"But again I say, What is your intention? In the name of the devil, what are you?"
"What am I?—Your enemy. My intention?—To save you."
Don Guzman did not reply. A prey to the most violent emotion, his whole body trembled with agitation. The colonel shrugged his shoulders impatiently.
"Let us understand each other," said he. "You wait in vain for the guacho on whom you reckoned: he is dead."
"Dead!" cried Don Guzman, struck with astonishment.
"The man," continued Don Bernardo, "was a traitor. He had hardly entered Buenos Aires, before he attempted to make money by the sale of the secret confided to him by your brother. Chance would have it that he should apply to me, in preference to anyone else, on account of the hatred I seemed to entertain for your family."
"That you seemed to entertain!" bitterly repeated Don Guzman.
"Yes, that I seemed to entertain," Don Bernardo went on, laying great stress upon the words. "In short, this man revealed everything. I paid him well, and let him go."
"What an imprudence!" exclaimed Don Guzman, highly interested.
"Was it not?" said the colonel quickly. "But what could I do? For the first moment I was so thunderstruck by the news, that I did not think of detaining the fellow. I was on the point of sending in search of him, when I heard an uproar in the street. I inquired the cause; I confess I was not quite satisfied with what was told me. It appears that the fool had hardly put foot in the street before he began to quarrel with another pícaro of his own kind; that the latter, in a fit of impatience, had given him a navaja" (a cut with the knife) "across his belly, and, luckily for you, killed him outright. It is miraculous, is it not?"