La! What a crime! And you the most faithful slave in all Cuba!"
"Yes, mistress."
"Can I help you?"
The negro raised his head; he shook his body to rid himself of the insects which were devouring him.
"Give me a drink of water," he said, hoarsely.
"Surely, a great gourdful, all cool and dripping from the well. But first I want you to tell me something. Come now, let us have an understanding with each other."
"A drink, for the love of Christ," panted the old man, and Dona Isabel saw how cracked and dry were his thick lips, how near the torture had come to prostrating him.
"I'll do more," she promised, and her voice was like honey. "I'll tell Pancho Cueto to unlock you, even if I risk Esteban's anger by so doing. You have suffered too much, my good fellow. Indeed you have. Well, I can help you now and in the future, or—I can make your life just such a misery as it has been to-day. Will you be my friend? Will you tell me something?" She was close to the window; her black eyes were gleaming; her face was ablaze with greed.
"What can I tell you?"
"Oh, you know very well! I've asked it often enough, but you have lied, just as my husband has lied to me. He is a miser; he has no heart; he cares for nobody, as you can see. You must hate him now, even as I hate him." There was a silence during which Dona Isabel tried to read the expression on that tortured face in the sunlight. "Do you?"
"Perhaps."
"Then tell me—is there really a treasure, or—?" The woman gasped; she choked; she could scarcely force the question for fear of disappointment. "Tell me there is, Sebastian." She clutched the bars and shook them. "I've heard so many lies that I begin to doubt."
The old man nodded. "Oh yes, there is a treasure," said he.
"God! You have seen it?" Isabel was trembling as if with an ague. "What is it like? How much is there? Good Sebastian, I'll give you water; I'll have you set free if you tell me."
"How much? I don't know. But there is much—pieces of Spanish gold, silver coins in casks and in little boxes—the boxes are bound with iron and have hasps and staples; bars of precious metal and little paper packages of gems, all tied up and hidden in leather bags." Sebastian could hear his listener panting; her bloodless fingers were wrapped tightly around the bars above his head.—
"Yes! Go on."
"There are ornaments, too. God knows they must have come from heaven, they are so beautiful; and pearls from the Caribbean as large as plums."
"Are you speaking the truth?"
"Every peso, every bar, every knickknack I have handled with my own hands. Did I not make the hiding-place all alone? Senora, everything is there just as I tell you—and more. The grants of title from the crown for this quinta and the sugar-plantations, they are there, too. Don Esteban used to fear the government officials, so he hid his papers securely. Without them the lands belong to no one. You understand?"
"Of course! Yes, yes! But the jewels—God! where are they hidden?"
"You would never guess!" Sebastian's voice gathered strength. "Ten thousand men in ten thousand years would never find the place, and nobody knows the secret but Don Esteban and me."
"I believe you. I knew all the time it was here. Well? Where is it?"
Sebastian hesitated and said, piteously, "I am dying—"
Isabel could scarcely contain herself. "I'll give you water, but first tell me where—where! God in heaven! Can't you see that I, too, am perishing?"
"I must have a drink."
"Tell me first."
Sebastian lifted his head and, meeting the speaker's eyes, laughed hoarsely.
At the sound of his unnatural merriment Isabel recoiled as if stung. She stared at the slave's face in amazement and then in fury. She stammered, incoherently, "You—you have been—lying!"
"Oh no! The treasure is there, the greatest treasure in all Cuba, but you shall never know where it is. I'll see to that. It was you who sold my girl; it was you who brought me to this; it was your hand that whipped me. Well, I'll tell Don Esteban how you tried to bribe his secret from me! What do you think he'll do then? Eh? You'll feel the lash on your white back—"
"You FOOL!" Dona Isabel looked murder. "I'll punish you for this; I'll make you speak if I have to rub your wounds with salt."
But Sebastian closed his eyes wearily. "You can't make me suffer more than I have suffered," he said. "And now—I curse you. May that treasure be the death of you. May you live in torture like mine the rest of your days; may your beauty turn to ugliness such that men will spit at you; may you never know peace again until you die in poverty and want—"
But Dona Isabel, being superstitious, fled with her fingers in her ears; nor did she undertake to make good her barbarous threat, realizing opportunely that it would only serve to betray her desperate intentions and put her husband further on his guard. Instead she shut herself into her room, where she paced the floor, racking her brain to guess where the hiding-place could be or to devise some means of silencing Sebastian's tongue. To feel that she had been overmatched, to know that there was indeed a treasure, to think that the two who knew where it was had been laughing at her all this time, filled the woman with an agony approaching that which Sebastian suffered from his flies.
As the sun was sinking beyond the farther rim of the Yumuri and the valley was beginning to fill with shadows. Esteban Varona rode up the hill. His temper was more evil than ever, if that were possible, for he had drunk again in an effort to drown the memory of his earlier actions. With him rode half a dozen or more of his friends, coming to dine and put in another night at his expense. There were Pablo Peza, and Mario de Castano, once more; Col. Mendoza y Linares, old Pedro Miron, the advocate, and others of less consequence, whom Esteban had gathered from the Spanish Club. The host dismounted and lurched across the courtyard to Sebastian.
"So, my fine fellow," he began. "Have you had enough of rebellion by this time?"
"Why did you have him flogged?" the advocate inquired.
Esteban explained, briefly, "He dared to raise his hand in anger against one of my guests."
Sebastian's face was working as he turned upon his master to say: "I would be lying if I told you that I am sorry for what I did. It is you have done wrong. Your soul is black with this crime. Where is my girl?"
"The devil! To hear you talk one would think you were a free man." The planter's eyes were bleared and he brandished his riding-whip threateningly. "I do as I please with my slaves. I tolerate no insolence. Your girl? Well, she's in the house of Salvador, Don Pablo's cochero, where she belongs. I've warned him that he will have to tame her unruly spirit, as I have tamed yours."
Sebastian had hung sick and limp against the grating, but at these words he suddenly roused. It was as if a current of electricity had galvanized him. He strained at his manacles and the bars groaned under his weight. His eyes began to roll, his lips drew back over his blue gums. Noting his expression of ferocity, Esteban cut at his naked back with the riding-whip, crying:
