Part 17 (1/2)
Left alone, Myra sipped the fragrant coffee and looked about her with interest.
”This is certainly brigandage up to date!” she reflected. ”I wonder what manner of man El Diablo Cojuelo is?”
A minute or two later she heard a movement behind her and glanced over her shoulder expecting to see Mother Dolores, but saw instead the hooded figure of El Diablo Cojuelo. Instinctively, she drew her silken dressing-gown closer around her and started to her feet.
”I am sorry if I startled you, senorita,” said Cojuelo. ”It is a delightful surprise to find you like this.”
”Dolores seemed to be insisting that I must come here for my coffee,”
explained Myra, recovering her composure.
”I instructed Madre Dolores to ask you to do me the honour of returning here to have a talk with me before you retired, senorita, forgetting that you do not understand much Spanish,” responded Cojuelo. ”I hardly hoped to find you in neglige. You are a vision of beauty to ravish the heart of any man, sweet lady.”
”Thanks for the compliment, senor,” said Myra coldly. ”If I had understood you wished to talk to me, I should not have prepared to retire. Surely anything you have to say will keep until to-morrow.
Meanwhile, I shall be thankful for a cigarette.”
”Pardon!” exclaimed Cojuelo, turning quickly to pick up the silver cigarette-box from the table, and proffering it. ”Your favourite brand, you perceive. You will give El Diablo Cojuelo credit, I hope, for making provision for your comfort.”
”You certainly seem to be something of a magician,” commented Myra, as she helped herself to a cigarette and accepted a light. ”Perhaps you are in league with the Devil, and that is why you are known as El Diablo Cojuelo! I should be interested to know how you managed to get some of my clothes here, together with my toilet requisites.”
”That was not the work of the devil, senorita,” the hooded figure answered, with a m.u.f.fled laugh, ”El Diablo Cojuelo thinks of everything, and had made his preparations in advance. Did I not tell you all the servants of El Castillo de Ruiz were in my pay? It was a simple matter, therefore, to have some of your things smuggled out of the castle before the raid. Pray be seated, senorita.”
He waved his hand invitingly towards the couch which was drawn up close to the electric heater, and Myra, reflecting that it was in keeping with the rest of the fantastic, dream-like adventure that she, clad only in a nightdress and dressing-gown, should be talking to a hooded bandit in an electrically-lighted room in the heart of a mountain, seated herself.
”I suppose I should thank you for being so thoughtful,” she remarked, with a tinge of irony in her sweet voice. ”Am I to understand that even the English-speaking maid at the Castillo de Ruiz is in your pay?”
”Even she, senorita, and I reproach myself--I who have boasted that I think of everything--for not having kidnapped her at the same time as you, so that we should have had no language difficulty such as has occurred with Madre Dolores. If you wish it, I will kidnap her to-morrow.”
”Please don't trouble, senor. I can't believe she is in your pay. She seemed afraid and crossed herself when she mentioned your name. You might frighten her to death. Incidentally, do you wear your disguise all the time, even when you are safe here in your mountain lair? Do you look so much like a devil that you are afraid to show your face?”
She looked challengingly at the hooded figure of her captor as she asked the questions. His cowl had two holes cut for the eyes and a slit at the mouth, and she was wondering what manner of face it concealed.
”The senorita pays me the compliment of wis.h.i.+ng to see me without disguise!” exclaimed Cojuelo. ”Sweet lady, are you not afraid you may fall in love with your captor?”
”I think I can take the risk,” retorted Myra drily.
”It is more than a risk,” rejoined Cojuelo, ”but I will discard my disguise with pleasure. Behold El Diablo Cojuelo!”
He flung off his cowl and robe, and Myra sprang to her feet with a cry of amazement and her hands went convulsively to her breast. For she found herself looking into the smiling and triumphant eyes of Don Carlos de Ruiz.
CHAPTER XIII
”Don Carlos!” she gasped. ”You! But I don't understand.”
”I am El Diablo Cojuelo, dear Myra,” explained Don Carlos, obviously enjoying the sensation he had created. ”I feared you had guessed my secret.”
”So the whole affair, I take it, is an elaborate practical joke?” Myra queried after a pause, dropping back into her seat and forcing a laugh.
”El Diablo Cojuelo, the outlaw, is merely a creature of your own imagination?”