Free The Seven Serpents Trilogy by Scott O’Dell

success. With out him? Even then it could succeed.
    Barrios had been holding the lantern. He now set it in gimbals above the table. “It’s a hot night,” he said.
    I felt like a martyr of some sort, sitting there with my hands bound. I asked him to untie me.
    â€œI don’t have that authority. Not now,” he said.
    â€œWhat do you mean by ‘not now’?”
    He seemed surprised at my question. “Nothing. Nothing.”
    We were silent for a while; then Barrios said, “Things happened in Hispaniola when we were there last week. You might want to know, being that you’ve had deal ings with the Indians and like them. It was this way.
    â€œDon Luis came back one afternoon—that was the afternoon of the day we got to Hispaniola—he came back to the caravel after talking to the governor. He was in a bad mood, angry because the governor had turned down his request for Isla del Oro. The man who served his meals he kicked around and he gave the crew a number of daft orders. Then at suppertime, when wine was brought, he got himself in a better mood.
    â€œRoa reminded him that he had dug out a lot of gold, gold worth a hundred thousand pesos, at least. ‘Besides,’ Roa said, ‘you can round up the Indians and take them along to your new
encomienda.
They’re worth more than gold.’ ”
    This news astounded me. “It’s against the contract of the Indies to handle Indians this way.”
    â€œThat’s what Don Luis said as soon as Roa suggested the idea. Furthermore, breaching of the contract is pun ishable by death,” Barrios explained. “Don Luis knew this. He said that he valued his head since it was the only head he had. But Roa explained how easy it was to evade the law and thereby keep your head.”
    Barrios went again to the window and came back to report whitecaps on the bay and a rising wind.
    A glimmer of suspicion entered my mind. Impa tiently, I waited for him to continue.
    â€œYou evade the law by causing the Indians to revolt,” he continued. “You do this by working them too hard, or not paying them the few centavos required by law, or just lopping off a few heads. If Indians do revolt and flee into the jungle, according to the law, you can go af ter them and bring them back. Henceforth and for the rest of their lives, they are slaves and belong to you, to use or to sell as you wish. It’s a common practice. The Indies could not prosper without it. But if it continues, all the Indians will be dead or enslaved.”
    I got to my feet. We looked at each other across the table. His eyes shining in the glare of the swaying lan tern, Barrios studied my face.
    â€œWhere is Don Luis now?” he said in an angry tone, and chose to answer his own question. “Chasing In dians, that’s where he is. Why is he chasing Indians? Because the Indians revolted and fled into the jungle, and he needs them to work the mine, the mine that isn’t his. And why did the Indians flee? Because Guzmán worked them until they were sick and then set the big dog on their leader and mangled him to death.”
    I kept the horror to myself. “I believe you,” I said, scarcely able to form the words.
    â€œI speak the truth.”
    â€œThen what I saw at that moment when the dog was loosed was not just murder caused by anger. It was worse, far worse. It was murder planned and thought about. It was murder born of greed, done coldly and deliberately.”
    Barrios nodded.
    He went to the window for a third time and peered out, shading his eyes against the glare of the lantern. “Surf ’s running high. We won’t be able to use the
lancha
tomorrow. But I’ll load the gold if I have to swim and carry it piece by piece.”
    Barrios didn’t ask me to join the conspiracy that was plainly afoot, but as he left the cabin he unbound my hands, saying that before long I might need them.
    Â 
CHAPTER 14
    A