Enrico Solano was the first to break down in mirth. All his sons joined him, while tears of sheer delight welled out of his eyes.
“I could have married her myself,” Torres sneered malignantly. “She begged me on her knees.”
“And now,” said Francis, “I shall save you all a dirty job by throwing him out.”
“I like dirty jobs equally. And this is a dirty job particularly to my liking.”
Both the Morgans were about to fall on Torres, when the Queen held up her hand.
“First,” she said, “let him return to me, from there in his belt, the dagger he stole from me.”
“Ah,” said Enrico, when this had been accomplished. “Should he not also return to you, lovely lady, the gems he filched?”
Torres did not hesitate. Dipping into his pocket, he laid a handful of the jewels on the table. Enrico glanced at the Queen, who merely waited expectantly.
And three more of the beautiful uncut stones Torres added to the others on the table.
“Would you search me like a common pickpocket?” he demanded in frantic indignation, turning both trousers’ pockets emptily inside out.
“Oh, all very well,” Francis conceded. “Then we’ll do it together. We can throw him farther off the steps.”
Acting as one, they clutched Torres by collar and trousers and started in a propulsive rush for the door.
All others in the room ran to the windows to behold Torres’ exit; but Enrico, quickest of all, gained a window first. And, afterward, into the middle of the room, the Queen scooped the gems from the table into both her hands, and gave the double handful to Leoncia, saying:
“From Francis and me to you and Henry——your wedding present.”
Yi Poon, having left the crone by the beach and crept back to peer at the house from the bushes, chuckled gratifiedly to himself when he saw the rich caballero thrown off the steps with such a will as to be sent sprawling far out into the gravel. But Yi Poon was too clever to let on that he had seen. Hurrying away, he was half down the hill ere overtaken by Torres on his horse.
The celestial addressed him humbly, and Torres, in his general rage, lifted his riding whip savagely to slash him across the face. But Yi Poon did not quail.
“The Senorita Leoncia,” he said quickly, and arrested the blow. “I have great secret.” Torres waited, the whip still lifted as a threat. “You like ‘m some other man marry that very nice Senorita Leoncia?”