"Do you think," said he, "that I thought my brother would be killed?"
"So far as I can see," said Klein, "it is all the same to you."
"There you prove yourself a fool," answered the other hotly. "You think I do not love him because I do not weep like a woman and gnash my teeth. Understand this—the heart of a Spaniard is like a deep pool, the surface of which is still. We feel; we love. Also, I warn you again, we can hate."
The spy dared not face the man's blazing eyes.
"I warn you," Fernando went on, his voice rising as passion swayed him, "if you hold me up to ridicule, you die. I am ready enough to admit that my judgment was at fault—that I forgot that, without my brother, we were unable to leave the cave—but to be put to scorn by such as you is more than I will endure!"
Peter Klein fell back before the fiery onslaught of the man's words as though he had been struck. The half-caste stood upright, every muscle taut, his eyes ablaze, his clenched teeth showing in the blackness of his long moustache. Then he hurled his knife upon the floor.
"Why do I waste words upon such as you?" he cried, as if in anguish. "You are not worthy of my anger!"
"I cannot yet understand," said Harry. "If the sheikh is so formidable an adversary, why did you send your brother into the night dressed in Klein's clothes?"
"I spoke high words of the prowess of the Black Dog," said Fernando, "but all the time I believed in my brother. Cortes was a fine shot, second only to the sheikh himself. Moreover, he was agile, one of the finest stalkers who ever lived. I knew, when I was sitting by the fire, that we would soon hear a shot. You thought that I was sleeping, but I was praying to the Holy Virgin that the first shot would be fired by my brother, and that the Black Dog would lie in his own blood, his life ended, the Book of Fate closed upon his evil deeds. When I heard the double report, my heart sank within me. I knew that my brother had been outwitted—that the victory lay with the sheikh."
"And in the meantime," said Harry, "we are buried alive!"