With a gesture he removed the mask that covered his face: his companions imitated him. The reader will have recognized them already. They were don Jaime, Domingo, count Ludovic, Leo Carral, don Diego, and Loïck, the ranchero.
"Now, señor," don Jaime continued, "put off your borrowed name, as we have thrown away our masks. Do you recognize me? I am don Jaime de Bivar, your sister-in-law's brother. For twenty-two years I have been following you step by step, señor don Horacio de Tobar, watching all your movements, and seeking the vengeance which Heaven at length grants me, great and complete as I dreamed of it."
Don Horacio haughtily raised his head, and surveying don Jaime with a glance of sovereign contempt, he said to him—"Well, what next, my noble brother-in-law, for, as you desire, I give up all feigning, and consent to recognize you. What so grand and complete vengeance have you gained at the end of twenty-two years, noble descendant of the cid Campeador?—That of compelling me to kill myself—a fine profit. Is not a man of my stamp always ready to die? What more can you do? Nothing. Suppose that I writhe bleeding at your feet, I shall bear with me to the tomb the secret of this vengeance which you do not suspect, and all whose profit remains with me, for I shall leave you on my death a more profound despair than that which turned your sister's hair white in a single night."
"Undeceive yourself, don Horacio," don Jaime answered; "I know all your secrets: and, as for your killing yourself, that consideration only takes the second place in my plan of vengeance. I, too, will kill you, but by the hangman's hand. You shall die dishonoured, the death of the infamous—by the garote, in a word."
"You lie, villain!" don Horacio exclaimed, with a roar like a wild beast; "I—I—the Duke de Tobar, noble as the king! I, who belong to one of the oldest and most powerful families in Spain, die by the garote! Hatred has turned your brain—you are mad. I tell you, there is a Spanish ambassador in Mexico."
"Yes," don Jaime answered, "but that ambassador leaves you to all the rigour of the Mexican laws."
"He, my friend, my protector, who introduced me to President Miramón? It is not so, it cannot be. Besides, what have I, a foreigner, to fear from the laws of this country?"
"Yes, a foreigner who took service with the Mexican government, in order to betray it to the profit of another. That letter, which you demanded so earnestly from Colonel don Felipe, and which he refused to sell you, he gave me for nothing; and the compromising letters which were taken from you at Puebla, thanks to don Estevan, whom you do not know, but who is your cousin, are at this moment in Juárez' hands. Hence you are hopelessly lost in that quarter; for, as you are aware, clemency is not one of señor don Benito Juárez' striking virtues. Lastly, I also possess your most precious secret—that which you believed so well guarded. I know of the existence of doña Carmen's twin brother; I know also where he is, and can, if I like, suddenly bring him before you. See, here is the man to whom you sold your nephew," he added, pointing to Loïck, who was standing motionless by his side.
"Oh!" he muttered, falling back into a chair, and folding his arms in despair. "I am lost!"
"Yes, and most utterly lost, don Horacio," he said, contemptuously, "for not even death will be able to save you from dishonour."