“Of course I refused,” voiced Hal. “I should have been false to my trust if I had paid over my employer’s money without authority from him.”
“And that is why I call you dishonest,” cried Vasquez. “You have conspired, you two, to defraud me of my money.”
“You didn’t conspire to have me sent to Morro Castle, did you?” sneered Maynard.
“Now,” resume the Spaniard, ignoring all the inconvenient points in Hal’s reply, “I have stated fully my grievance against you. Do not think, you Yankee pig, that you can hope to dupe me any longer. You are now dealing with a Spaniard of honor!”
Vasquez drew himself erect and puffed his chest out as if he believed his vainglorious boast.
Halting suddenly before the boy, he glared at Hal with burning eyes, and demanded, with a pause after each word:
“Where—is—that—money?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yet you had it.”
“Certainly?”