Leroux The Bride of the Sun

1. Auflage 2017
ISBN: 978-3-7364-2009-0
Verlag: anboco
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 358 Seiten

Gaston Louis Alfred Leroux was a French journalist and author of detective fiction. In the English-speaking world, he is best known for writing the novel The Phantom of the Opera (Le Fantôme de l'Opéra, 1910), which has been made into several film and stage productions of the same name, notably the 1925 film starring Lon Chaney, and Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1986 musical. His novel The Mystery of the Yellow Room is also one of the most famous locked-room mysteries ever.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Leroux, Gaston

Leseproben

II

The man went out, signing as he went to a stalwart Indian who walked quietly into the office. Maria-Teresa, back at her desk, hardly raised her eyes. The newcomer, who took off his straw sombrero with a sweep worthy of a hidalgo of Castille, was a Trigullo Indian. These are perhaps the finest tribe of their race and claim descent from Manco-Capac, first king of the Incas. A mass of black hair, falling nearly to his shoulders, framed a profile which might have been copied from a bronze medallion. His eyes, strangely soft as he looked at the young girl before him, provoked immediate antagonism from Dick. He was wrapped in a bright-colored poncho, and a heavy sheath-knife hung from his belt.

“Tell me how it happened,” ordered Maria-Teresa without returning the Indian’s salute.

Under his rigid demeanor, it was evident that he resented this tone before a stranger. Then he began to speak in Quichua, only to be interrupted and told to use Spanish. The Indian frowned and glanced haughtily at the listening engineer.

“I am waiting,” said Maria-Teresa. “So your Indians have killed one of my coolies?”

“The shameless ones laughed because our Indians fired cohetes in honor of the first quarter of the moon.”

“I do not pay your Indians to pass their time in setting off fireworks.”

“It was the occasion of the Noble Feast of the Moon.”

“Yes, I know! The moon, and the stars, and the sun, and every Catholic festival as well! Your Indians do nothing but celebrate. They are lazy, and drunkards. I have stood them, so far because they were your friends, and you have always been a good servant, but this is too much.”

“The shameless sons of the West are not your servants. They do not love you....”

“No, but they work.”

“For nothing... They have no pride.

“They are the sons of dogs.”

“They earn their wages.... Your men, I keep out of charity!”

“Charity!” The Indian stepped back as if struck, and his hand, swung clear of the poncho, was lifted over his head as if in menace. Then it dropped and he strode to the door. But before opening it, he turned and spoke rapidly in Quichua, his eyes flaming. Then, throwing his poncho oyer his shoulder, he went out.

Maria-Teresa sat silent for a while, toying with her pencil.

“What did he say?” asked Dick.

“That he was going, and that I should never see him again.”

“He looked furious.”

“Oh, he is not dangerous. It is a way they have. He says he did everything he could to prevent the trouble.... He is a good man himself, but his gang are hopeless. You have no idea what a nuisance these Indians are. Proud as Lucifer, and as lazy as drones.... I shall never employ another one.”

“Wouldn’t that make trouble?”

“It might! But what else can I do? I can’t have all my coolies killed off like that.”

“And what of Huascar?”

“He will do as he pleases.... He was brought up in the place, and was devoted to my mother.”

“It must be hard for him to leave.”

“I suppose so.”

“And you wouldn’t do anything to keep him?”

“No.... Goodness, we are forgetting all about your uncle!” She rang, and a man came in. “Order the motor.... By the way, what are the Indians doing?”

“They’ve left with Huascar.”

“All of them?”

“Yes, señorita.”

“Without saying a word?”

“Not a word, señorita.”

“Who paid them off?”

“They refused to take any money. Huascar ordered them to.”

“And what of the Island coolies?”

“They have not been near the place.”

“But the dead man... and the wounded?”

“The Chinamen take them back to their own quarters.”

“Funny people.... Tell them to bring the motor round.”

While speaking she had put on a bonnet, and now drew on her gloves.

“I shall drive,” she said to the liveried negro boy who brought round the car.

As they shot toward the Muelle Darsena, Dick admired the coolness with which she took the machine through the twisting streets. The boy, crouching at their feet, was evidently used to the speed, and showed no terror as they grazed walls and corners.

“Do you do a great deal of motoring out here?”

“No, not very much. The roads are too bad. I always use this to get from Callao to Lima, and there are one or two runs to the seaside, to places like Ancon or Carillos—just a minute, Dick.”

She stopped the car, and waved her hand to a curly gray head which had appeared at a window, between two flower pots. This head reappeared at a low door, on the shoulders of a gallant old gentleman in sumptuous uniform. Maria-Teresa jumped out of the motor, exchanged a few sentences with him, and then rejoined Dick again.

“That was the Chief of Police,” she explained. “I told him about that affair. There will be no trouble unless the Chinamen take legal proceedings, which is not likely.”

They reached the steamers’ landing stage in time. The tugs had only just brought alongside the Pacific Steam Navigation Company’s liner, on board which Uncle Francis was still taking notes:—“On entering the port of Callao, one is struck, etc., etc.” He lost precious material by not being with Maria-Teresa as she enthusiastically descriRed “her harbor” to Dick.... Sixty millions spent in improvements... 50,000 square meters of docks.... How she loved it all for its commercial bustle, for its constant coming and going of ships, for its intense life, and all it meant—the riches that would flow through it after the opening of the Panama Canal... the renascence of Peru.... Chili conquered and Santiago crushed... the defeat of 1878 avenged... and San Francisco yonder had best look to itself!

Dick, listening to the girl at his side, was amazed to hear her give figures with as much authority as an engineer, estimate profits as surely as, a shipowner. What a splendid little brain it was, and how much better than that imaginative, dreaming type which he deplored both in men and women, a type exemplified by his uncle with all his chimeric hypotheses.

“It would all be so splendid,” she added, frowning, “if we only stopped making fools of ourselves. But we are always doing it.”

“In what way?”

“With our revolutions!”

They were now standing on the quay, while the liner gradually swung in.

“Oh, are they at it here as well? We found one on in Venezuela, and then another at Guayaquil. The city was under martial law, and some general or other who had been in power for about forty-eight hours was preparing to march on Quito and wipe out the government.”

“Yes, it is like an epidemic,” went on the young girl, “an epidemic which is sweeping the Andes just now. The news from Boloisa is worrying me, too. Things are bad round Lake Titicaca.”

“Not really! That’s a nuisance... not a cheerful outlook for my business in the Cuzco.” Dick was evidently put out by the news.

“I had not intended telling you about it until to-morrow. You must not think of unpleasant things to-day... all that district is in the hands of Garcia’s men now.”

“Who is Garcia?”

“Oh, one of my old suitors.”

“Has everybody in the country been in love with you, Maria-Teresa?”

“Well, I had the attraction of having been brought up abroad... at the first presidential ball I went to after mother’s death there was no getting rid of them.... Garcia was there. And now he has raised the revolt among the Arequipa and Cuzco Indians.... He wants Vointemilla’s place as president.”

“I suppose they have sent troops against them?”

“Oh, yes, the two armies are out there... but, of course, they are not fighting.”

“Why?”

“Because of the festival of the Interaymi.”

“And what on earth is that?”

“The Festival of the Sun.... You see, three quarters, of the troops on both sides are Indian.... So, of course, they get drunk together during the fêtes.... In the end, Garcia will be driven over the Boloisan border, but in the meantime he is playing the very mischief with fertilizer rates.”

She turned toward the liner again, and, catching sight of Uncle Francis, raised her hand in reply to the frantic waving of a notebook.

“How are you, Mr. Montgomery?” she cried. “Did you enjoy the crossing?”

The gangways were run out, and they went on board.

Mr. Montgomery’s first question was the same as had been his nephew’s.

“Well, and how is business?”

For all those who knew her in Europe had marveled at the change which had come over the “little girl” at her mother’s death, and her sudden determination to return to Peru and herself take charge of the family’s fertilizer business and concessions. She had also been influenced in this decision by the fact that there were her little brother and sister, Isabella and Christobal, who needed her care. And finally there was her father, perhaps the greatest child of the three, who had always royally spent the money which his wife’s business brought in.

Maria-Teresa’s mother, the daughter of a big Liverpool shipowner, met the handsome Marquis de la Torre one summer when he was an attaché at the Peruvian legation in London. The following winter she went back to Peru with him. Inheriting a great deal of her father’s business acumen, she made a great...