“You are sure about the will?” demanded the nephew.

“I have a copy of it,” said Garcia, eagerly.  “Here it is.  Read it.  O Madre de Dios! there is no doubt about it.  I can trust my lawyer.  It all goes to her.  It only comes to me if she dies childless and intestate.”

“This is a horrible dilemma to force us into,” observed Coronado, after he had read the paper.

“So it is,” assented Garcia, looking at him with indescribable anxiety.  “So it is; so it is.  What is to be done?”

“Suppose I should marry her?”

The old man’s countenance fell; he wanted to call his nephew a pig, a dog, and everything else that is villainous; but he restrained himself and merely whimpered, “It would be better than nothing.  You could help me.”

“There is little chance of it,” said Coronado, seeing that the proposition was not approved.  “She likes the American lieutenant much, and does not like me at all.”

“Then—­” began Garcia, and stopped there, trembling all over.

“Then what?”

The venomous old toad made a supreme effort and whispered, “Suppose she should die?”

Coronado wheeled about, walked two or three times up and down the room, returned to where Garcia sat quivering, and murmured, “It must be done quickly.”

“Yes, yes,” gasped the old man.  “She must—­it must be childless and intestate.”

“She must go off in some natural way,” continued the nephew.

The uncle looked up with a vague hope in his one dusky and filmy eye.

“Perhaps the isthmus will do it for her.”

Again the old man turned to an image of despair, as he mumbled, “O Madre de Dios! no, no.  The isthmus is nothing.”

“Is the overland route more dangerous?” asked Coronado.

“It might be made more dangerous.  One gets lost in the desert.  There are Apaches.”

“It is a horrible business,” growled Coronado, shaking his head and biting his lips.

“Oh, horrible, horrible!” groaned Garcia.  “Munoz was a pig, and a dog, and a toad, and a snake.”

“You old coward! can’t you speak out?” hissed Coronado, losing his patience.  “Do you want me both to devise and execute, while you take the purses?  Tell me at once what your plan is.”

“The overland route,” whispered Garcia, shaking from head to foot.  “You go with her.  I pay—­I pay everything.  You shall have men, horses, mules, wagons, all you want.”

“I shall want money, too.  I shall need, perhaps, two thousand dollars.  Apaches.”

“Yes, yes,” assented Garcia.  “The Apaches make an attack.  You shall have money.  I can raise it; I will.”

“How soon will you have a train ready?”

“Immediately.  Any day you want.  You must start at once.  She must not know of the will.  She might remain here, and let the estate be settled for her, and draw on it.  She might go back to New York.  Anybody would lend her money.”