Pizarro's scowl deepened at the bluntness, but after a moment, in which he seemed to hesitate whether or not to resent it, he answered shortly, "The Inca hath expiated his crimes."
Cristoval was fully prepared for the reply, but it came, nevertheless, with a shock. His face paled, then flushed hotly. Unconsciously he hitched the hilt of his sword a trifle forward. The motion was not unnoted by Pizarro, who now watched him with the vigilance of a hawk. Cristoval's voice shook as he returned, with suppressed vehemence:—
"Hath expiated his crimes! Then it is true!—and thou hast put upon the arms of Spain a blot which a hundred years will not efface. Great God! Was not the atrocity of the plaza enough to glut thee? I tell thee, Pizarro, thou hast done foul murder!—Hath expiated his crimes, sayst thou!—Hath received the penalty of trusting a thing so scant and beggarly as thine honor, which, by Saint Michael, did underfit thee, thou perjured and lying miscreant, when thou wast a swineherd!"
Pizarro had risen. He was silent, but the deathly pallor of his countenance and the sudden cat-like contraction of the pupils of his eyes, burning with animosity in the shadow of his scowl, spoke his rage more plainly than an outburst. And they were more dangerously significant. A scar across his forehead, which Cristoval had never noted before, now showed itself in a thin line and blue, the color of his lips. The sparse black beard seemed more than ever straggling against the sickly yellow-white of his cheeks, and the muscles about his mouth twitched in a ferocious semblance of a grin, as if to bare his teeth. But he spoke no word. He grasped for his sword. It was not at his side, and with a curse he leaped toward his chamber where it lay. Dominguez sprang to his feet with sword half drawn. Pizarro shouted to him in a voice of fury:—
"Call the guard! Kill him, Dominguez! Kill him!"
Dominguez dashed to the door and threw it open, calling: "Ho, the guard! The guard!" and turned upon Cristoval with his sword. The latter sprang forward to meet him, and engaged his blade before he had made a step. There was a second's sharp play, and Dominguez went down with a groan, senseless from a cut which laid open his head. The sentinel rushed in, and stood for an instant transfixed.
"Kill him! Kill him, dolt! Why standest thou?" bellowed Pizarro, charging from his door sword in hand. The soldier stepped back and swung his halberd. The weapon swished viciously, narrowly avoided by a sidestep, and before he could recover for another stroke Cristoval closed upon him and ran him through. Then, throwing his weight against the heavy door, he closed it with a bang and shot the bolt. Pizarro was upon him, and he sprang back barely in time to avoid a lunge. So impetuous was the commander's onslaught that Cristoval was forced several paces to the rear, put to his best to ward the rapid cuts and thrusts which followed. Pizarro, unaware of the mail beneath his adversary's doublet, and emboldened by the security in his own armor, threw caution to the winds. He crowded with dire impatience to avenge the recent insult. He attacked like a demon, pressing forward in so fierce and disorderly assault that Cristoval's defence was for a time disorganized and wild. He strove desperately to gather himself, and to feel and hold Pizarro's blade with his own, or to check his impetuosity by riposte; but for the last there was no time, and the savage lunges came in so swift succession that he avoided them only by giving ground, until he was driven back almost to the wall. At last Pizarro, feinting a cut at his head, reached him with the point full in the breast, so heavily that the blade, catching in the links of the mail, bent nearly double, and Cristoval was hurled by the impact bodily against the wall. At the unlooked-for resistance encountered by his sword and its revelation of the unsuspected armor, the commander uttered a grunt of surprise, suddenly aware of the rashness of his attack. He paused for the briefest instant. It was Cristoval's opportunity, and in a second he had assumed the offensive with a vigor that caused a sudden deepening of the lines around his opponent's mouth.
Pizarro was a good swordsman, but of a school which, in Europe, was already passing. His guard was high, with point depressed, most suitable for his favorite attack, the cut. Now Cristoval, abruptly becoming the aggressor, brought into play a later skill acquired from the French. He assaulted on a lower line, with arm partly extended, hand at the height of his breast, and point on a level with the eyes. Instantly the advantage became his own, and he pressed his attack with such fierceness that Pizarro found no opportunity to regain the offensive. Compelled to lower his guard to engage Cristoval's blade, he was hampered by the unwonted position. The weight of his rapier counted against him, and he was unprepared for the lightning movements of Cristoval's more slender and swifter sword, which played before his eyes like a thin lambent tongue of pale flame.
Cristoval in his mail, and Pizarro defended by his corselet, the only vulnerable points offered were their throats and heads. Here, again, the commander was at a disadvantage. With that keen, swift point menacing and perilously near, he dared not disengage for a cut. Repeatedly he essayed a thrust, but each time a riposte came like a flash, barely guarded. Cristoval directed his attack wholly at his adversary's throat, and time after time Pizarro escaped a fatal thrust only by a hair's breadth. But at length he felt a quick sensation of burning as he was grazed, then presently another. Goaded to desperation, he cut heavily at Cristoval's head. Vainly, and again the burning sting, this time deeper, and he felt the hot blood trickling slowly to his breast. Savagely exultant, Cristoval pressed him more closely, eager to end it before his own strength gave out, for now he began to feel the effect of the long night in the saddle.
So intent was he that he failed to note the sounds of an effort to open the door, but they did not escape Pizarro. Cristoval redoubled the energy of his assaults, not free from concern regarding Dominguez, who was but slightly wounded and now showed signs of returning animation.