Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 1.djvu/159

Rh on his countenance, and although, during a considerable portion of his life, he had been engaged in political affairs, the perpetual revolutions, instigated as they had been by motives of mere personal aggrandizement, so disgusted him with the outer world, that he withdrew from it altogether, and passed his time in a seclusion from which only matters of the strictest etiquette could ever induce him to emerge.

Little by little his fortune, once so immense, was dwindling away; he could with difficulty obtain credit for advances of capital, so that not only had his estates fallen into a condition of great neglect, but he had been obliged to mortgage them very heavily. The prospect of ultimate ruin stared him in the face, but in spite of the hopeless aspect of his affairs he never flinched for a moment. The heedlessness, characteristic of the Spanish race, together with the weariness induced by his objectless life, combined to make him utterly indifferent to the future. He had no domestic ties to bind him to the world; a beloved wife and charming little daughter, the sole objects of his affection, had been snatched from him by a melancholy fate; and he was contented passively to take his chance and await the chapter of events.

But cold and deadened as he had deemed his heart to be, his contact with Martin Paz had done something to awaken him from his habitual lethargy. The fiery temperament of the Indian did something towards rekindling the smouldering ashes of the Spaniard's sensitiveness. The marquis was worn out by his association with his fellow-countrymen, in whom he had no confidence; he was disgusted with the insolent half-breeds who were ever encroaching upon the prerogatives of his own order; and so he seemed to turn for relief to that primitive race which had fought so valiantly to defend its soil against the soldiers of Pizarro.

According to the information which the marquis received, it was currently reported that the Indian was dead. Worse than death, however, it appeared to Don Vegal that Martin Paz should ally himself in matrimony to a Jewess, and accordingly he resolved to rescue him doubly by allowing the daughter of Samuel to be married without interference to André Certa. He could not do otherwise than observe the depression which weighed upon Martin, and he hoped to divert him from his melancholy by avoiding the topic