The cook brought in the coffee-pot and put it on the table.
"Does life mean as little to you as that?" Lucia asked another question. This man was an enigma. He was bad through and through. They were as helpless as cattle in his hands.
"Life?" Lopez smiled. "To be 'ere—zat is life. Not to be 'ere—" he gulped down some steaming coffee—"zat is death. Life is a leetle thing—unless it is one's own." He put the big cup down and put in four spoonfuls of sugar, stirred it diligently, and looked around him, the wonder of a child in his face.
"You do kill your prisoners, then?" Lucia brought out.
"Sure!" laughed Pancho.
Could she have heard aright? "You do?" she cried, and her cheeks took on an ashen hue.
"Ciertamente!" the bandit stated, as though they were talking of the weather. "You capture ze preesoner. You 'ave no jail to put 'im in. You pack him around wiz you. If you let 'im go, 'e come back to fight you again. So you kill him. Eet is very simple."
"But it seems so cold-blooded!" Lucia said.
"Ah! to you, perhaps! It is ze difference between zose who live in safety and zose who live in danger. In safety you 'ave ze bill to pay. You pay it and you forget it. In danger you 'ave enemy to kill. You kill 'im an' you forget 'im. Save?" And another heaping knifeful of the chile con carne went into his mouth.