Hearts of Three

In the meanwhile, descending the Gualaca River by canoe, Leoncia, the Queen, and the two Morgans, had made better time than Torres to the coast. But ere their arrival and briefly pending it, a matter of moment that was not appreciated at the time, had occurred at the Solano hacienda. Climbing the winding pathway to the hacienda, accompanied by a decrepit old crone whose black shawl over head and shoulders could not quite hide the lean and withered face of blasted volcanic fire, came as strange a caller as the hacienda had ever received.

He was a Chinaman, middle-aged and fat, whose moon-face beamed the beneficent good nature that seems usual with fat persons. By name, Yi Poon, meaning “the Cream of the Custard Apple,” his manners were as softly and richly oily as his name. To the old crone, who tottered beside him and was half-supported by him, he was the quintessence of gentleness and consideration. When she faltered from sheer physical weakness and would have fallen, he paused and gave her chance to gain strength and breath. Thrice, at such times, on the climb to the hacienda, he fed her a spoonful of French brandy from a screw-cap pocket flask.

Seating the old woman in a selected, shady corner of the piazza, Yi Poon boldly knocked for admittance at the front door. To him, and in his business, back-stairs was the accustomed way; but his business and his wit had taught him the times when front entrances were imperative.

The Indian maid who answered his knock, took his message into the living room where sat the disconsolate Enrico Solano among his sons – disconsolate at the report Ricardo had brought in of the loss of Leoncia in the Maya Mountain. The Indian maid returned to the door. The Senor Solano was indisposed and would see nobody, was her report, humbly delivered, even though the recipient was a Chinese.

“Huh!” observed Yi Poon, with braggart confidence for the purpose of awing the maid to carrying a second message. “I am no coolie. I am smart Chinaman. I go to school plenty much. I speak Spanish. I speak English. I write Spanish. I write English. See – I write now in Spanish for the Senor Solano. You cannot write, so you cannot read what I write. I write that I am Yi Poon. I belong Colon. I come this place to see Senor Solano. Big business. Much important. Very secret. I write all this here on paper which you cannot read.”

But he did not say that he had further written:

“The Senorita Solano. I have great secret.”

It was Alesandro, the eldest of the tall sons of Solano, who evidently had received the note, for he came bounding to the door, far outstripping the returning maid.

“Tell me your business!” he almost shouted at the fat Chinese. “What is it? Quick!”

“Very good business,” was the reply, Yi Poon noting the other’s excitement with satisfaction. “I make much money. I buy – what you call – secrets. I sell secrets. Very nice business.”

“What do you know about the Senorita Solano?” Alesandro shouted, gripping him by the shoulder.

“Everything. Very important information – ”

But Alesandro could no longer control himself. He almost hurled the Chinaman into the house, and, not relaxing his grip, rushed him on into the living room and up to Enrico.

“He has news of Leoncia!” Alesandro shouted.

“Where is she?” Enrico and his sons shouted in chorus.

Hah! – was Yi Poon’s thought. Such excitement, although it augured well for his business, was rather exciting for him as well.

Mistaking his busy thinking for fright, Enrico stilled his sons back with an upraised hand, and addressed the visitor quietly.

“Where is she?” Enrico asked.

Hah! – thought Yi Poon. The senorita was lost. That was a new secret. It might be worth something some day, or any day. A nice girl, of high family and wealth such as the Solanos, lost in a Latin-American country, was information well worth possessing. Some day she might be married – there was that gossip he had heard in Colon – and some later day she might have trouble with her husband or her husband have trouble with her – at which time, she or her husband, it mattered not which, might be eager to pay high for the secret.

“This Senorita Leoncia,” he said, finally, with sleek suavity. “She is not your girl. She has other papa and mama.”

But Enrico’s present grief at her loss was too great to permit startlement at this explicit statement of an old secret.

“Yes,” he nodded. “Though it is not known outside my family, I adopted her when she was a baby. It is strange that you should know this. But I am not interested in having you tell me what I have long since known. What I want to know now is: where is she now?”

Yi Poon gravely and sympathetically shook his head.

“That is different secret,” he explained. “Maybe I find that secret. Then I sell it to you. But I have old secret. You do not know the name of the Senorita Leoncia’s papa and mama. I know.”

And old Enrico Solano could not hide his interest at the temptation of such information.

“Speak,” he commanded. “Name the names, and prove them, and I shall reward.”

“No,” Yi Poon shook his head. “Very poor business. I no do business that way. You pay me I tell you. My secrets good secrets. I prove my secrets. You give me five hundred pesos and big expenses from Colon to San Antonio and back to Colon and I tell you name of papa and mama.”

Enrico Solano bowed acquiescence, and was just in the act of ordering Alesandro to go and fetch the money, when the quiet, spirit-subdued Indian maid created a diversion. Running into the room and up to Enrico as they had never seen her run before, she wrung her hands and wept so incoherently that they knew her paroxysm was of joy, not of sadness.

“The Senorita!” she was finally able to whisper hoarsely, as she indicated the side piazza with a nod of head and glance of eyes. “The Senorita!”

And Yi Poon and his secret were forgotten. Enrico and his sons streamed out to the side piazza to behold Leoncia and the Queen and the two Morgans, dropping dust-covered off the backs of riding mules recognizable as from the pastures of the mouth of the Gualaca River. At the same time two Indian man-servants, summoned by the maid, cleared the house and grounds of the fat Chinaman and his old crone of a companion.

“Come some other time,” they told him. “Just now the Senor Solano is very importantly busy.”

“Sure, I come some other time,” Yi Poon assured them pleasantly, without resentment and without betrayal of the disappointment that was his at his deal interrupted just ere the money was paid into his hand.

But he departed reluctantly. The place was good for his business. It was sprouting secrets. Never was there a riper harvest in Canaan out of which, sickle in hand, a husbandman was driven! Had it not been for the zealous Indian attendants, Yi Poon would have darted around the corner of the hacienda to note the newcomers. As it was, half way down the hill, finding the weight of the crone too fatiguing, he put into her the life and ability to carry her own weight a little farther by feeding her a double teaspoonful of brandy from his screw-top flask.

Enrico swept Leoncia off her mule ere she could dismount, so passionately eager was he to fold her in his arms. For several minutes ensued naught but noisy Latin affection as her brothers all strove to greet and embrace her at once. When they recollected themselves, Francis had already helped the Lady Who Dreams from her mount, and beside her, her hand in his, was waiting recognition.

“This is my wife,” Francis told Enrico. “I went into the Cordilleras after treasure, and behold what I found. Was there ever better fortune?”

“And she sacrificed a great treasure herself,” Leoncia murmured bravely.

“She was queen of a little kingdom,” Francis added, with a grateful and admiring flash of eyes to Leoncia, who quickly added:

“And she saved all our lives but sacrificed her little kingdom in so doing.”

And Leoncia, in an exaltation of generousness, put her arm around the Queen’s waist, took her away from Francis, and led the way into the hacienda.

CHAPTER XXIII

In all the magnificence of medieval Spanish and New World costume such as was still affected by certain of the great haciendados of Panama, Torres rode along the beach-road to the home of the Solanos. Running with him, at so easy a lope that it promised an extension that would outspeed the best of Torres’ steed, was the great white hound that had followed him down the subterranean river. As Torres turned to take the winding road up the hill to the hacienda, he passed Yi Poon, who had paused to let the old crone gather strength. He merely noticed the strange couple as dirt of the common people. The hauteur that he put on with his magnificence of apparel forbade that he should betray any interest further than an unseeing glance.

But him Yi Poon noted with slant Oriental eyes that missed no details. And Yi Poon thought: He looks very rich. He is a friend of the Solanos. He rides to the house. He may even be a lover of the Senorita Leoncia. – Or a worsted rival for her love. In almost any case, he might be expected to buy the secret of the Senorita Leoncia’s birth, and he certainly looks rich, most rich.

Inside the hacienda, assembled in the living room, were the returned adventurers and all the Solanos. The Queen, taking her turn in piecing out the narrative of all that had occurred, with flashing eyes was denouncing Torres for his theft of her jewels and describing his fall into the whirlpool before the onslaught of the hound, when Leoncia, at the window with Henry, uttered a sharp exclamation.

“Speak of the devil!” said Henry. “Here comes Torres himself.”

“Me first!” Francis cried, doubling his fist and flexing his biceps significantly.

“No,” decreed Leoncia. “He is a wonderful liar. He is a very wonderful liar, as we’ve all found out. Let us have some fun. He is dismounting now. Let the four of us disappear. – Father!” With a wave of hand she indicated Enrico and all his sons. “You will sit around desolated over the loss of me. This scoundrel Torres will enter. You will be thirsty for information. He will tell you no one can guess what astounding lies about us. As for us, we’ll hide behind the screen there. – Come! All of you!”

And, catching the Queen by the hand and leading the way, with her eyes she commanded Francis and Henry to follow to the hiding place.

And Torres entered upon a scene of sorrow which had been so recently real that Enrico and his sons had no difficulty in acting it. Enrico started up from his chair in eagerness of welcome and sank weakly back. Torres caught the other’s hand in both his own and manifested deep sympathy and could not speak from emotion.

“Alas!” he finally managed heart-brokenly. “They are dead. She is dead, your beautiful daughter, Leoncia. And the two Gringo Morgans are dead with her. As Ricardo, there, must know, they died in the heart of the Maya Mountain.

“It is the home of mystery,” he continued, after giving due time for the subsidence of the first violent outburst of Enrico’s grief. “I was with them when they died. Had they followed my counsel, they would all have lived. But not even Leoncia would listen to the old friend of the Solanos. No, she must listen to the two Gringos. After incredible dangers I won my way out through the heart of the mountain, gazed down into the Valley of Lost Souls, and returned into the mountain to find them dying – ”

Here, pursued by an Indian man-servant, the white hound bounded into the room, trembling and whining in excitement as with its nose it quested the multitudinous scents of the room that advertised his mistress. Before he could follow up to where the Queen hid behind the screen, Torres caught him by the neck and turned him over to a couple of the Indian house-men to hold.

“Let the brute remain,” said Torres. “I will tell you about him afterward. But first look at this.” He pulled forth a handful of gems. “I knocked on the doors of the dead, and, behold, the Maya treasure is mine. I am the richest man in Panama, in all the Americas. I shall be powerful – ”

“But you were with my daughter when she died,” Enrico interrupted to sob. “Had she no word for me?”

“Yes,” Torres sobbed back, genuinely affected by the death-scene of his fancy. “She died with your name on her lips. Her last words were – ”

But, with bulging eyes, he failed to complete his sentence, for he was watching Henry and Leoncia, in the most natural, casual manner in the world stroll down the room, immersed in quiet conversation. Not noticing Torres, they crossed over to the window still deep in talk.

“You were telling me her last words were …?” Enrico prompted.

“I … I have lied to you,” Torres stammered, while he sparred for time in which to get himself out of the scrape. “I was confident that they were as good as dead and would never find their way to the world again. And I thought to soften the blow to you, Senor Solano, by telling what I am confident would be her last words were she dying. Also, this man Francis, whom you have elected to like. I thought it better for you to believe him dead than know him for the Gringo cur he is.”

Here the hound barked joyfully at the screen, giving the two Indians all they could do to hold him back. But Torres, instead of suspecting, blundered on to his fate.

“In the Valley there is a silly weak demented creature who pretends to read the future by magic. An altogether atrocious and blood-thirsty female is she. I am not denying that in physical beauty she is beautiful. For beautiful she is, as a centipede is beautiful to those who think centipedes are beautiful. You see what has happened. She has sent Henry and Leoncia out of the Valley by some secret way, while Francis has elected to remain there with her in sin – for sin it is, since there exists in the valley no Catholic priest to make their relation lawful. Oh, not that Francis is infatuated with the terrible creature. But he is infatuated with a paltry treasure the creature possesses. And this is the Gringo Francis you have welcomed into the bosom of your family, the slimy snake of a Gringo Francis who has even dared to sully the fair Leoncia by casting upon her the looks of a lover. Oh, I know of what I speak. I have seen – ”

A joyous outburst from the hound drowned his voice, and he beheld Francis and the Queen, as deep in conversation as the two who had preceded them, walk down the room. The Queen paused to caress the hound, who stood so tall against her that his forepaws, on her shoulders, elevated his head above hers; while Torres licked his suddenly dry lips and vainly cudgeled his brains for some fresh lie with which to extricate himself from the impossible situation.

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.”

But Henry, advancing swiftly, asserted:

“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.

“More,” said Enrico.

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.

“Me,” said Francis.

“I insist,” said Henry.

“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?”

Torres dropped the whip to his side.

“Go on,” he commanded harshly. “What is the secret?”

“You no want ‘m other man marry that Senorita Leoncia?”

“Suppose I don’t?”

“Then, suppose you have secret, you can stop other man.”

“Well, what is it? Spit it out.”

“But first,” Yi Poon shook his head, “you pay me six hundred dollars gold. Then I tell you secret.”

“I’ll pay you,” Torres said readily, although without the slightest thought of keeping his word. “You tell me first, then, if no lie, I’ll pay you. – See!”

From his breast pocket he drew a wallet bulging with paper bills; and Yi Poon, uneasily acquiescing, led him down the road to the crone on the beach.

“This old woman,” he explained, “she no lie. She sick woman. Pretty soon she die. She is afraid. She talk to priest along Colon. Priest say she must tell secret, or die and go to hell. So she no lie.”

“Well, if she doesn’t lie, what is it she must tell?”

“You pay me?”

“Sure. Six hundred gold.”

“Well, she born Cadiz in old country. She number one servant, number one baby nurse. One time she take job with English family that come traveling in her country. Long time she work with that family. She go back along England. Then, bime by – you know Spanish blood very hot – she get very mad. That family have one little baby girl. She steal little baby girl and run away to Panama. That little baby girl Senor Solano he adopt just the same his own daughter. He have plenty sons and no daughter. So that little baby girl he make his daughter. But that old woman she no tell what name belong little girl’s family. That family very high blood, very rich, everybody in England know that family. That family’s name ‘Morgan.’ You know that name? In Colon comes San Antonio men who say Senor Solano’s daughter marry English Gringo named Morgan. That Gringo Morgan the Senorita Leoncia’s brother.”

“Ah!” said Torres with maleficent delight.

“You pay me now six hundred gold,” said Yi Poon.

“Thank you for the fool you are,” said Torres with untold mockery in his voice. “You will learn better perhaps some day the business of selling secrets. Secrets are not shoes or mahogany timber. A secret told is no more than a whisper in the air. It comes. It goes. It is gone. It is a ghost. Who has seen it? You can claim back shoes or mahogany timber. You can never claim back a secret when you have told it.”

“We talk of ghosts, you and I,” said Yi Poon calmly. “And the ghosts are gone. I have told you no secret. You have dreamed a dream. When you tell men they will ask you who told you. And you will say, ‘Yi Poon.’ But Yi Poon will say, ‘No.’ And they will say, ‘Ghosts,’ and laugh at you.”

Yi Poon, feeling the other yield to his superior subtlety of thought, deliberately paused.

“We have talked whispers,” he resumed after a few seconds. “You speak true when you say whispers are ghosts. When I sell secrets I do not sell ghosts. I sell shoes. I sell mahogany timber. My proofs are what I sell. They are solid. On the scales they will weigh weight. You can tear the paper of them, which is legal paper of record, on which they are written. Some of them, not paper, you can bite with your teeth and break your teeth upon. For the whispers are already gone like morning mists. I have proofs. You will pay me six hundred gold for the proofs, or men will laugh at you for lending your ears to ghosts.”

“All right,” Torres capitulated, convinced. “Show me the proofs that I can tear and bite.”

“Pay me the six hundred gold.”

“When you have shown me the proofs.”

“The proofs you can tear and bite are yours after you have put the six hundred gold into my hand. You promise. A promise is a whisper, a ghost. I do not do business with ghost money. You pay me real money I can tear or bite.”

And in the end Torres surrendered, paying in advance for what did satisfy him when he had examined the documents, the old letters, the baby locket and the baby trinkets. And Torres not only assured Yi Poon that he was satisfied, but paid him in advance, on the latter’s insistence, an additional hundred gold to execute a commission for him.

Meanwhile, in the bathroom which connected their bedrooms, clad in fresh underlinen and shaving with safety razors, Henry and Francis were singing:

“Back to back against the mainmast,Held at bay the entire crew…”

In her charming quarters, aided and abetted by a couple of Indian seamstresses, Leoncia, half in mirth, half in sadness, and in all sweetness and wholesomeness of generosity, was initiating the Queen into the charmingness of civilized woman’s dress. The Queen, a true woman to her heart’s core, was wild with delight in the countless pretties of texture and adornment with which Leoncia’s wardrobe was stored. It was a maiden frolic for the pair of them, and a stitch here and a take-up there modified certain of Leoncia’s gowns to the Queen’s slenderness.

“No,” said Leoncia judicially. “You will not need a corset. You are the one woman in a hundred for whom a corset is not necessary. You have the roundest lines for a thin woman that I ever saw. You …” Leoncia paused, apparently deflected by her need for a pin from her dressing table, for which she turned; but at the same time she swallowed the swelling that choked in her throat, so that she was able to continue: “You are a beautiful bride, and Francis can only grow prouder of you.”

In the bathroom, Francis, finished shaving first, broke off the song to respond to the knock at his bedroom door and received a telegram from Fernando, the next to the youngest of the Solano brothers. And Francis read:

Important your immediate return. Need more margins. While market very weak but a strong attack on all your stocks except Tampico Petroleum, which is strong as ever. Wire me when to expect you. Situation is serious. Think I can hold out if you start to return at once. Wire me at once.

Bascom.

In the living room the two Morgans found Enrico and his sons opening wine.

“Having but had my daughter restored to me,” Enrico said, “I now lose her again. But it is an easier loss, Henry. To-morrow shall be the wedding. It cannot take place too quickly. It is sure, right now, that that scoundrel Torres is whispering all over San Antonio Leoncia’s latest unprotected escapade with you.”

Ere Henry could express his gratification, Leoncia and the Queen entered. He held up his glass and toasted:

“To the bride!”

Leoncia, not understanding, raised a glass from the table and glanced to the Queen.

“No, no,” Henry said, taking her glass with the intention of passing it to the Queen.

“No, no,” said Enrico. “Neither shall drink the toast which is incomplete. Let me make it:

“To the brides!”

“You and Henry are to be married to-morrow,” Alesandro explained to Leoncia.

Unexpected and bitter though the news was, Leoncia controlled herself, and dared with assumed jollity to look Francis in the eyes while she cried:

“Another toast! To the bridegrooms!”

Difficult as Francis had found it to marry the Queen and maintain equanimity, he now found equanimity impossible at the announcement of the immediate marriage of Leoncia. Nor did Leoncia fail to observe how hard he struggled to control himself. His suffering gave her secret joy, and with a feeling almost of triumph she watched him take advantage of the first opportunity to leave the room.