"Have a care, old man!" said Pizarro, with a scowl. "Thy words are more dangerous than blasphemies. Imperil thy soul if it please thee; but understand that, by Heaven, I'll brook no criticism!"
There was no flinching in José as he met the threat in Pizarro's words and look, and he answered hotly, "Then let me not be put to a defence of my words to Fray Mauricio."
De Soto and other officers had entered, followed by the friar, unobserved and in time to catch José's challenge. The monk moved quickly forward and confronted the armorer. "Thou libeller! Blasphemer! Heretic! What!—hath the Church no power to punish such as thou? But we shall see! We shall see! Officers, seize that man! General Pizarro, I demand his arrest in the name of the Congregation of the Holy Office!"
No man moved. All stood for a moment aghast at the friar's invocation of the dread power of the Inquisition. Its very name carried terror, and they hated it as much as they feared its wrath. They stared in silence at Fray Mauricio, but José alone stood unmoved. He faced the friar with calm scorn, his tall, soldierly figure towering above him like a tree. Cristoval glanced at Pizarro and stepped to José's side. De Soto and others followed, and the group faced the Dominican. The commander's irritation at the armorer's criticism was smothered in resentment of the intrusion of the Inquisition in his affairs, already difficult enough, and in a quick detestation of Mauricio as its avowed agent.
"My good brother," said Pizarro, coldly, "thou hadst best reconsider thy demand."
"Oppose me at thy peril, Pizarro!" shouted the friar, whirling upon him savagely. "Dost thou know this man? Dost know that he is a Morisco—this unknown who calleth himself José? Doth any man here know his name?"
"No man here knoweth my name, friar," interrupted José, "but thou shalt have it! I am Abul Hassan Zegri—a Moor. My father was Abul Hassan Zegri—a Moor.—And now hearken!" he thundered, approaching the monk at a stride and glaring down into his eyes with an expression that chilled his blood. "Hearken! If thou seekest more of me, or breathest my name again in denunciation or accusation, to-day, to-morrow, or twenty years hence, thou diest—and I swear it! By the Almighty, if thou barest thy claws again at me, I'll not spare thee! Now go! Go!—or I'll kill thee in thy tracks!"
Mauricio hurriedly retreated. José thrust his poniard back into its sheath with a snap and faced the officers. During the outburst they had stood petrified. His bold declaration that he was a Moor—one of a people which had been proscribed and driven from Spain with every form of persecution, outrage, and cruelty that hatred of their race and greed of their wealth could inspire—staggered even Cristoval. The others had been too much astounded, and even horror-stricken by his rash defiance and arraignment of the Inquisition to interfere in behalf of the friar had they been so inclined. José looked from one to another for a moment with all the pride and fierceness of his race now aroused and burning in his defiant eyes.
"Señores," he said, "ye have heard my name. There may be one among you who liketh not the sound of it, or who would question me further. If there be such a one, I will give him answer on horse or on foot."
"Nay, nay, José!" cried Cristoval, advancing and grasping his hand. "None of us will quarrel with thy name. Thou 'rt a gallant comrade and honest gentleman. That sufficeth. If any man here would dispute it, he hath affair with me!"