第30章

It was on his second visit that the sceptical, non-committal policy of Senor Mateo was sorely tried.Arriving at the posada one night, Ezekiel became aware that his host was engaged in some mysterious conference with a visitor who had entered through the ordinary public room.The view which the acute Ezekiel managed to get of the stranger, however, was productive of no further discovery than that he bore a faint and disreputable resemblance to Blandford, and was handsome after a conscious, reckless fashion, with an air of mingled bravado and conceit.But an hour later, as Corwin was taking the cooler air of the veranda before retiring to one of the miraculous beds of the posada, he was amazed at seeing what was apparently Blandford himself emerge on horseback from the alley, and after a quick glance towards the veranda, canter rapidly up the street.Ezekiel's first impression was to call to him, but the sudden recollection that he parted from his old master on confidential terms only three days before in San Francisco, and that it was impossible for him to be in the pueblo, stopped him with his fingers meditatively in his beard.Then he turned in to the posada, and hastily summoned Mateo.

The gentleman presented himself in a state of such profound scepticism that it seemed to have already communicated itself to his shoulders, and gave him the appearance of having shrugged himself into the room.

"Ha'ow long ago did Mr.Johnson get here?" asked Corwin, lazily.

"Ah--possibly--then there has been a Mr.Johnson?" This is a polite doubt of his own perceptions and a courteous acceptance of his questioner's.

"Wa'al, I guess so.Considerin' I jest saw him with my own eyes,"returned Ezekiel.

"Ah!" Mateo was relieved.Might he congratulate the Senor Corwin, who must be also relieved, and shake his respected hand.Bueno.

And then he had met this Senor Johnson? doubtless a friend? And he was well? and all were happy?

"Look yer, Mattayo! What I wanter know ez THIS.When did that man, who has just ridden out of your alley, come here? Sabe that--it's a plain question."

Ah surely, of the clearest comprehension.Bueno.It may have been last week--or even this week--or perhaps yesterday--or of a possibility to-day.The Senor Corwin, who was wise and omniscient, would comprehend that the difficulty lay in deciding WHO was that man.Perhaps a friend of the Senor Corwin--perhaps only one who LOOKED like him.There existed--might Mateo point out--a doubt.

Ezekiel regarded Mateo with a certain grim appreciation."Wa'al, is there anybody here who looks like Johnson?"Again there were the difficulty of ascertaining perfectly how the Senor Johnson looked.If the Senor Johnson was Americano, doubtless there were other Americanos who had resembled him.It was possible.The Senor Corwin had doubtless observed for a little space a caballero who was here, as it were, in the instant of the appearance of Senor Johnson? Possibly there was a resemblance, and yet--Corwin had certainly noticed this resemblance, but it did not suit his cautious intellect to fall in with any prevailing scepticism of his host.Satisfied in his mind that Mateo was concealing something from him, and equally satisfied that he would sooner or later find it out, he grinned diabolically in the face of that worthy man, and sought the meditation of his miraculous couch.

When he had departed, the sceptic turned to his wife:

"This animal has been sniffing at the trail.""Truly--but Mother of God--where is the discretion of our friend.

If he will continue to haunt the pueblo like a lovesick chicken, he will get his neck wrung yet."Following out an ingenious idea of his own, Ezekiel called the next day on the Demorests, and in some occult fashion obtained an invitation to stay under their hospitable roof during his sojourn in Buenaventura.Perfectly aware that he owed this courtesy more to Joan than to her husband, it is probable that his grim enjoyment was not diminished by the fact; while Joan, for reasons of her own, preferred the constraint which the presence of another visitor put upon Demorest's uxoriousness.Of late, too, there were times when Dona Rosita's naive intelligence, which was not unlike the embarrassing perceptions of a bright and half-spoiled child, was in her way, and she would willingly have shared the young lady's company with her husband had Demorest shown any sympathy for the girl.It was in the faint hope that Ezekiel might in some way beguile Rosita's wandering attention that she had invited him.The only difficulty lay in his uncouthness, and in presenting to the heiress of the Picos a man who had been formerly her own servant.

Had she attempted to conceal that fact she was satisfied that Ezekiel's independence and natural predilection for embarrassing situations would have inevitably revealed it.She had even gone so far as to consider the propriety of investing him with a poor relationship to her family, when Dona Rosita herself happily stopped all further trouble.On her very first introduction to him, that charming young lady at once accepted him as a lunatic whose brains were turned by occult, scientific, and medical study!

Ah! she, Rosita, had heard of such cases before.Had not a paternal ancestor of hers, one Don Diego Castro, believed he had discovered the elixir of youth.Had he not to that end refused even to wash him the hand, to cut him the nail of the finger and the hair of the head! Exalted by that discovery, had he not been unsparingly uncomplimentary to all humanity, especially to the weaker sex? Even as the Senor Corwin!