“Ho!  There’s a careful fellow for you!  No wonder he trusts you.  But do you think I have neither eyes nor ears?  My good Sebastian, you know all about that treasure; in fact, you know far more about many things than Don Esteban would care to have you tell.  Come now, don’t you?”

Sebastian’s face was like a mask carved from ebony.  “Of what does this treasure consist?” he inquired.  “I have never heard about it.”

“Of gold, of jewels, of silver bars and precious ornaments.”  Cueto’s head was thrust forward, his nostrils were dilated, his teeth gleamed.  “Oh, it is somewhere about, as you very well know!  Bah!  Don’t deny it.  I’m no fool.  What becomes of the money from the slave girls, eh?  And the sugar crops, too?  Does it go to buy arms and ammunition for the rebels?  No.  Don Esteban hides it, and you help him.  Come,” he cried, disregarding Sebastian’s murmurs of protest, “did you ever think how fabulous that fortune must be by this time?  Did you ever think that one little gem, one bag of gold, would buy your freedom?”

“Don Esteban has promised to buy my freedom and the freedom of my girl.”

“So?” The manager was plainly surprised.  “I didn’t know that.”  After a moment he began to laugh.  “And yet you pretend to know nothing about that treasure?  Ha!  You’re a good boy, Sebastian, and so I am.  I admire you.  We’re both loyal to our master, eh?  But now about Evangelina.”  Cueto’s face took on a craftier expression.  “She is a likely girl, and when she grows up she will be worth more than you, her father.  Don’t forget that Don Esteban is before all else a business man.  Be careful that some one doesn’t make him so good an offer for your girl that he will forget his promise and—­sell her.”

Sebastian uttered a hoarse, animal cry and the whites of his eyes showed through the gloom.  “He would never sell Evangelina!”

Cueto laughed aloud once more.  “Of course!  He would not dare, eh?  I am only teasing you.  But see!  You have given yourself away.  Everything you tell me proves that you know all about that treasure.”

“I know but one thing,” the slave declared, stiffening himself slowly, “and that is to be faithful to Don Esteban.”  He turned and departed, leaving Pancho Cueto staring after him meditatively.

In the days following the birth of his children and the death of his wife, Don Esteban Varona, as had been his custom, steered a middle course in politics, in that way managing to avoid a clash with the Spanish officials who ruled the island, or an open break with his Cuban neighbors, who rebelled beneath their wrongs.  This was no easy thing to do, for the agents of the crown were uniformly corrupt and quite ruthless, while most of the native-born were either openly or secretly in sympathy with the revolution in the Orient.  But Esteban dealt diplomatically with both factions and went on raising slaves and sugar to his own great profit.  Owing to the impossibility of importing negroes, the market steadily improved, and Esteban reaped a handsome profit from those he had on hand, especially when his crop of young girls matured.  His sugar-plantations prospered, too, and Pancho Cueto, who managed them, continued to wonder where the money went.