With a last order, “Help yourself from my clothes,” he went out laughing. But when he returned an hour later his smile was obscured by a vexed cloud. “Eduardo wins,” he reported to Seyd, who had just come out on the veranda. “He must have gone right to it, for when I arrived at the edificio municipal they were already primed. The judge and jefe político both count themselves of mine, but they wouldn’t do a thing. Really you can’t blame them. El general García is a name to conjure with down here, and they are all afraid of their official heads. ‘Much as we would like to serve you,’ and so forth, ‘but in the case of a young lady of such high family we dare not proceed without her guardian’s written consent.’
“And the jefe gave me good advice. El capitán, Eduardo, it seems, is not only ambitious, but not a bit too scrupulous about the way by which he gains his ends. So you must not go out alone. It would be quite easy to trump up some charge, arrest, and then shoot you as an escaping prisoner under the law of El Fuga. You wouldn’t be the first to be shot inside the prison and then thrown outside, and, though I should most certainly hold an inquiry and kick up an awful row, that wouldn’t bring you back to life. Also we shall have to look out that they don’t kidnap your girl.”
While the consul was thus easing his bosom of its load of doubt Seyd had stared out over the blue harbor at a steamer that was taking cargo from a dozen lighters. Suddenly he asked, “What ship is that?”
“The Curaçao, of San Francisco.”
“American, then. When does she sail?”
“Tomorrow morning at five.”
“How far outside the harbor does Mexican jurisdiction extend?”
“The usual three miles beyond the headlands.”
Seyd came to his point. “Then what is to prevent her skipper from marrying us?”
“Bueno!” The consul slapped him on the back. “He’ll do it sure, for he’s a friend of mine. Bravo! Trust your lover to find a way.”
XXVII
Instead of the steps of a church, which form the natural way to their new estate for the great majority of brides, Francesca stepped into hers from the companion ladder of the Curaçao. But there had been various happenings—the visit of the Doña Gracio de Gallardo y Garcio to urge, in her own stout black person, Francesca’s acceptance of her house and contents, her husband’s equally hospitable offer of horses and escort for her safe conduct to San Nicolás, also his subsequent espionage and the means by which they evaded it. And now she was stepping from the companionway into the launch which was to take the newly married pair.
Just as the consul had done his best for Seyd, so, with a woman’s natural enthusiasm for a wedding, his wife had dressed the girl. By means of a few pins plus a basting needle a pretty dress had been pulled into a perfect fit, and out of its foam her shapely head now rose like a delicate dark flower. In the dusk of a crushed panama her clear-cut face glowed with unusual color. Swaying there on Seyd’s arm, she made a picture which drew the admiration of the men and the tender sympathy of the women passengers who looked down upon them from the rail. While Seyd was handing her into the launch a storm of rice broke overhead and fell softly into the water, and when, leaving them dancing in its wake, the big hulk of the ship moved on, a hearty cheer floated back to them.
If not so boisterous, the congratulations of the consul at the pier were equally hearty. “You didn’t do it a bit too soon,” he informed them. “Just after you left friend Eduardo notified me that it had been decided in a family council that your wife should go at once to the house of her relative. Without actually saying it he gave me to understand that a charge of kidnapping lay behind the demand. Just for the fun of it I let him wander along, and when I sprang it, and told him that by this time you were undoubtedly married, you should have seen his face. He won’t trouble you again—neither will he furnish you horses.”
“That doesn’t matter,” his wife put in. “I have that all arranged.”
“What?” The consul looked his surprise. “What’s this? A conspiracy? I expected that you would stay with us at least a week?”
“No.” His wife took the answer into her own hands. “You know, Francesca’s mother and uncle are grieving in the belief that she is drowned. And she has other reasons of her own—and yours,” she added for Seyd. “Though you are not to bother her with questions.”
At the consulate breakfast was waiting, and in the cheer of the following hour and bustle of departure, Seyd forgot his momentary wonder. It did not revive until, early that afternoon, they reined in to rest their horses on the crest of the first hill in the chain that led in giant steps up to the plateau above the Barranca. As they rode on, after a last look at the harbor, which lay like a huge turquoise within its setting of hills, he looked inquiringly at Francesca.
“Can you not guess?” she asked. When he shook his head she rallied him with a happy laugh upon his dullness. “I think your memory is very poor, Señor Rosario.”
“What—Rosa!” For instantly there flashed up a picture of her wet face looking at him from under her capote hood on
