He decided to wait until the creature made another appearance. He had no idea whether the myotragus was nocturnal or diurnal, and so he increased the frequency of his walks. One night, when his deaf-mute servant had brought him two young girls, he found himself incapable of doing anything beyond sitting on a rock pretending to observe how Nicanor dealt with them. He was, in fact, looking into the undergrowth and on three occasions—when he heard a noise—rose to search among the mastic trees. He also paid a little more attention to the girls. He felt like a lecherous old man with ridiculously extravagant tastes. That is perhaps why he ordered Nicanor to take them to the kitchen in Son Moragues and offer them the leftovers of the kid goat they had eaten for lunch, so that they would at least not feel pangs of hunger on their return journey. Neither the other staff nor his guests—an acclaimed Nicaraguan poet and a choreographer who was working on a dance extravaganza to celebrate the archduke’s honorary citizenship—were surprised to see them. It seemed that everyone on the estate had witnessed his bacchanals, and assessed the adolescents as they might a Majorcan sausage. He later learned that the slimmer of the two girls had begged a maid to help her to remain there in service:

“We’re very poor, and I won’t be able to marry now,” she’d said.

The maid talked to the housekeeper, who passed on the message to the archduke.

“Very well,” he replied. “But I don’t want her anywhere near me. Send her to S’Estaca and tell her to hold her tongue about how she came to be here.”

He feared becoming the laughingstock of the estate. How much was known about his sexual proclivities? Was his servant really to be trusted? He’d never seen Nicanor communicate with anyone else, but that was possibly one of his talents. He might very well have formed alliances with the housekeeper or the overseer. He imagined them all—helped by his servants—hidden among the trees, shrieking with surprise and glee at the antics of that old man with deformed legs.