"I presumed so, because on board the vessel in which I returned to Hispaniola, I heard something about an interview which the chief of the adventurers was to have in a few days in the neighbourhood of the Artibonite."
"Oh!" the Count exclaimed; "You lie, scoundrel!"
"For what object, my lord?" the spy answered, coolly.
"How do I know? through hatred, envy, perhaps."
"I," he said, with a shrug of his shoulders. "Nonsense, my lord. Men like me—spies, if things must be called by their proper name—are only led away by one passion—that of money."
"But what you tell me is impossible," the Count observed, with agitation.
"What prevents you from assuring yourself that I speak the truth, my lord?"
"I will do so, ¡Viva Dios!" he exclaimed, stamping his foot furiously.
Then he walked up to the spy, who was standing calm and motionless in the centre of the room, and fixed on him a glance full of rage, but impossible to describe.
"Listen, villain!" he said in a hollow voice, half choked with passion; "If you have lied, you shall die!"