“Now then, you with your dirty little affairs, why do you come to me?”
Murguía leaned forward over the table between them, his bony arms among candles and a litter of earthen plates. The odor of meat assailed his nostrils. But the hunger in his leer had no scent for food.
“This is the time I meant, señor, when Rodrigo told you that you would see me.”
“About the ivory cross? But I gave you that a month ago.”
“A month ago–a month, wasted! How much sooner I would have come, only another had to be–persuaded–first.”
“Oh, had he? Then it’s not about the cross? And this other? Suppose I guess? He was–he was the red-haired puppy, my old friend the Dragoon, who carried you off wounded that day? Humph, the very first guess, too!”
Murguía darted at him a look of uneasy admiration.
428“I would have told Your Mercy, anyway,” he said, half cringing. “Yes, he is Colonel Lopez.”
“And you ‘persuaded’ him?”
“Events did. Since the siege began I’ve tried, I’ve worked, to convince him that these same events would happen. Ugh, the dull fool, he had to wait for them.”