"Caballeros," he said in that honeyed voice peculiar to the Mexicans, "permit me to address a few words to you."
At this request the tumult was on the point of recommencing: still the count succeeded in producing a stormy silence, if we may be allowed to employ the phrase.
"General, you can speak," he said to him.
"Gentlemen," Don Sebastian went on, "I have only a few words to add. The Count de Prébois Crancé has read you the conditions the Mexican Government imposes, but he was unable to read to you the consequences of a refusal to obey those conditions."
"That is true, sir. Be good enough, therefore, to make them known to us."
"It is a terrible duty for me to fulfil; still I must do so for your benefit, caballeros."
"Come to the point!" the adventurers shouted.
The general unfolded a paper, and after a moment of hesitation he read as follows, with a voice which, spite of all his efforts, slightly trembled:—
"Count Don Louis de Prébois Crancé, and all the men who remain faithful to him, will be regarded as pirates; placed without the pale of the law, and arrested as such; tried by a military commission, and shot within twenty-four hours."
"Is that all, sir?" the count asked coldly.