"You are welcome," Don Suero said to him; "I was expecting you with impatience. What tidings do you bring?"
"Bad," answered Bellido, for he was the man.
"May the wrath of God confound the bandits!" exclaimed the count. "How is it that they can thus go on, mocking the laws, with impunity? Why cannot some means be found to exterminate them?"
"Calm your impatience, my lord, for you must not yet abandon the hope, which my anxious desire to serve you has caused you to conceive. I have proposed to them what we arranged, and they would not accept my plan; on the contrary, they almost threatened my life for having believed them capable of committing an act of treachery, for they look upon the gaining entrance into the castle without fighting as such."
Don Suero broke into loud laughter.
"Since when," he cried, "have bandits become so very honourable? Perchance they have also converted you, Bellido? So much the worse for you, however; for your honour will cost you two hundred gold pieces, which I promised you if you brought the Vengador and his band into an ambush, in which they all might perish."
"Who has told you," replied Bellido, "that I have given up the idea of earning the two hundred gold marks? Do you imagine that Bellido Dolfos, when he undertakes an enterprise, abandons it at the first check? Is it a small matter to have enlisted in the band of the bandits; to have borne hunger, cold, and fatigue; to have been at the very head of the band whilst attacking the castles of twenty other grandees—all to gain the confidence of the Vengador? After all that, do you think I would renounce the fruit of my labours because our plans have met with a slight check? You know me but badly, count."
"Pardon me, Bellido," said Don Suero, recovering the hope which he had almost completely lost "I am so unlucky that I thought there was no further expedient."
"We have still hopes."
"Tell me, then, what they are."