"Now I am ready to hear you."
"¡Caray!" the bandit said, impudently; "that is possible; but the point is whether I am disposed to speak."
"And why not, pray, my excellent friend?"
"Hang it, Captain," he said, as he pointed to the pistols, "there are two playthings not at all adapted to set my tongue wagging."
Don Marcos looked at him in a way that made the adventurer involuntarily let his eyes fall, and then leant his elbows on the table.
"Master Kidd," he then said, in a stern voice, though a certain tone of sarcasm was perceptible in it, "I like a distinct understanding; let us therefore, before anything establish our relative positions. You have led a very agitated life, Master Kidd; your vagabond humour, your mad desire to appropriate certain things to which you have a very dubious claim have led you into a few mistakes, whose results might prove remarkably disagreeable to you."
The bandit shook his head in denial.
"I will not dwell," the Captain continued, mockingly, "on a subject which must make your modesty greatly suffer, and will come at once to the motives of your presence here, and the positions we must hold towards each other. I am commandant of this pueblo, and in that capacity compelled to watch over its external safety as well as its internal tranquillity, I think you will agree with me."
"Yes, Captain," the bandit answered, somewhat reassured at finding the conversation turned away from such delicate topics.
"Very good; you wrote me this letter, appointing a meeting and offering to sell—that is your own word—certain most important information, as you say, for the continuance of the safety and tranquillity which I am bound to maintain. Another man might have treated you in the Indian fashion. After having you arrested, he would have ordered a cord to be fastened round your temples; or your suspension by your thumbs—as you have done yourself, if report be true, on various occasions with less valid reasons; and have so thoroughly loosened your tongue that you would not have kept a single secret back. I have preferred dealing with you as an honest man."