"I come for oil for the lantern, Don Gil. It is a very good _farol de señales_, but it is a glutton! It is never satisfied! It eats, and eats!"
"Like the rest of you." Don Gil laughed aloud. Andres gazed at him with astonishment. "That blessed glutton! Let us feed it, Andres! Give it plenty to eat to-night, of all nights. I will hoist it upon the headland myself to-night." At Andres's still greater look of astonishment, "Yes, yes, leave it to me. I will hoist the blessed lantern myself to-night upon my headland."
"The Señor must not trouble himself. It is a dull, dark night! The Señor will find the _sendica_ rough and hard to climb."
"What! that little path? Have not I played there as a child? Raced over it as a boy? I could go there blindfold. How is the little king, Andres?" Andres's face fell.
"He is not so well, Señor. That is why I forgot the lantern. He was awake in the night talking to her. I have left him for barely an hour to fill the lantern and return it again to the asta. He talks to her at night. Sometimes I think she has returned. He begged me to leave the door unlocked; he thinks she may come when I am gone." Andres turned away his heavy face, and brushed his sleeve across his eyes.
"You shall go home early to-night, Andres; as I said, I will hoist the lantern."
The dull face of Andres lighted up with a tender smile, a smile which glorified its homely lineaments--that smile which had always been ready to appear at the bidding of El Rey. Poor little El Rey, who had never ceased to call, in all his waking hours for Roseta, Roseta who had found the charms of Dondy Jeem, with his tight-rope and his red trunk-hose and his spangles and his delightful wandering life, much more to be desired than the palm-board hut down on the edge of the river, with El Rey to care for all day, and Andres to attend when he returned at night from the sucker planting or banana cutting.
"As the Señor says, not for some weeks past have we had a moon."
Don Gil laughed. He could laugh now, loud and long. His heart was almost light. What better tool and confidant could he procure than a peon who knew so little of times and seasons as Andres?
"And it is low tide at ten o'clock to-night?"
Had Don Gil asked, "Is the sea ink?" Andres would have replied, "As the Señor says."