“Where is Vasco Bilette?” he asked.
“I know not! I have not seen him these three days!” she exclaimed.
“So,” commented the captain, smiling. “We will see if we cannot refresh your memory. Pedro, fetch my rawhide whip!”
At this the woman howled most dismally, and threw herself on the ground, clinging to the legs of the men who held her.
“I cannot allow this,” interposed Professor Snodgrass, to whom the conversation, carried on in Spanish, was intelligible. “Even at the cost of seeing Vasco Bilette escape I will not stand by and see a woman whipped.”
“But, señor, you do not understand the case,” said the captain. “That is the only way I can get the truth out of her. I must give her a few blows to loosen her tongue. That is the only persuasion these cattle understand; blows and money.”
“Why not try the latter?” suggested the naturalist.
“Who has money to throw away on such as she?” asked the commander, with a shrug of his shoulders.
“I will pay her,” went on the professor. “See,” he went on, taking out some bank-notes. “Tell us where Vasco went and you shall have fifty dollars.”