“Munoz is dead.”

Coronado threw out, first a stare of surprise, and then a shout of laughter.

“And here they have just got a letter from him,” he said presently; “and I have been persuading her to go to him by the isthmus!”

“May the journey take her to him!” muttered Garcia.  “How old was this letter?”

“Nearly three months.  It came by sea, first to New York, and then here.”

“My news is a month later.  It came overland by special messenger.  Listen to me, Carlos.  This affair is worse than you know.  Do you know what Munoz has done?  Oh, the pig! the dog! the villainous pig!  He has left everything to his granddaughter.”

Coronado, dumb with astonishment and dismay, mechanically slapped his boot with his cane and stared at Garcia.

“I am ruined,” cried the old man.  “The pig of hell has ruined me.  He has left me, his cousin, his only male relative, to ruin.  Not a doubloon to save me.’

“Is there no chance?” asked Coronado, after a long silence.

“None!  Oh—­yes—­one.  A little one, a miserable little one.  If she dies without issue and without a will, I am heir.  And you, Carlos” (changing here to a wheedling tone), “you are mine.”

The look which accompanied these last words was a terrible mingling of cunning, cruelty, hope, and despair.

Coronado glanced at Garcia with a shocking comprehension, and immediately dropped his dusky eyes upon the floor.

“You know I have made my will,” resumed the old man, “and left you everything.”

“Which is nothing,” returned Coronado, aware that his uncle was insolvent in reality, and that his estate when settled would not show the residuum of a dollar.

“If the fortune of Munoz comes to me, I shall be very rich.”

“When you get it.”

“Listen to me, Carlos.  Is there no way of getting it?”

As the two men stared at each other they were horrible.  The uncle was always horrible; he was one of the very ugliest of Spaniards; he was a brutal caricature of the national type.  He had a low forehead, round face, bulbous nose, shaking fat cheeks, insignificant chin, and only one eye, a black and sleepy orb, which seemed to crawl like a snake.  His exceedingly dark skin was made darker by a singular bluish tinge which resulted from heavy doses of nitrate of silver, taken as a remedy for epilepsy.  His face was, moreover, mottled with dusky spots, so that he reminded the spectator of a frog or a toad.  Just now he looked nothing less than poisonous; the hungriest of cannibals would not have dared eat him.

“I am ruined,” he went on groaning.  “The war, the Yankees, the Apaches, the devil—­I am completely ruined.  In another year I shall be sold out.  Then, my dear Carlos, you will have no home.”

“Sangre de Dios!” growled Coronado.  “Do you want to drive me to the devil?

“O God! to force an old man to such an extremity!” continued Garcia.  “It is more than an old man is fitted to strive with.  An old man—­an old, sick, worn-out man!”