Argosy, Vol. 122, No. 1 — page 109: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

VIALS OF HATE. Placing an eye at the window-sill, he made a cautious observation of the speakers, whom he discovered to be the brothers Bar- banera, one the little Emilio, who smoked a cigarette and twisted his mustache and ner- vously paced to and fro, talking; the other the tall, grave-visaged José; who also smoked, and who pone but one word to Emilio’s five. This first close view of José Barbanera disclosed to Jerry that he had the gaunt frame and high-hunched shoulders of a vul- ture. His great mustache and close-cropped, pointed beard, his deep-set eyes, and hollow cheeks gave him the aspect of a man half- starved or recovering from an illness. But the youth perceived that his long, bony limbs, when he moved them, were neither awkward nor slow. The two men were conversing in Span- ish, which Moffat was unable to follow. On a stand rested a lamp, by the light of which he could see their faces, their eyes glisten- ing like jet, and their gestures. Then final- ly they lockéd the door of the room and dragged forward a small but heavy trunk of an old, foreign pattern; this they un- locked, oddly enough, each unlocking one of the pair of locks with a key he carried. The impression left upon Jerry was defi- nite: the men did not trust each other; the trunk held something of common interest or value; neither could open the old leather chest without the assistance of his brother. Emilio lifted forth a great paper wallet stuffed with documents. These they began to examine at a table, where they placed the light. Now José Barbanera opened a sheet and closely inspected it, now he passed it to Emilio, who examined its contents and seals through a large reading-glass. Then finally the smaller brother removed his coat, carefully rolled up his sleeves, dipped a pen in ink, and began to inscribe lines with great pains, glancing continually at another sheet spread by the other. This was a matter which held no particu- lar interest for the eavesdropper until at a knock on the chamber door the two men sprang up, stared at each other in alarm, then hastily blotted the writing, and con- cealed papers and wallet in the trunk. lower- ing the lid. While José stood by the table, 99 Emilio walked forward and unlocked the door, after which he swung it open. - An old man with a white mustache and beard was revealed. Though his years were many, yet his figure was erect and in his face, with its black, penetrating eyes, its imperious nose, its thin-lipped and some- what intolerant mouth, was a look of power. Jerry divined on the instant who this man was: the master of the domain north of the bayou, patriarch of the house, the last male representative of the Spanish line op- posed to the Gaillard interests, Hernando Zorrilla. He uttered a word or two, beckoned with a hand. The two Barbaneras stole a glance at each other and at their unlocked trunk, then went out of the room with a simula- tion of obsequiousness. On Zorrilla’s coun- tenance, Jerry had noticed, remained, de- spite a certain melancholy, the haughtiness that must have been habitual and that even the probable death of his granddaughter and‘a niece could not eradicate. The lamp still burned upon the table, where also stood the ink-well Emilio Bar- banera had been using. The guilty manner of the two men when Hernando Zorrilla’s hand had sounded on the door gave the youthful watcher at the window a changed mind regarding the nature of the papers in the trunk. Men whose business is honest do not start at an interruption and conceal documents they may be examining. And so, since they were enemies, whether the contents of the trunk bore on Gaillard’s af- fairs or on matters strictly personal to the Barbaneras, Jerry decided to examine them. Removing his shoes and wet coat, he lifted himself through the window, crossed the floor in his stockinged feet, and raised the lid of the trunk. On top of several shirts, white linen suits, and a pair of re- volvers lay the large, square paper wallet. Many sheets, some filled with writing in Spanish, some partially inscribed and others blank, made up its contents, of which Jerry by a brief glance could judge nothing. Suddenly the first humorous notion that had entered his head in hours popped into his brain. The Barbaneras were foemen, and he would fling them into confusion; therefore, tightly tying the big envelope cComiclbooks.com