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Read Ebook: Ask Mamma; or The Richest Commoner In England by Surtees Robert Smith Leech John Illustrator
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Ebook has 3431 lines and 253339 words, and 69 pages
"Well, as I have remembered it, all can be set right now; we can continue our game."
"Very good: one hundred ounces is the stake."
"Oh no! I haven't that amount."
"Nonsense! Feel in your pockets again."
"It is useless; I know I haven't got it."
"That is really most annoying."
"How so?"
"Because I have vowed not to play for less."
"Then you won't cover twenty ounces?"
"I cannot; I would not cover one short of a hundred."
"H'm!" the lepero went on, knitting his brows, "is that meant for an insult, T?o Lucas?"
The banker had no time to reply; for a man of about thirty, mounted on a magnificent black horse, had stopped for a few seconds before the table, and, while carelessly smoking his cigar, listened to the discussion between the banker and the lepero.
"Done for one hundred ounces," he said, as he cleared a way by means of his horse's chest up to the table, on which he dropped a purse full of gold.
The two speakers suddenly raised their heads.
"Here are the cards, caballero," the banker hastened to say, glad of an incident which temporarily freed him from a dangerous opponent. Cuchar?s shrugged his shoulders contemptuously, and looked at the newcomer.
"Oh!" he muttered to himself, "the Tigrero! Has he come for Anita? I must know that."
And he gently drew nearer the stranger, and presently stood by his side.
Like all Mexicans of a certain class when travelling, the stranger was armed from head to foot; that is to say, in addition to the lasso fastened to the saddle, and the rifle laid across the saddle-bow, he had also by his side a long sword, and a pair of pistols in his girdle, without reckoning the knife whose silver inlaid hilt could be seen peeping out of one of his boots.
Such as we have described him, this man was the perfect type of a Mexican of Sonora--ever ready for peace or war, fearing the one no more than he despised the other. After bowing politely to T?o Lucas he took the cards the latter offered him, and shuffled them while looking around him.
"Ah!" he said, casting a friendly glance to the lepero, "you're here, gossip Cuchar?s?"
"At your service, Don Martial," the other replied, lifting his hand to the ragged brim of his beaver.
The stranger smiled.
"Be good enough to cut for me while I light my pajillo."
"With pleasure," the lepero exclaimed.
"Se?or," the latter said in a piteous voice.
"Well?"
"You have lost."
"Good. T?o Lucas, take a hundred ounces from my purse."
"I have them, your excellency," the banker replied. "Would you please to play again?"
"Certainly, but not for such trifles. I should like to feel interested in the game."
"I will cover any stake your excellency may like to name," the banker said, whose practised eye had discovered in the stranger's purse, amid a decent number of ounces, some forty diamonds of the purest water.
"H'm! Are you really ready to cover any stake I name?"
"Yes."
The stranger looked at him sharply.
"Even if I played for a thousand gold ounces?"
"I would cover double that if your excellency dares to stake it," the baker said imperturbably.
A contemptuous smile played for the second time on the horseman's haughty lips.
"I do dare it," he said.
"Two thousand ounces, then?"
"Agreed."
"Shall I cut?" Cuchar?s asked timidly.
"Why not?" the other answered lightly.
The lepero seized the cards with a hand trembling from emotion. There was a hum of expectation from the gamblers who surrounded the table. At this moment a window opened in the house before which T?o Lucas had established his monte table, and a charming girl leant carelessly over the balcony, looking down into the street.
The stranger turned to the balcony, and rising in his stirrups,--
"I salute the lovely Anita," he said, as he doffed his hat and bowed profoundly.
The girl blushed, bent on him an expressive glance from beneath her long velvety eyelashes, but made no reply.
"You have lost, excellency," T?o Lucas said with a joyous accent, which he could not completely conceal.
"Very good," the stranger replied, without even looking at him, so fascinated was he by the charming apparition on the balcony.
"You play no more?"
"On the contrary, I double."
"What!" exclaimed the banker, falling back a step in spite of himself at this proposition.
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