bereavement hardest. Strange to say, she could not be comforted.
She wept, she screamed, she tore her hair, tasting the full
nauseousness of the cup her own avarice had prepared. Now, when it
was too late, she realized that she had overreached herself,
having caused the death of the only two who knew the secret of the
treasure. She remembered, also, Sebastian's statement that even
the deeds of patent for the land were hidden with the rest, where
ten thousand men in ten thousand years could never find them.

Impressed by her manifestations of grief, Esteban's friends
reasoned that the widow must have loved her husband dearly. They
told one another they had wronged her.




III

"THE O'REILLY"


Age and easy living had caused Don Mario de Castano, the sugar
merchant, to take on weight. He had, in truth, become so fat that
he waddled like a penguin when he walked; and when he rode, the
springs of his French victoria gave up in despair. They glued
themselves together, face to face, and Don Mario felt every rut
and every rock in the road. Nor was the merchant any less heavy in
mind than in body, for he was both very rich and very serious, and
nothing is more ponderous than a rich, fat man who takes his
riches and his fatness seriously. In disposition Don Mario was