"Ah! you are Don Tomas Verduzco—" I could not finish. A sort of faintness came over me, and, without accounting to myself for what I was about to do, I cocked one of my pistols. At the click of the lock the stranger's face became livid, for Mexicans of the lower classes, who will not wince at the glitter of a knife-blade, tremble at the sight of a fire-arm in a European hand. He never stirred, however. Fuentes threw himself between us.
"Gently, señor! gently, Cascaras! how you take the customs of the country!"
"The deuce take that Planillas," said the stranger, with a forced laugh; "he is always playing off some joke or other. But the idea of passing me off as Don Tomas is too absurd. Has your lordship any interest, then, in this Don Tomas?"
My passion appeared to me ridiculous, and passed away as by enchantment.
"I do not even know him," I replied, somewhat confusedly, but with all my former coolness. "I can not tell how he has got mixed up in my affairs; but I think I owe it to my safety to show no mercy to such assassins when chance throws them in my way."
The stranger muttered some unintelligible words. I thought the opportunity a good one to get rid of my new friend Desiderio, whose companionship was becoming somewhat burdensome to me, so I saluted the group and rode off; but I had not counted on the idleness of Fuentes, for, before I had gone a hundred yards, he had overtaken me.
"I was perhaps wrong," he said, "to interfere in this affair, and to prevent you from lodging a bullet in the head of that ill-looking knave; for, judging from the revengeful look he cast at you, I presume the first stroke of a knife you will receive will be from his hand."
"Do you think so?" I replied, rather startled at this unpleasant prediction.
"I yielded, in truth, too readily to my first impulse," continued Fuentes, who seemed in a reverie. "What if we went back?" he said. "You might then resume the affair at the point at which you left it, and, in case of need, I would help you."
It was quite clear that Fuentes regretted having let slip this nice opportunity for a quarrel. I dryly refused his offer, and thought to myself that, decidedly, his second impulse was worse than his first.