"If you have no objection, I will have the honour of accompanying you a little way, unless," he added, with a sarcastic smile, "you have made a vow which prevents it."
"Come," Don Stefano said, reproachfully, "you are angry with me."
"On my faith, no; I swear it."
"Very good: we will start when you please."
"I am at your orders."
They spurred their horses, and went out of the camp. They had scarce gone twenty yards, ere Don Miguel pulled up his horse and stopped.
"Are you going to leave me already?" Don Stefano asked him.
"I shall not go a step further," the young man answered, and drawing himself up fiercely and frowning, he said in a haughty tone, "Here you are no longer my guest; we are out of my camp in the desert; I can, therefore, explain myself clearly and plainly, and voto a brios, I will do so."
The Mexican regarded him with surprise. "I do not understand you," he said.
"Perhaps so: I hope it is so, but I do not believe it. So long as you were my guest, I pretended to believe the falsehoods you told me; but now that you are to me no more than the first comer, a stranger, I wish to tell you my thoughts frankly. I do not know by what name to address you to your livid face, but I am certain that you are my enemy, or, at any rate, a spy of my enemies."