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Updated: June 1, 2025
The field was small, the jungle was close at hand. A moment and the interlopers had vanished into it, all but one, who lay kicking among the broad malanga-leaves, and over whom Asensio kept spurring his terrified horse, hacking downward with insane fury. This was the first hand-to-hand encounter Esteban's men had had, and their swift victory rendered them ferocious.
Dona Isabel slipped, or stumbled, to her knees, she balanced briefly, clutching at random while the earth and crumbling cement gave way beneath her; then she slid forward and disappeared, almost out from between Esteban's hands. There was a noisy rattle of rock and pebble and a great splash far below; a chuckle of little stones striking the water, then a faint bubbling. Nothing more.
Next there was Don Pedro de Mendouca, Don Esteban's elder son, a very proud and haughty-looking man of about twenty-seven years of age; Don Silvio, his brother, some three years younger, and exceedingly like his elder brother, but with a much more agreeable expression of countenance; and lastly, but by no means least in attractiveness, Senorita Eugenia, Don Esteban's daughter, a most lovely young woman of about seventeen years of age, exquisitely fair, and with a pair of melting blue eyes.
Impressed by her manifestations of grief, Esteban's friends reasoned that the widow must have loved her husband dearly. They told one another they had wronged her. Age and easy living had caused Don Mario de Castano, the sugar merchant, to take on weight.
I was rehearsing an impassioned proposal to your beloved stepmother," O'Reilly explained, with a pretense of annoyance. "Yes, Senor O'Reilly believes he can infuriate Isabel by laying siege to her. He's a foolish person " Rosa's cheeks were faintly flushed and her color deepened at the amusement in Esteban's eyes. "He makes love wretchedly."
At the time of her brother's recital she had been swayed by his conviction, but now on cooler thought a dozen explanations of Dona Isabel's possession of that doubloon offered themselves, no one of which seemed less probable than Esteban's. Of course it was barely possible that there was indeed a treasure, and even that Esteban's surmise had been correct.
It was a moment before they could drop their spoils, unsling their rifles, and begin to fire at him, and by that time he had covered half the distance to his sister. Those rifle-shots came faintly to Esteban's ears; he scarcely heard them; he merely lowered his head and rode straight at that black- visaged colonel, sobbing and whimpering in his fury.
Esteban's party made good time over the hills and into the San Juan, for Asensio knew the country well. Mid-afternoon found them in sight of La Joya. Cueto's cane was thick and high; it was ready for the knife or for the torch. Making a detour, the incendiaries approached it from the east in order to have the trade-winds at their backs.
At the end of the avenue of pear-trees there was a break in the sea-wall, and here, with his face to the sea, Hurlstone was leaning gloomily. Father Esteban's tread was noiseless, and he had laid his soft hand on the young man's shoulder before Hurlstone was aware of his presence. He started slightly, his gloomy eyes fell before the priest's.
If, indeed, there had ever been a doubloon and if Esteban had found it in the dead hand of his stepmother, that, in O'Reilly's opinion, by no means proved the existence of the mythical Varona hoard, nor did it solve the secret of its whereabouts. What he more than half suspected was that some favored fancy had formed lodgment in Esteban's brain. "It's an interesting theory," he admitted.
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