explained to the haughty señora that you are the son of an American merchant, and of a good family, so that she will not really treat you like a common person. She is descended from the oldest families of Spain, and there is no republicanism in her. The sooner you are ready, the better. I will be back in five minutes.”
Open came the bag, but the best Ned could do in the way of style was a very neat blue suit. What he would have called the swallow-tails, which Señora Tassara might have expected as the dinner dress of a more important guest, could hardly be required of a young fellow just escaped from a norther. As soon as he felt that he had done his best, he turned toward the door, but it opened to let in Señor Zuroaga in full regulation dinner costume. How he could have put it on so quickly puzzled Ned, but he asked no questions. It was quite possible, however, that even the descendant of Cortes and the Montezumas was a little bit in awe of the matronly descendant of the ancient Spanish grandees. She might be a powerful personage in more ways than one. At all events, Ned was led out to the central hall and across it, to where an uncommonly wide door stood open, letting out a flood of illumination.