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Updated: May 1, 2025
The marques was accompanied by his old escalador, Ortega de Prado, who had distinguished himself at the scaling of Alhama. This hardy veteran was stationed, with ten men furnished with scaling-ladders, in a cavity among the rocks close to the walls. At a little distance seventy men were hid in a ravine, to be at hand to second him when he should have fixed his ladders.
To ascertain fully the state of the fortress the marques despatched secretly a veteran soldier who was highly in his confidence. Ortega approached Alhama one moonless night, and paced along its walls with noiseless step, laying his ear occasionally to the ground or to the wall.
But, as his dancing eyes sped around among other faces, he marked the twinkling lights of covetousness in Fat Ortega's rat eyes and he knew that, long ago, Ortega himself had played for any stake. Beside Ortega there was another man present who might be inclined to accept a hazard, Tony Muñoz, who conducted the rival gambling house across the street and who was Ortega's much despised son-in-law.
We had now entered a quieter quarter of the town and Señor Ortega had ceased his muttering. For myself I had not the slightest doubt of my own sanity. It was proved to me by the way I could apply my intelligence to the problem of what was to be done with Señor Ortega. Generally, he was unfit to be trusted with any mission whatever. The unstability of his temper was sure to get him into a scrape.
This number, 432513, was the number sought for so long! The name of Ortega had enabled him to discover it! At length he held the key of the document, which would incontestably prove the innocence of Joam Dacosta, and without reading any more he flew from his study into the street, shouting: "Halt! Halt!"
Her ungloved hand, the left as Kendric marked while he watched interestedly, flashed to her bosom, and leaped out again, a thin-bladed knife in the grip of the bejewelled fingers. Ortega saw and feared and, grown nimble, sprang back from her. Quickly enough to save the life in him, not so quickly as entirely to avoid the sweep of the knife.
It seemed to be bounding forward as if borne at the head of a charging regiment. "By heavens!" exclaimed the happy American, to whom the answering signal was one of the most familiar sounds on earth; "that's the Warrenia, my own yacht!" "I am pleased to know it," said Captain Ortega. Miss Starland was scarcely behind the others in climbing to the upper deck.
Even Ortega, though he made no attempt toward a civil response, drank. The more liquor poured into a man's stomach here, the more money in Ortega's pocket and he was avaricious. He'd drink in his own shop with his worst enemy provided that enemy paid the score.
"I once spent a summer traveling in Europe with the Ortega family. But here is your rose, Captain Forest. I almost believe you forgot it. Horses are so much more interesting than flowers," and handing him the rose, she was back again in the garden before he could thank her.
And then, during an expedition of his party for several months beyond the Peruvian frontier, chance caused Ortega to visit the neighborhood of Iquitos, and there in Joam Garral, who did not recognize him, he recognized Joam Dacosta. Henceforth he resolved to make all the reparation he could for the injustice of which his old comrade had been the victim.
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