Page:The Road to Monterey (1925).pdf/39

 you can learn the idioma española, the speech of the country. After that"

Don Abrahan finished it with a flourish of the hand, a lifting of the brows. After that, it was to say, as Dios might fashion, or a man's own merit might place him. The sailor brightened with the offer; it seemed a hand stretched out again in the moment of his need.

"I'll be glad to go; thank you for the opportunity, sir."

The sailor stopped, as if to give weight to his expression of gratitude with all the physical as well as mental force of his glowing young body. His face was bright with his engaging smile. Don Abrahan halted beside him.

"There would be no liberty for you in any other place," Don Abrahan said. "The captain of your ship has offered a reward of fifty dollars for your return to him, here or at San Diego, where he intends to stop next. That would be a great temptation to the alcalde of the pueblo; it would be riches to many an Indian. It represents the price of ten beeves, almost riches to any man in these penurious days."

"It's lucky for me that I fell in with you, sir, before I got to town. I didn't suppose Welliver would consider any man on earth worth fifty dollars to him. It is the anticipation of the cruelties he'd subject me to, cruelties beyond your humane understanding, that leads to an offer like that."

"Captain Welliver is a hard-souled man, and a