One evening, instead of directing his steps toward the sea, the Indian climbed over the high rocks on which the principal habitations of Chorillos are built; a house, fronted by broad stone steps, struck his eyes he entered it without noise.
The day had been hard for many of the wealthy Limanians; some among them, exhausted with the fatigues of the preceding night, were reposing on the ground, wrapped in their ponchos .
Other players were seated before a large green table, divided into four compartments by two lines, which intersected each other at the centre in right angles; on each of these compartments were the first letters of the words azar and suerte , (chance and fate,) A and S.
At this moment, the parties of the monte were animated; a mestizo was pursuing the unfavorable chance with feverish ardor.
"Two thousand piasters!" exclaimed he.
The banker shook the dice, and the player burst into imprecations.
"Four thousand piasters!" said he, again. And he lost once more.
Martin Paz, protected by the obscurity of the saloon, could look the player in the face, and he turned pale.
It was André Certa!
Near him, was standing the Jew Samuel.
"You have played enough, Señor André," said Samuel to him; "the luck is not for you."
"What business is it of yours?" replied the mestizo, roughly.
Samuel bent down to his ear.
"If it is not my business, it is your business to break off these habits during the days which precede your marriage."
"Eight thousand piasters!" resumed André Certa.
He lost again: the mestizo suppressed a curse and the banker resumed "Play on!"
André Certa, drawing from his pocket some bills, was about to have hazarded a considerable sum; he had even deposited it on one of the tables, and the banker, shaking his dice, was about to have decided its fate, when a sign from Samuel stopped him short. The Jew bent again to the ear of the mestizo, and said
"If nothing remains to you to conclude our bargain, it shall be broken off this evening!"
André Certa shrugged his shoulders, took up his money, and went out.
"Continue now," said Samuel to the banker; "you may ruin this gentleman after his marriage."
The banker bowed submissively. The Jew Samuel was the founder and proprietor of the games of Chorillos. Wherever there was a real to be made this man was to be met with.
He followed the mestizo; and finding him on the stone steps, said to him
"I have secrets of importance to communicate. Where can we converse in safety?"
"Wherever you please," replied Certa, roughly.
"Señor, let not your passions ruin your prospects. I would neither confide my secret to the most carefully closed chambers, nor the most lonely plains. If you pay me dearly for it, it is because it is worth telling and worth keeping."
As they spoke thus, these two men had reached the sea, near the cabins destined for the use of the bathers. They knew not that they were seen, heard and watched by Martin Paz, who glided like a serpent in the shadow.
"Let us take a canoe," said André, "and go out into the open sea; the sharks may, perhaps, show themselves discreet."
André detached from the shore a little boat, and threw some money to its guardian. Samuel embarked with him, and the mestizo pushed off. He vigorously plied two flexible oars, which soon took them a mile from the shore.
But as he saw the canoe put off, Martin Paz, concealed in a crevice of the rock, hastily undressed, and precipitating himself into the sea, swam vigorously toward the boat.
The sun had just buried his last rays in the waves of the ocean, and darkness hovered over the crests of the waves.
Martin Paz had not once reflected that sharks of the most dangerous species frequented these fatal shores. He stopped not far from the boat of the mestizo, and listened.
"But what proof of the identity of the daughter shall I carry to the father? " asked André Certa of the Jew.
"You will recall to him the circumstances under which he lost her."
"What were these circumstances?"
Martin Paz, now scarcely above the waves, listened without understanding. In a girdle attached to his body, he had a poignard; he waited.
"Her father," said the Jew, "lived at Concencion, in Chili: he was then the great nobleman he is now; only his fortune equalled his nobility. Obliged to come
to Lima on business, he set out alone, leaving at Concencion his wife, and child aged fifteen months. The climate of Peru agreed with him, and he sent for the marchioness to rejoin him. She embarked on the San-José of Valparaiso, with her confidential servants.
"I was going to Peru in the same ship. The San-José was about to enter the harbor of Lima; but, near Juan Fernandez, was struck by a terrific hurricane, which disabled her and threw her on her side it was the affair of half an hour. The San-José filled with water and was slowly sinking; the passengers and crew took refuge in the boat, but at sight of the furious waves, the marchioness refused to enter it; she pressed her infant in her arms, and remained in the ship. I remained with her the boat was swallowed up at a hundred fathoms from the San-José , with all her crew. We were alone the tempest blew with increasing violence. As my fortune was not on board, I had nothing to lose. The San-José , having five feet of water in her hold, drifted on the rocks of the shore, where she broke to pieces. The young woman was thrown into the sea with her daughter: fortunately, for me," said the Jew, with a gloomy smile, "I could seize the child, and reach the shore with it."