"I salute my father!" he said, in a loud and fierce voice. "I have come, as was agreed on yesterday, to fetch the answer he owes me."
The general hesitated for an instant.
"I am waiting!" the Indian went on, with a frown that augured ill.
The general, forced almost into his last entrenchments, saw that the hour for surrender had at length arrived, and that no way of escape was left him.
"Chief," he answered, in anything but a firm voice, "your behavior naturally surprises me. To my knowledge the Spaniards are not at war with your nation; the whites have not done anything of which you have a right to complain. For what reason do you come, then, against the sworn faith, and when nothing authorises you, to invade a defenceless town, and interfere in matters that only concern ourselves?"
The sachem understood that the Spaniard was trying to shift the question on to other ground; he saw the snare offered him, and was not to be caught.
"My father does not answer my request," he said. "Still, in order to have finished at once with the recriminations he brings up, I will answer his questions peremptorily, separating them one from the other. In the first place, my father knows very well that the palefaces and redskins have been in a constant state of warfare since the arrival of white men in America. This war may have slightly relaxed at intervals, but has never really ceased. Our two races are hostile; the struggle will not end between them until one of the two families, whether white or red, has given place to the other by its general extinction. Secondly, my father said that nothing has been done of which we had a right to complain. My father is mistaken, we have a cause, the imprisonment of Don Miguel Zarate, who, himself an Indian, has never belied his origin. Hence my father must no longer ask by what right I am here, for that is perfectly established; it is that which every honest man possesses of defending an innocent person who is oppressed. Now that fact is cleared up, let us pass to another. When I came here yesterday, my father gave me to understand that my propositions would be accepted, and the exchange of prisoners carried out."
"It is possible, chief," the general replied; "but things are so in this world, no one knows today what he will do tomorrow. With night reflection has come, and, in short, your propositions have appeared to me unacceptable."
"Wah!" the Indian said, though not testifying his surprise otherwise.
"Yes," the general continued, growing animated, "I should be ashamed to grant them, for I should have the appearance of only yielding to threats. No, it cannot be. The two gentlemen you claim are guilty, and shall die; and if you venture to oppose the execution of the just sentence of the court, we will defend ourselves, and God will protect the good cause."