Hope looked up sharply.
"What does he know about the mummy?"
"Nothing so far as I know, save that he came to Europe with the
intention of purchasing it, and found himself forestalled by Professor
Braddock. Don Pedro told me no more than that."
"Humph!" murmured Hope to himself. "Don Pedro will be disappointed when
he learns that the mummy is missing."
Random did not catch the words and was about to ask him what he had
said, when two tall figures, conducted by a shorter one, were seen
moving on the white road which led to the Fort.
"Strangers!" said Mrs. Jasher, putting up her lorgnette, which she used
for effect, although she had remarkably keen sight.
"How do you know?" asked Lucy carelessly.
"My dear, look how oddly the man is dressed."
"I can't tell at this distance," said Lucy, "and if you can, Mrs. Jasher
I really do not see why you require glasses."
Mrs. Jasher laughed at the compliment to her sight, and colored through
her rouge at the reproof to her vanity. Meanwhile, the smaller figure,
which was that of a village lad leading a tall gentleman and a slender
lady, pointed toward the group round Hope's easel. Shortly, the boy ran
back up to the village road, and the gentleman came along the pathway
with the lady. Random, who had been looking at them intently, suddenly
started, having at length recognized them.
"Don Pedro and his daughter," he said in an astonished voice, and sprang
forward to welcome the unexpected visitors.
"Now, my dear," whispered the widow in Lucy's ear, "we shall see the
kind of woman Sir Frank prefers to you."
"Well, as Sir Frank has seen the kind of man I prefer to him," retorted
Lucy, "that makes us quite equal."
"I am glad these new-comers talk English," said Hope, who had risen to
his feet. "I know nothing of Spanish."
"They are not Spanish, but Peruvian," said Mrs. Jasher.
"The language is the same, more or less. Confound it! here is Random
bringing them here. I wish he would take them to the Fort. There's no
more work for the next hour, I suppose," and Hope, rather annoyed, began
to pack his artistic traps.
On a nearer view, Don Pedro proved to be a tall, lean, dry man, not
unlike Dore's conception of Don Quixote. He must have had Indian blood
in his veins, judging from his very dark eyes, his stiff, lank hair,
worn somewhat long, and his high cheek-bones. Also, although he was
arrayed in puritanic black, his barbaric love of color betrayed itself
in a red tie and in a scarlet handkerchief which was twisted loosely
round a soft slouch hat, It was the hat and the brilliant red of tie and
handkerchief which had caught Mrs. Jasher's eye at so great a distance,
and which had led her to pronounce the man a stranger, for Mrs. Jasher
well knew that no Englishman would affect such vivid tints. All the
same, in spite of this eccentricity, Don Pedro looked a thorough
Castilian gentleman, and bowed gravely when presented to the ladies by
Random.