"Repeat it!" Don Miguel said, with perfect coldness.
"I would remark that these questions, perfectly unnecessary for you, are beginning to grow tiresome."
"I ask you what motive brought you into the desert?"
"The failure of several of my correspondents compelled me to take a journey, in the hope of saving some fragments of my endangered fortune. I am in the desert, because there is no other road to the town I wish to reach."
"Where are you going?"
"To Monterey. You see the docility with which I answer all your questions," he said, with the impertinent tone he had assumed ever since he was led before his judges.
"Yes," Don Miguel replied, slowly, and laying a stress on each word, "you display great docility. I wish, for your own sake, you were equally truthful."
"What do you mean by that remark?" Don Stefano asked, haughtily.
"I mean that you have answered each of my questions with a falsehood," Don Miguel said, coolly and drily.
Don Stefano frowned, and his tawny eye emitted a flash. "Caballero!" he said, violently, "such an insult—"