paradise.
You'll find Santiago all that."

"I hope it may be, as you say."

"You may rest sure of it. Once in the old Veraguan town, with these
women as our wives--and they no longer able to question our calling them
so--we can enter society without fear of showing our faces. And with
this big _bonanza_ at our backs, we may lead a luxurious life there; or
go anywhere else it pleases us. As for returning to your dear
California, as you call it, you won't care for that when you've become a
Benedict."

"You've made up your mind, then, that we marry them?"

"Of course I have, and for certain reasons. Otherwise, I shouldn't so
much care, now that they're in our power, and we can dictate terms to
them. You can do as you please respecting marriage, though you have the
same reasons as myself, for changing your senorita into a senora."

"What do you allude to?"

"To the fact that both these damsels have large properties in Spain, as
a worthy friend in San Francisco made me aware just before leaving. The
Dona Carmen will inherit handsomely at her father's death, which is the
same as if said and done now. I don't refer to his gold-dust, but a
large landed property the old gentleman is soon coming into in Biscay;
and which, please God, I shall some day look up and take possession of.
While the other has no end of acres in Andalusia, with whole streets of
houses in Cadiz. To get all that, these women must be our wives;
otherwise, we should have no claim to it, nor yet be able to show our
faces in Spain."

"Of course I'm glad to hear about all that," rejoins Hernandez; "but, if
you believe me, it's not altogether the money that's been tempting me
throughout this whole affair. I'm mad in love with Inez Alvarez;--so
mad, that if she hadn't a _claco_ in the world I'm willing to be her
husband."

"Say, rather, her master; as I intend to be of Carmen Montijo. Ah! once
we get ashore, I'll teach her submission. The haughty dame will learn
what it is to be a wife. And if not an obedient one, _por Dios_! she
shall have a divorce, that is, after I've squeezed out of her the
Biscayan estate. Then she can go free, if it so please her."

On pronouncing this speech, the expression on the speaker's countenance
is truly satanic. It seems to foreshadow a sad fate for Carmen Montijo.

For some seconds there is silence between the plotters. Again breaking
it, Hernandez says:

"I don't like the idea of our putting the old ge