Silencio opened the door which connected the office with the main part of the house. He closed and locked it behind him, and proceeded along a passage so dark that no light crept in except through the narrow slits beneath the eaves. When he had traversed this passage, he opened a further door and emerged at once into the main part of the house. Here everything was open, attractive, and alluring. Here spacious apartments gave upon broad verandas, whose flower boxes held blooms rare even in this garden spot of the world. Here were beauty and colour and splendour and glowing life.
Don Gil threw himself down in a hammock which stretched across a shady corner. Through the opening between the pilotijos, he could see the wooded heights in the distance, those heights beyond which Troja lay, Troja, which held his heart and soul. What to do? To-night she would set sail for the government town in the toils of Escobeda, her self-confessed betrayer and barterer--set sail for that hateful place where her worse than slavery would begin. The person to whom she was to be sold--none the less sold because the price paid did not appear on paper--was possessed of power and that might of which Escobeda had spoken in his letter--that might which makes right. He could give countenance to speculators and incorporators, he could grant concessions for an equivalent; into such keeping Escobeda, with his devil's calculation, was planning to deliver her--his Raquel, his little sweetheart. That she loved him he knew. A word and a glance are enough, and he had received many such. A note and a rose at the last _festin_, where she had been allowed to look on for a while under the eye of her old duenna! A pressure of her hand in the crowd, a trembling word of love under her breath in answer to his fierce and fiery ones!
The cause for love, its object does not know nor question. The fact is all that concerns him, and so far Silencio was secure. And here was this last appeal from the helpless girl! They had started by this time perhaps. Don Gil looked at the ancient timepiece which had descended from old Don Oviedo. Yes, they had started. It was now twenty minutes past six; they needed but two hours to ride to the Port of Entry. The steamer would not sail until between nine and ten o'clock. Very shortly Escobeda's party would cross the trocha, which at that point was a public highway. It ran through the Palmacristi estate, and neared the casa on the south. Could he not rescue her when they were so near? There were not three men within the home enclosure. The others had gone direct to their huts and ranchos from their work in the fields. He could not collect them now, and if he could, of what use a skirmish in the road? Escobeda was sure to ride with a large force, and a stray shot might do injury to Raquel herself. No, no! Some other way must be thought of.