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Here we can talk. And, if we are sensible people, a new day can begin for all of us here." Ruiz Rios's wound must have been even less severe than Kendric had supposed it. For now the Mexican seemed utterly to have lost consciousness of it. He was striking fresh matches; he stooped and picked up something at his foot; a little gasp broke from him. He tossed it down, caught up something else.
Betty adjudged him being desirous of becoming Zoraida's lover; Bruce sought his death; Rios's eyes were like knives; Barlow still sent his sullen glances from the box of gold in a servant's hands to the door through which Zoraida had passed. Kendric went to where Bruce still sat and put his hand gently on the slack shoulder. "Bruce, old man " he said.
Rios's eyes caught fire and for the first time Kendric guessed that he, too, was in heart bond-servant to his amazing cousin. Barlow tugged at his forelock and muttered. "Heap all the gold together," cried Zoraida. "Play for it and each man of you pray his favorite god for success. For with it goes Zoraida!"
"So," muttered Kendric, "you two are tarred with the same stick!" Now Rios's black eyes were deadly. "What you know means everything to me," he said, his voice at last sunk to a harsh whisper. "I killed Escobar for less. Remember that, Señor Americano!" Kendric ignored the threat. "What of my friend?" he demanded. "Even were I of a mind to talk turkey with you, there is Barlow. Half is his."
"Señor West," he said as they turned expectantly toward him, "Señorita Zoraida implores so eloquently for word with you that I have consented. If you will step this way she will come to you." Bruce required no second invitation. With Rios's words he forgot Kendric's arguments and Kendric's very presence. He went out, his step eager. Before Rios followed him Kendric called: "Where is Miss Gordon?"
Zoraida's vacqueros would not carry white handkerchiefs; if they carried any sort at all they would probably be red or yellow or blue; or, if white originally, they would not be kept so snowy as to flash like that one. And the gesture itself, once the thought had come to him, was vaguely suggestive of that slow grace in every movement that was Rios's.
It was then that for the first time he heard the voice of Ruiz Rios's companion. "I will play Señor Kendric." The voice ran through the quiet of the room musically. The utterance was low, gentle, the accent was the soft, tender accent of Old Spain with some subtle flavor of other alien races. No man in the room had ever heard such sweet, soothing music as was made by her slow words.
But Bruce, though with little spirit in the movement, shook the hand away. "There's no call for talk between you and me, Jim," he said wearily. "Talk can't change things. Just now I wanted to kill you!" He shuddered. The man with whom Zoraida had whispered was speaking quietly with Rios. Kendric, seeing them beyond Bruce's bowed head, saw a fire of rebellion burning in Rios's eyes.
Betty's attitude, Betty's look, had stirred him after a strange new fashion which he did not analyze. Barlow's unreasonable unfriendliness hurt and angered; the jeer in Rios's hard black eyes ruffled his blood. And even young Bruce looked at him with a defiance which Kendric had no stomach for.
Now that dago will pick you clean an' you know it." No one paid any attention to Barlow and he, after that one involuntary outburst, recognized himself for the fool and kept his mouth shut, though with difficulty. Ruiz Rios's dark face was almost Oriental in its immobility. He did not even look interested. He merely considered after a dreamy, abstracted fashion.
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