significant chin, and only one eye, a
black and sleepy orb, which seemed to crawl like a snake. His exceedingly
dark skin was made darker by a singular bluish tinge which resulted from
heavy doses of nitrate of silver, taken as a remedy for epilepsy. His face
was, moreover, mottled with dusky spots, so that he reminded the spectator
of a frog or a toad. Just now he looked nothing less than poisonous; the
hungriest of cannibals would not have dared eat him.

"I am ruined," he went on groaning. "The war, the Yankees, the Apaches,
the devil--I am completely ruined. In another year I shall be sold out.
Then, my dear Carlos, you will have no home."

"_Sangre de Dios!_" growled Coronado. "Do you want to drive me to the
devil?

"O God! to force an old man to such an extremity!" continued Garcia. "It
is more than an old man is fitted to strive with. An old man--an old,
sick, worn-out man!"

"You are sure about the will?" demanded the nephew.

"I have a copy of it," said Garcia, eagerly. "Here it is. Read it. O Madre
de Dios! there is no doubt about it. I can trust my lawyer. It all goes to
her. It only comes to me if she dies childless and intestate."

"This is a horrible dilemma to force us into," observed Coronado, after he
had read the paper.

"So it is," assented Garcia, looking at him with indescribable anxiety.
"So it is; so it is. What is to be done?"

"Suppose I should marry her?"

The old man's countenance fell; he wanted to call his nephew a pig, a dog,
and everything else that is villainous; but he restrained himself and
merely whimpered, "It would be better than nothing. You could help me."

"There is little chance of it," said Coronado, seeing that the proposition
was not approved. "She likes the American lieutenant much, and does not
like me at all."

"Then--" began Garcia, and stopped there, trembling all over.

"Then what?"

The venomous old toad made a supreme effort and whispered, "Suppose she
should die?"

Coronado wheeled about, walked two or three times up and down the room,
returned to where Garcia sat quivering, and murmured, "It must be done
quickly."

"Yes, yes," gasped the old man. "She must--it must be childless and
intestate."

"She must go off in some natural way," continued the nephew.

The uncle looked up with a vague hope in his one dusky and filmy eye.

"Perhaps the isthmus will do it for her."

Again the old man turned to an image of despair, as he mumbled, "O Madre
de