"Well, what then?" don Felipe said, cynically. "I rob, you betray, we are well matched, that is all."
At this insult, so brutally hurled in their teeth, the two men rose.
"Let us go," said don Melchior, "this man is a brute, who will listen to nothing."
"The most simple plan is to go to the General-in-Chief," don Antonio added, "he will do us justice, and avenge us on this wretched drunkard."
"Go! Go, my dear sirs," the guerillero said, with a grin, "and luck go with you! I keep the letter—perhaps I shall find a purchaser. I am an honest man."
At this menace the two men exchanged a glance, while laying their hands on their weapons, but after a hesitation, no longer than a lightning flash, they disdainfully left the room. A few minutes after the rapid gallop of several horses could be heard outside.
"They are gone," the guerillero muttered, as he poured out a tumbler of mezcal, which he swallowed at a draught: "they are decamping, on my word, as if the fiend were carrying them off! They are furious. Stuff! I don't care, I have kept the letter."
While speaking thus to himself, the guerillero replaced his tumbler on the table. Suddenly he started; a man wrapped up to the eyes in the folds of a thick cloak was standing in front of him. This man held in either hand a revolver, the barrels of which were pointed at the guerillero's chest. The latter gave a sudden start of terror at this sight, which he was far from expecting.
"Hilloah!" he exclaimed, in a voice which trembled from emotion and terror, "Who is this demon, and what does he want? Why, hang it! I have fallen into a wasp's nest."
Terror had sobered him; he tried to rise and fly.