Сердца трех / Hearts of Three

’

�Guess I’ll take a chance, old man,’ Francis assured the other, himself all fire with the plan of clearing up the distressing situation between Henry and the girl.

But the thought of her perplexed him. He experienced more than a twinge of regret that the lovely creature belonged of right to the man who looked so much like him, and he saw again the vision of her on the beach, when, with conflicting emotions, she had alternately loved him and yearned toward him and blazed her scorn and contempt on him.

He sighed involuntarily.

�What’s that for?’ Henry demanded quizzically.

�Leoncia is an exceedingly pretty girl,’ Francis answered with transparent frankness. �Just the same, she’s yours, and I’m going to make it my business to see that you get her. Where’s that ring she returned? If I don’t put it on her finger for you and be back here in a week with the good news, you can cut off my mustache along with my ears.’

An hour later, Captain Trefethen having sent a boat to the beach from the Angelique in response to signal, the two young men were saying good-bye.

�Just two things more, Francis. First, and I forgot to tell you, Leoncia is not a Solano at all, though she thinks she is. Alfaro told me himself. She is an adopted child, and old Enrico fairly worships her, though neither his blood nor his race runs in her veins. Alfaro never told me the ins and outs of it, though he did say she wasn’t Spanish at all. I don’t even know whether she’s English or American.

She talks good enough English, though she got that at convent. You see, she was adopted when she was a wee thing, and she’s never known anything else than that Enrico is her father.’

�And no wonder she scorned and hated me for you,’ Francis laughed, �believing, as she did, as she still does, that you knifed her full blood-uncle in the back.’

Henry nodded, and went on.

�The other thing is fairly important. And that’s the law.

Or the absence of it, rather. They make it whatever they want it, down in this out-of-the-way hole. It’s a long way to Panama, and the gobernador of this state, or district, or whatever they call it, is a sleepy old Silenus.[19 - Silenus – в греческой мифологии – вечно пьяный друг и учитель бога вина Дионисия.] The Jefe Politico[20 - Jefe Politico – губернатор провинции (исп.