"How much," he said, "did you ask your noble friends for the letter which señor don Benito Juárez ordered you to deliver to them?"
Don Felipe fixed on him a look of terror, and mechanically made the sign of the cross.
"This man is the fiend," he muttered with horror.
"No; re-assure yourself I am not the fiend, but I know a good many things about you more especially, and the numerous businesses you carry on. I know the bargain you made with a certain don Diego: moreover, if you desire it, I will repeat to you word for word the conversation which you held scarce an hour ago in this very room with the señores don Melchior de la Cruz and Don Antonio de Cacerbar. Now, let us come to facts: I wish you to give me—you understand me, I suppose?—Give me, and not sell me, the letter of señor Juárez which you have in your dolman, which you refused to the honourable caballeros whose names I mentioned to you, and surrender to me at the same time the other papers of which you are the bearer, and which I presume must be very interesting."
The guerillero had had time to recover a portion of his coolness, hence it was in rather a firm voice that he said—
"What do you intend doing with these papers?"
"That can be of very little importance to you when they are no longer in your hands."
"And if I refuse to surrender them?"
"I shall be obliged to take them by force, that is all," he answered calmly.
"Caballero," don Felipe said with an accent of dignity at which the adventurer was surprised, "it is not worthy of a brave man like yourself thus to menace a defenseless man. My only weapon is my sabre, while you, on the contrary, hold the lives of a dozen men at your disposal."