Escobeda was livid. His eyes rolled with rage; they seemed to turn red. He arose from the chair, leaving it creaking in every straw. He clenched his fist, and shook it at the woman and girl alternately. His ear-rings danced and trembled. He seemed to be seized with a stuttering fit. The words would not pass the barrier of his brown teeth. He jerked and stammered.
"We--we--shall see. We shall s--s--see. This--this--eve--evening."
Raquel, her short spurt of courage fled, now stood with drooped head. Escobeda's anger seemed to have left him as suddenly as it had appeared. He threw Silencio's note on the floor.
"Ah! bah!" he said, contemptuously. "It sounds very fine. It is like hare soup: first catch your hare. Silencio shall not catch you, my little hare. His horses are not fleet enough, nor his arm long enough."
"All the same, I think that he will catch me," said Raquel, again defiant, with a fresh burst of courage.
"Go to the door, Ana," he said, "and see who keeps up that thumping."
When Ana had shuffled along the passage, Raquel turned to Escobeda. "It may be a messenger from the Señor Silencio," she said. "I sent him a letter some hours ago."
"That I will not tell you. I do not betray those who are kind to me. You told me early this morning that I was to be taken away. You will see now that I, too, have a friend."
Ana's steps interrupted this conversation.
"Well?" asked Escobeda. "The messenger is--will you speak?"
"It is the man Rotiro from Palmacristi," said Ana, in a low voice.
Raquel gave a quick little draw of her breath inward. The sound made a joyous note in that cruel atmosphere.
"It will do you no good," said Escobeda. "Go and tell him that I will see him presently. I will lock you up, my pretty Señorita, that you send no more notes to that truhan.[5] You have now but a few hours to make ready. Put in all your finery; though, after all, your new master can give you what he will, if you please him."
It was an unthrifty-looking place, El Cuco--very small, as its name implied. How Don Mateo had asked any woman to marry him with no more to give her than the small plantation of El Cuco, one could not imagine. The place was little more than a conuco, and Don Mateo, through careless ways and losses at gambling, selling a little strip of field here and some forest land there, was gradually reducing the property to the size of a native holding.