CHAPTER XLVI.

PLAYING FOR HIGH STAKES.

Scarcely has a third of the distance to Santiago been covered when horse and rider realize that the pace set is no longer compatible with the Cuban climate. As Rozinante settles into a walk, Ashley pulls vigorously on a fresh cigar and revolves the situation in his mind.

“Credulous fool!” he grumbles, thinking of the betrayed Don Manuel de Quesada. “Played right into the enemy’s hands. But wiser and greater men have been cozened by the smiles of a beautiful woman. Besides, he is Juanita’s father. That covers a multitude of shortcomings. Ah, Juanita, I must indeed love thee when I would willingly risk my valuable life in thy behalf. I am not a hypocrite, and I confess that an absorbing interest in my personal welfare has ever been one of my glittering characteristics.

“Those papers must be recovered. But how? But I have a mighty big job on my hands, even if Truenos is not a Richelieu. Well, it is the pen against the sword, and may heaven maintain the vaunted mightiness of the pen.”

It is something after seven o’clock when Ashley arrives at Santiago. The first acquaintance he meets, after he has put up his horse and proceeded toward his hotel, is General Murillo.

“Of course you are going to the ball?” remarks Ashley, as they shake hands.

Most assuredly General Murillo will be there. It will be a grand affair. Senor Ashley must attend, by all means.

Senor Ashley means to be there, and he thanks General Murillo for an offer to introduce him to a score of the prettiest maids in Cuba. And when the general insists upon his American friend dining with him, the latter quickly accepts. He has no time to waste, he tells himself, but he is much relieved when, in reply to his query, “And Truenos, is he at the palace?” General Murillo informs him that the captain-general has been called to Mentos, ten miles distant, on business of an important nature, and will probably be late in arriving at the festivities, which will not, however, be delayed.

The first flash of hope comes to Ashley at this intelligence, and he dines with a lighter heart. After half an hour of chat on commonplace topics, he manages to ask with well-played indifference:

“At what time did Truenos leave for Mentos, general?”

“Early this afternoon.”

Ah, then it is not yet too late. Ashley breathes easier.

“Well, general, you are a loyal adherent of Spain and I am an out-and-out American. There is no chance for an argument between us. Let me fill your glass and we will drink a toast to all honest men and women, whether Spaniards or Cubans.”

“With pleasure, Senor Ashley. To all honest men—and women.”

“Which does not include your amiable friend, Mrs. Harding,” thinks Ashley, as he raises the glass to his lips.

The dinner finished, the two men separate, while Ashley exchanges his travel-worn garments for an evening dress. Half an hour later he and General Murillo leave for the palace.

“I have a vague suspicion that I am booked for an exciting evening,” muses Jack, as he enters the brilliantly lighted sala of the palace and is duly presented by Murillo.

The dancing has already begun, but Terpsichore is the last goddess he is desirous of wooing on this particular evening. His gaze wanders solicitously about the crowded room and rests at last upon her whom he seeks—Juanita.

“She is simply stunning to-night,” he mutters, nervously tugging at his mustache.

And indeed Juanita is radiantly beautiful. Her dark loveliness is set off by a bewitching gown of white; she is fanning herself with that lazily graceful motion which the Saxon cannot imitate successfully, and at the moment that Ashley discovers her she is telling Captain Ramon Huerta, who has requested with Spanish extravagance “the exquisite honor and incomparable delight of a figure with her,” that she really does not care to dance this evening. At which Captain Huerta looks disappointed and scowls a trifle. But he continues to inflict upon her a presence which is palpably unwelcome.

Juanita’s eyes light up with unfeigned pleasure when Ashley arrives upon the scene and she greets him with unreserved cordiality. She presents him to Captain Huerta, who bows as stiffly as he holds his revolver arm. Ashley returns the salute with a suspicion of exaggeration, and grins maliciously when the Spaniard takes himself off, after bestowing a glance of unmistakable enmity upon the American.

Juanita gazes after the retreating form with distinct aversion. “I have a strange fear of that man,” she confides to Ashley, who smiles reassuringly and tells her that while she is in his vicinity there should be no such word as fear in her bright lexicon of youth.

Juanita rewards this gallant speech, which from anyone except Jack Ashley would sound boastful, with a glance that sets the American’s blood tingling. But he has no time to-night for love-making, whether his suit be favored or hopeless, and as he drops into a chair beside the Pearl of the Antilles he asks casually: “Where is your friend, Mrs. Harding?”

“Ah, you know Isabel?”

“You passed me this afternoon on the road to Santos, whither I was proceeding to pay my most humble respects.”

“Then that horse by the big royal palm was yours?”

“Even so. I was close by, but your volante swept past at such a pace that I hardly recovered from my surprise at seeing you before you were gone.”

“I am sorry we started away so early,” Juanita says, regretfully.

“So am I,” Ashley thinks, grimly, but he does not tell her why.

“I have seen nothing of Mrs. Harding since I arrived,” he remarks.

Juanita’s glance wanders about the room. “There she is,” she indicates, “over by the staircase, the object of the devoted attentions of Count Gonzaga.”

“Who the deuce is Count Gonzaga?” wonders Ashley, and he intimates as much to his companion.

“Have you not met the count? General Jacinto de Gonzaga is his military title. He is some sort of an assistant secretary of war and is representing the home government in Cuba for a short time. He seems desperately smitten with Isabel. She is very handsome, do you not think so, Senor Ashley?”

“Yes, very,” replies Jack, absently. He is watching the pair by the staircase, and wondering what sort of a game Isabel Harding is now playing.

“She is coming this way,” says Juanita. “Have you met her?”

“I have not had that pleasure,” Ashley replies, unblushingly. “Not lately,” he mentally adds.

He turns away to admire some flowers and soon he hears Juanita’s voice: “Isabel, allow me to present Mr. Ashley to you. Mr. Ashley, Mrs. Harding.”

Ashley turns calmly and the two are face to face. She acknowledges the introduction with a composure equal to Ashley’s own, and that young man permits a trace of admiration to mingle with the expression in his eyes which plainly says to the woman before him: “I know your game, my lady.” And the answering flash from the midnight orbs is: “You have more than a match in me, Mr. Ashley. Beware!”

“We shall see,” thinks Ashley, and then, led by Juanita, who sees nothing of the mutual recognition, the conversation drifts into the usual chatter of the ball-room.

“You remember, Isabel, that big horse we saw lunching so contentedly by the road this afternoon?” prattles Juanita.

“Yes, dear, and how we wondered whether its owner was enjoying a siesta in the bushes.”

“Well, it was Mr. Ashley’s horse.”

“I saw you flit by,” supplements Ashley, “but I was back drinking at a spring and your volante was out of sight before I had recovered from my surprise at seeing you.” He is looking directly at Mrs. Harding and that lady smiles, a bit ironically.

“And I presume that when you saw the principal attraction of El Valle de Bosque Cillos being borne toward Santiago, you mounted your horse and sadly followed,” ventures Isabel.

“No; I knew the senorita was in good company,” Jack responds, dryly, “so I continued on to Santos and spent a profitable hour with Don Quesada.”

“Ah!” Mrs. Harding regards him narrowly from between her half-dropped eyelids.

“I say profitable,” continues Ashley, “as I did not know, until so informed, that Don Quesada numbered the charming Mrs. Harding in his list of acquaintances.”

“Of course you congratulated him.”

“Most assuredly.”

The half-veiled contempt expressed in Isabel’s face exasperates Ashley. Hidden somewhere in that corsage, against which beats the falsest heart in Cuba, are papers that mean the ruin of the innocent girl at his side.

He must have time to think, think, think. So he excuses himself and leaves the crowded ball-room for a walk in the cool air of the garden.

In one corner of the spacious inclosure he finds a little arbor, and in this nook Ashley sits and smokes and thinks, but no plan for the confusion of the adventuress suggests itself, unless, as he growls vindictively, he abducts or chloroforms her.

His meditations are disturbed by voices close at hand. Two gentlemen have, like himself, forsaken the heated ball-room for the outer air, and they pause in their stroll within a few feet of Ashley’s retreat.

Jack pays no attention to them until by their voices and conversation he realizes that one of them is Captain Julio Alvarez and the other is Count Gonzaga. “That’s a happy combination,” he laughs softly. “They ought to get a few more of Isabel’s friends and hold a reunion.”

“You are an excellent judge of beauty, Count Gonzaga,” he hears Alvarez remark, with a faint sneer. “I have been noticing your devotion to the handsome Mrs. Harding, the widow of the enormously wealthy ship-owner.”

“Ah, amigo, is she not beautiful?” the count replies, enthusiastically. He appears to be in rare spirits. “I must ask you to congratulate me, Captain Alvarez.”

“I have—on your excellent taste.”

“On more, amigo. The beautiful American has consented to become the Countess Gonzaga.”

“The devil!”

“You are surprised.”

“Rather. I am surprised that a gentleman of Count Gonzaga’s position should think of linking his name with a lady of her character.”

“Por Dios! Your meaning?” cries the count, with a flash of Castilian wrath that causes Captain Alvarez to curse his hasty words, which must have emanated from jealousy or something deeper. Ashley wonders what.

“Oh, nothing,” Alvarez replies, carelessly. “You must pardon my unthinking remark, count. Believe me, I—”

“You will explain yourself to me, and at once, senor,” declares Gonzaga, with frigid emphasis.

There is a silence, which Alvarez, who sees that he is in for it, finally breaks with: “Very well, count, but I warn you that you will regret your insistence. You will have to excuse me now, as I have promised to dance this next figure. Meet me at this place a quarter of an hour hence, and I will endeavor to satisfy you.”

“Very good,” grits Gonzaga. “I will be prompt,” and the men separate.

“The fair Isabel is a star, surely,” soliloquizes Ashley. “Who would have dreamed that she was playing her cards for the role of a countess? Alas! Gonzaga will be brutally undeceived by Alvarez. The latter has put his foot in it and there is only one way out. Jupiter!”

Ashley leaps to his feet, for the inspiration of his life has come to him.

“By George, I have it! But will she do it?” he cries. “She must do it. It is not her nature, still it’s a chance, and if the fates are on the side of right Don Quesada and the senorita are saved!”