“Then what did you do with it?”
“I shall never tell you,” retorted Hal, with spirit.
Now Vasquez’s passion escaped all bounds.
“Oh, you Yankees! Oh, you thieves!” he declared, violently, pacing the room like a caged hyena. “You hope to dupe us, even when you are in our power.”
Then his voice became sarcastic, as he went on:
“Senor, do you know how we Spaniards love you Yankees? Do you realize what happiness it would give us to caress you? To caress each and every one of your people—to caress them so?”
Pausing in his agitated walk, Vasquez drew a knife, making a significant gesture of cutting a throat.
“That is the way we would like to treat all you Yankees,” went on the Spaniard. “No! I mistake. That would be much too quick a punishment. We must be more ingenious in our punishment of the impudent Yankees—even as I propose to deal with you now.”
Under that fierce, malicious gaze, Hal Maynard felt himself growing “creepy.”
It did not afford him much satisfaction, even, to see Vasquez put away his knife, for the Spaniard’s word and manner left little doubt that the knife would be put aside only in favor of a more fearful method of revenge.