"Oh, ill-fated family!"
"To which do you allude?—to mine or that man's? Yes;" he added, with a terrible accent, "unhappy is the family which, born to command millions of men, finds itself reduced to wander about without shelter or friend among his enemies. Is that what you are pitying, brother?"
"Forgive me, Diego. I swore to help your vengeance because it is just, so dispose of me."
"Good!"
"But why stoop so low as to wish to torture women?" Leon continued; "would the noble lion murder timid hares? Avenge yourselves on men, face to face, chest to chest, but not on women."
"Leon, the woman who loves my brother is my sister, and she shall be happy and respected, because in exchange my brother has left me at liberty to dispose of the others. Remember that a Tahi-Mari was the brother of Mikaa, and that the mistress of Don Ruíz de Soto-Mayor, was the wife of a Tahi-Mari."
"Enough, brother; I remember it."
The two men had returned to the middle of the camp, and were now walking side by side; a deep silence had followed the last words of the smuggler captain. It was hardly nine in the evening; the night was calm; thousands of stars glittered in the azure of the celestial vault, spreading over the peaks of the mountains which bordered the horizon a vaporous light; the moon shone brilliantly, and a light breeze made the leaves of the large palm trees that surrounded the camp rustle.
Suddenly a shrill whistle traversed the air: Diego startled, stretched out his head, and with his eyes fixed on the distance, listened attentively.
"It is a coral snake!" Leon exclaimed, as he looked round him with instinctive terror.