Braxton Wyatt remained on the piazza. It was wonderfully cool and pleasant
there, after the heat of the day. The wind blew musically among the orange
trees, and the air was spiced with pleasant odors. Braxton Wyatt's
thoughts were pleasant, too. He liked this luxurious southern life. Though
born to the forest, and a good woodsman, he had sybaritic tastes, which
needed only opportunity to bud and bloom.
Now, like the Arab who had the glass for sale, he was building his great
future. Alvarez would be Governor General of Louisiana, and he, Braxton
Wyatt, would be his trusted and necessary lieutenant. The five whom he
hated would be removed under the new rule from the military prison to
dungeons, where they would gradually be lost to the sight of man, never to
be heard of again. The Indians and the Spaniards with their cannon would
destroy the settlements in Kentucky, and he would become, if not the
first, at least the second man in His Most Catholic Majesty's huge
province of Louisiana. And it was not absolutely necessary to be
Spanish-born to become in time a Governor General himself.
Time passed. It was very quiet within the belt of magnolias and cypresses
and orange trees and but little noise came from the town, the stray shout
of a reveler, a snatch of a song, and then nothing more.
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