Ducos could hardly recognize the child in those agonized tones.
The inquisitor, with an oath, half wheeled.
“Pignatelli, father of this accursed—if by her duty thou canst prevail?”
A figure—agitated, cadaverous, as sublimely dehumanized as Brutus—stepped from Cangrejo’s side and tossed one gnarled arm aloft.
“No child of mine, alguazil!” it proclaimed in a shrill, strung cry. “Let her reap as she hath sown, alguazil!”
Cangrejo leapt, and flung himself upon his knees by the girl.
“Tell Don Manoel, chiquita. God! little boy, that being a girl (ah, naughty!) is half absolved. Tell him, tell him—ah, there—now, now, now! He, thy lover, was in the cabin. I left him prostrate, scarce able to move. When the council comes to seek him, he is gone. Away, sayst thou? Ah, child, but I must know better! It could not be far. Say where—give him up—let him show himself only, chiquita, and the good alguazil will spare thee. Such a traitor, ah, Dios! And yet I have loved, too.”
He sobbed, and clawed her uncouthly. Ducos, in his eyrie, laughed to himself, and applauded softly, making little cymbals of his thumb-nails.
“But he will not move her,” he thought—and, on the thought, started; for from his high perch his eye had suddenly caught, he was sure of it, the sleeking of a French bayonet in the road below.
“Master!” cried Anita, in a heart-breaking voice; “he is gone—they cannot take him. O, don’t let them hurt me!”