"¿Quién sabe?" Blas Vasquez answered, employing that phrase which in Spanish is so meaning, and which it is difficult to translate into our tongue.
"Bah, bah!" the count said. "Trust in me, Don Blas, to unmask this scamp, if he be a spy, as I do not suppose."
The capataz contented himself with an almost imperceptible shrug of his shoulders. The count was one of those men whose lofty and arrogant mind rendered any discussion impossible. The Europeans, and, before all, the French in America, display towards the natives—white, half-breed, or redskins—a contempt which breaks out in their language and actions, persuaded they stand intellectually far above the inhabitants of the country in which they happen to be, they display towards them an insulting pity, and amuse themselves with continually turning them into ridicule, by mocking either their habits or their belief, and in their hearts grant them an amount of instinct not greatly superior to that of the brute.
This opinion is not only unjust, but it is also entirely false. The American Hispanos, it is true, are very far behindhand as regards civilisation, trade, mechanical arts, &c.: progress with them is slow, because perpetually impeded by the superstitions that form the basis of their faith; but we ought not to make these people responsible for a state of things from which they are eager to emerge, and for which the Spaniards are alone culpable, owing to the system of brutalising oppression and crushing abjectness in which they kept them. The grinding tyranny which for several centuries weighed Indians down, by rendering them the utter slaves of haughty and implacable masters, has given them the characteristics of slaves—cunning and cowardice.
With a few honourable exceptions, the mass of the Indian population especially—for the whites have advanced with giant steps in the path of progress during the past few years—is scampish, cunning, cowardly, and depraved. Thus it ever happens that when a European and a half-breed come into collision, the white man, instead of the intelligence he boasts, is duped by the Indian. It is so well recognised as an article of faith in Spanish America, that the half-breeds and Indians are poor irrational creatures, gifted at the most with enough intelligence to live from hand to mouth that the whites proudly call themselves gente de razón.
We are bound to add that, after a few years' residence in America, the opinions of the Europeans with regard to the half-breeds are greatly modified, because a little acquaintance with the country enables them to take a more healthy view of the people with whom they are mixed up. But the Count de Lhorailles had not reached that stage: he only saw in the Indian or half-breed a being all but lacking reason, and dealt with him on that erroneous principle. This belief was destined, at a later date, to bear most terrible consequences.
The count had noticed the shrug of the shoulders the capataz gave, and was about to reply to him, when the corporal reappeared, followed by the stranger, on whom all eyes were at once fixed. The stranger bore without flinching the cross fire of glances, and, while remaining completely wrapped up in the folds of his large cloak, saluted the company with unparalleled ease. The appearance of this man in the banqueting hall infected the guests with a feeling of uneasiness they would have been unable to explain, but which suddenly rendered them dumb.