“Ah, but there is another side to that, Carlos.  If Senores Reade and Hazelton serve us, and then go safely back to the United States, they can swear that they found and knew El Sombrero to be worthless.  Then their evidence, flanked by the sudden running-out of El Sombrero, will make a case that the new American buyers could take into court.”

“Let them take it into court,” proposed the secretary, contemptuously.  “The governor of Bonista rules the judges of the courts of the state of Bonista with an iron hand.  Rest assured that, if the Americans were to take their claims into the courts of this state, the judges would decide for you, and that would be the end of the matter.  And do you believe, Don Luis, that, after Senores Reade and Hazelton once get alive out of Bonista, any consideration would tempt them to come back here to testify?  They have sampled your power,”

“Yet why do you object, Carlos, to having the Gringo pair put out of the way?”

“I do not care anything about their lives,” Tisco declared, coolly.  “It is only on general business principles that it seems to me unwise to have human lives taken when it is not necessary.  He who resorts too often to the taking of life is sure to meet his own doom.”

“Not in Bonista,” jeered Montez, “and not where Don Luis is concerned in business matters.”

“As you will, then,” sighed the secretary.  “You will please your own self, anyway, Don Luis.”

“Truly, Carlos.  And so I have decided that these Gringo engineers shall perish, anyway, as soon as they have served my purpose.”

This talk had taken place in a cupola.  Down the stair, with stealthy steps, crept a young, horrified, trembling girl.

Francesca, knowing that her father had gone to the cupola, had followed him to talk with him.  She had halted on hearing voices.  Now, with despair in her eyes, the terrified girl stole away like one haunted and hunted by evil spirits.

“My father—­an intending murderer!  He, of a proud hidalgo family, a vile assassin, in thought at least?” moaned the girl, wringing her hands as soon as she had stolen to the privacy of her own rooms.

“My father’s hands—­to be covered with human blood!” sobbed Francesca, sinking down before a crucifix to pray.

For hours the girl remained in terror-stricken solitude.  Then she rose, somewhat comforted at last, and with the aid of cold water removed the traces of her tears from her dark, beautiful face.

Her plan was to seek her father, throw herself at his feet, and beg him not to disgrace the blood of the hidalgos nor to destroy his own soul with a hideous crime.

“I must seek him in private.  There must be no others near when I make my appeal!” thought the girl.

Just then a servant entered.

“Your father is in the garden, Senorita Francesca,” reported the woman, “and wonders why you do not join him.  It is his wish that you join him now.”