Red Lotus Read Online Free

she had half resented it, but now she knew that it was only because he himself would not have considered time or distance any obstacle to such a meeting. The essence of the man was to live for the moment, but perhaps that had its attractive side, too.
    "I'm rather worried about my uncle having to wait all this time at the airport," she confessed as they walked with the other travellers across the hot landing-strip to where their plane waited. "He hasn't been very well lately, and the sun is very hot."
    "I don't think you need worry," Don Rafael said, the frown reappearing on his brow. "Your uncle will have found something to do in the meantime. He will already know that the plane is late."
    She accepted his assurance as he found her a seat and put his brief-case down on the one adjoining.
    "If you will excuse me," he said, "I will see how long we are going to be before we get away."
    Settled in her seat, Felicity looked out through the porthole at the little ripples of sunlight dancing along the wings and her heart lifted, as if at an omen of happiness. This was a lovely land! If it were only for the sunshine itself, it had been well worth coming. She felt it on her skin like a caress, and thought that nothing she could find at San Lozaro could posibly dim it.
    After all, it would be like coming home in a good many ways. Robert Hallam was her mother's brother and the cousins she had yet to meet were her own flesh and blood.
    When the plane climbed into the cloudless blue above the airport a small stirring of excitement was already rising in her heart. This was journey's end. This was the answer to all her hopes and doubts and fears of the past few months, and this, too, was the future.
    Her eyes strained ahead for the first glimpse of the island that would be her home, and it was Rafael de Barrios who pointed it out to her.
    "However you may come to the islands, it is always El Teide that dominates," he said, pointing downwards to where a great conical peak rose skywards out of a circle of attendant cloud. Its crest was wreathed in snow, flushed
     
    pinkly in the rays of the westering sun, and about it there was a remoteness which struck chill into Felicity's heart. "It is there from the sea and from the air, always the one thing, above all others, that first strikes the eye."
    Felicity was still looking at The Peak. The great mountain seemed completely separated from all contact with the land beneath, isolated beyond its barrier of cloud, aloof and cold even under the flush of sun on its lofty crest. She could see it, even then, as the spirit of the island, the presence which man looked at and feared.
    "It's volcanic, of course," she said.
    "Its origin was volcanic," Don Rafael agreed, "but there hasn't been a major eruption for many years. Here and there, apart from the great cone itself, there have been minor rumblings, but nothing serious has come of them. No," he smiled, "El Teide is a benign and quiet giant now, and none of his subordinates are worth mentioning."
    Felicity continued to stare at The Peak, fascinated. Its absolute majesty held her speechless, and even when they dropped beneath the level of the clouds which wreathed it, she could still see that remote summit glittering in the sun.
    The plane skimmed in over La Laguna and touched down on the airstrip before she spoke again.
    "How far is San Lozaro from The Peak, Don Rafael?" she asked.
    "Not very far." He looked at her oddly. "But then, El Teide dominates the entire island, as I have said. You must learn to live with him, to accept him in many moods, or he will have his own revenge!"
    She smiled involuntarily.
    "I don't think he can frighten me away," she said. "Already I am fascinated by your remote giant of a mountain, Don Rafael. Already, I suppose, I am his slave!"
    "So!" he murmured. "He will be kind to you. And now," he added more prosaically, "we must look out for your uncle."
    He helped her down the steps and Felicity stood on the tarmac blinking in