FullReads

The soldier of fortune also had risen as we approached. In her soft musical voice, the Senorita now interrupted her father.

“Professor Kennedy, let me introduce you to Mr. Lockwood, my father’s partner in a mining project which brings us to New York.”

As Kennedy and I shook hands with the young mining engineer, I felt that Lockwood was something more to her than a mere partner in her father’s mining venture.

We drew up chairs and joined the circle.

Kennedy said something about mining and the very word “mine” seemed to excite Senor Mendoza still further.

“Your American financiers have lost millions in mining in Peru,” he exclaimed excitedly, taking out a beautifully chased gold cigarette case, “but we are going to make more millions than they ever dreamed of, because we are simply going to mine for the products of centuries of labor already done, for the great treasure of Truxillo.”

He opened the cigarette case and handed it about. The cigarettes seemed to be his own special brand. We lighted up and puffed away for a moment. There was a peculiar taste about them, however, which I did not like. In fact, I think that the Latin-American cigarettes do not seem to appeal to an American very much, anyhow.

As we talked, I noticed that Kennedy evidently shared my own tastes, for he allowed his cigarette to go out, and after a puff or two I did the same. For the sake of my own comfort I drew out one of my own cigarettes as soon as I could do so politely.

“We are not the only ones who have sought the peje grande,” resumed Mendoza eagerly, “but we are the only ones who are seeking it in the right place, and,” he added, leaning over with a whisper, “I am the only one who has the concession, the monopoly, from the government to seek in what we know to be the right place. Others have found the little fish. We shall find the big fish.”

He had raised his voice from the whisper and I caught the Senorita looking anxiously at Kennedy, as much as to say, “You see? His mind is full of only one subject.”

Senor Mendoza’s eyes had wandered from us and he seemed all of a sudden to grow wild.

“We shall find it,” he cried, “no matter what obstacles man or devil put in our way. It is ours–for a simple piece of engineering–ours! The curse of Mansiche–pouf!”

He snapped his fingers almost defiantly as he said it in a high-pitched voice. There was an air of bravado about it and I could not help feeling that perhaps in his heart he was not so sure of himself as he would have others think. It was as though some diabolical force had taken possession of his brain and he fought it off.

Kennedy quickly followed the staring glance of Mendoza. Out on the broad veranda, by an open window a few yards from us, sat the woman of the wheel chair. The young man who accompanied her had his back toward us for the moment, but she was looking fixedly in our direction, paying no attention apparently to the music. She was a large woman, with dark hair, and contrasting full red lips. Her face, in marked contradiction to her Parisian costume and refined manners, had a slight copper swarthiness about it.

But it was her eyes that arrested and held one’s attention. Whether it was in the eyes themselves or in the way that she used them, there could be no mistake about the hypnotic power that their owner wielded. She saw us looking at her, but it made no difference. Not for an instant did she allow our gaze to distract her in the projection of their weird power straight at Don Luis himself.

Don Luis, on his part, seemed fascinated.

He rose, and, for a moment, I thought that he was going over to speak to her, as if drawn by that intangible attraction which Poe has so cleverly expressed in his “Imp of the Perverse.” Instead, in the midst of the number which the orchestra was playing, he turned and, as though by a superhuman effort, moved away among the guests out into the brighter lights and gayety of the lobby.

I glanced up in time to see the anxious look on the Senorita’s face change momentarily into a flash of hatred toward the woman in the window.

The young man turned just about that time, and there was no mistaking the ardent glance he directed toward the fair Peruvian. I fancied that her face softened a bit, too.

She resumed her normal composure as she said to Lockwood, “You will excuse me, I know. Father is tired of the music. I think I will take him for a turn down the boardwalk. If you can join us in our rooms in an hour or so, may we see you!” she asked, with another significant glance at Kennedy.

Craig had barely time to reply that we should be delighted before she was gone. Evidently she did not dare let her father get very far out of her sight.

We sat for a few moments smoking and chatting with Lockwood.

“What is the curse of Mansiche?” asked Kennedy at length.

“Oh, I don’t know,” returned Lockwood, impatiently flicking the ashes from his cigar, as though such stories had no interest for the practical mind of an engineer. “Some old superstition. I don’t know much about the story; but I do know that there is treasure in that great old Chimu mound near Truxillo, and that Don Luis has got us the government concession to bore into it, if we can only raise the capital to carry it out.”

Kennedy showed no disposition to leave the academic and become interested in the thing from the financial standpoint, and the conversation dragged.

“I beg pardon,” apologized Lockwood at length, “but I have some very important letters that I must get off before the mail closes. I’ll see you, I presume, when the Senorita and Don Luis come back?”

Kennedy nodded. In fact, I think he was rather glad of the opportunity to look things over unhampered.