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Beside them, there lay under a little fort on Gaspar Grande island, in Chaguaramas harbour ah, what a Paradise to be denied by war four Spanish line-of-battle ships and a frigate. Their admiral, Apodaca, was a foolish old devotee. Their crews numbered 1600 men, 400 of whom were in hospital with yellow fever, and many only convalescent.
Elfigo Apodaca seemed so thoroughly Americanized that only his swarthy skin and black hair and eyes reminded one that he was after all a son of the south. He did a desultory business in real estate, and owned an immense tract of land, the remnant of an old Spanish grant, and went in for fancy cattle and horses.
Should the King send me aid, I will do my duty to preserve his colony for the crown: if not, it must fall into the hands of the English, whom I believe to be generous enemies, and more to be trusted than treacherous friends. What was to be done? Perhaps only that which was done. Apodaca set fire to his ships, either in honest despair, or by orders from the Prince of Peace.
"I have here," he began in the sonorous voice and the measured enunciation of the trained orator, "a letter from our esteemed and unfortunate comrade and fellow worker, Elfigo Apodaca.
Mexico was twice revolutionized. The first struggle began in 1809 and 1810, and was carried on spasmodically until 1817. The second revolution broke out in 1820 on receipt of the news from Spain of the revolution of March, 1820, and the re-adoption of the constitution of 1812. The old revolutionists demanded the proclamation of this constitution in Mexico, but the Viceroy Apodaca opposed them.
For the ships burned before they sunk; and Apodaca, being a prudent man, landed, or is said to have landed, all the treasure on the Spanish Main opposite. He met Chacon in Port of Spain at daybreak. The good governor, they say, wept, but did not reproach. Jago de Compostella, my patron and my ship's. His ship's patron, however, says M. Joseph, was St. Vincent. Why tell the rest of the story?
Elfigo Apodaca had quarreled with Estan, said Luis. He had come to the ranch, and Luis had heard them quarreling over water rights. Elfigo had threatened to "get" Estan, and to "fix" him, and Luis had been afraid that Estan would be shot before the quarrel was over. He had heard the voice that called Estan out of the house that night, and he told the sheriff that he had recognized Elfigo's voice.
Elfigo Apodaca, in another kitchen chair tilted back against an angle of the wall so that he half faced Holman Sommers, stretched out his legs and smiled tolerantly.
I told him it would be " Luis, kneeling there, beating his hands together in the dark, spoke with the heedless passion of youth. "Which Apodaca? Juan?" Starr's voice was low, with the sympathetic tone that pulls open the floodgates of speech when one is stricken hard. "Not Juan; Juan is a fool. Elfigo Apodaca it was or some one obeying his order.
Now that he knew, by the smoking jacket and the slippers and the uncovered thatch of jet-black hair, that this man must be Holman Sommers; when he saw Elfigo Apodaca there, seated and talking earnestly with him, as he could tell by the gestures with which they elaborated their speech; when he saw Helen May riding in to the ranch, he had before him all the outward, visible evidence of a conference.
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