Don Pedro gazed at him with pitiful regret. "Unhappy man!" he sighed; "How have you fallen so low?"
"You are wrong, brother," replied the Tigercat, with a sneer; "on the contrary, I have risen to be the sachem of an Indian tribe. Long, long have I waited for my revenge! Twenty years I have watched; but today I have it—today it is complete!"
"Your revenge, miserable man!" answered Don Pedro indignantly; "What revenge would you against me?—you, who attempted to seduce my wife; you, who sought to slay me; and who, lastly, to crown your infamy, have borne away my daughter!"
"You forget to name your son, whom I also carried away,—your sin, Don Fernando Carril, in whom I have contrived to excite a passion for his sister, and who has been these two days alone with her at the Voladero de las Ánimas. Aha! Don Guzman, what say you to that revenge?"
"Woe, woe!" exclaimed Don Pedro, wringing his hands in his despair.
"Brother and sister in love with each other; licensed by you, Don Guzman, and married by me! Aha!" and he burst into a horrid laugh, that sounded like the howl of the hyena.
"It is too horrible," cried Don Pedro, in the depths of despair. "It is a lie, wretch! Bandit as you are, you dare not meditate a crime so terrible! You are but a boasting miscreant! Your tale cannot be true; to believe it, would be to doubt the justice of Heaven!"
"You do not believe my words, brother?" replied the Tigercat in a sarcastic tone. "As you please. Here come your children; I hear them entering the camp; ask them."
Don Pedro, half-mad with grief, was rushing out of the jacal when Stoneheart, Doña Hermosa, and Don Estevan appeared at the entrance: the unhappy father was stopped by the shock.
"Look!" said the Tigercat, with his usual sneer; "Look how he receives his children! Is that his love?"