"Listen," he continued. "I will now retire, but we shall meet again; and woe to you then, for I shall be as pitiless to you as you have been to me. Farewell!"
"Oh! you shall not go in that way, my master," replied the squatter, who had regained all his boldness and impudence. "Did I not tell you I would kill you?"
The young man fixed upon him a glance of undefinable expression, and crossed his arms boldly on his chest.
"Try it," he said in a voice rendered harsh by the fury boiling in his heart.
Red Cedar uttered a yell of rage, and bounded on Don Pablo. The latter calmly awaited the attack; but, so soon as the squatter was within reach he suddenly took off his mantle, and threw it over his enemy's head, who, blinded by the folds of the thick garment, rolled about on the ground, unable to free himself from the accursed cloth that held him like a net. With one bound the young man was over the table, and troubling himself no further about Red Cedar, proceeded toward the door.
At this moment Fray Ambrosio rushed upon him, trying to bury his knife in his chest. Feeling not the slightest alarm, Don Pablo seized his assailant's wrist, and with a strength he was far from anticipating, twisted his arm so violently that his fingers opened, and he let the knife fall with a yell of pain. Don Pablo picked it up, and seized the monk by the throat.
"Listen, villain!" he said to him. "I am master of your life. You betrayed my father, who took pity on you, and received you into his house. You dishonour the gown you wear by your connection with criminals, whose ill deeds you share in. I could kill you, and perhaps ought to do so; but it would be robbing the executioner to whom you belong, and cheating the garrote which awaits you. This gown, of which you are unworthy, saves your life; but I will mark you so that you shall never forget me."
And placing the point of the knife on the monk's livid face, he made two gashes in the shape of a cross along the whole length and breadth of his face.
"We shall meet again!" he added in a thundering voice, as he threw the knife away in disgust.
Andrés Garote had not dared to make a move: terror nailed him motionless to the ground beneath the implacable eye of the Indian warrior. Don Pablo and Curumilla then rushed from the room and disappeared, and ere long the hoofs of two horses departing at full speed from the town could be heard clattering over the pavement.