"I do not say that."
"You think it, which comes to the same thing. But it is of no matter to me: I dispense you from gratitude; you may even hate me, and I should not care. I do not love you for yourself, but for myself. But suppose we talk of something else, if you are agreeable?"
"I wish nothing better, for I see that I should lose as much time in trying to draw a good reason from you as in washing a blackamoor white."
"Ta, ta, ta! You are an ass, I repeat. But let me alone; if a certain thing I am now scheming succeed, we shall soon bury El Buitre to bring John Stanley to life again."
The salteador quivered.
"May Heaven hear you!" he exclaimed involuntarily.
"You had better appeal to the other place if you wish to succeed," the bandit said with a grin; "but you trust to me. Soon, I hope, we shall so completely change our skins that fellows will be very clever who recognise us. Look ye, John: in, this world all that is needful is to take the ball on the bound and turn with the wind."
"I confess, my good fellow, that I do not understand a syllable of what you are saying to me."
"Eh! What do you want to understand for? You never were the worse off for leaving me to guide you. Two words are as good as a thousand. Before long we shall turn our coats, and change, not the trade we carry on so agreeably, but the name under which we do it, to assume one better sounding and more lofty. Look there!" he added, pointing sarcastically at his comrades. "What an imposing collection of honest fellows we shall restore to circulation under our auspices! Will it not be magnificent, after having so long plundered individuals, to become suddenly the defenders of a nation to the prejudice of the government?"
"Yes," El Buitre said thoughtfully, "I have always dreamed—"