“Mercy! Look, son and daughter, this man asks for mercy who for many a year has given none. Well, Juan de Montalvo, take your prayer to God and to the people. I have done with you.”
“Mercy, mercy!” he cried again.
“Eight months ago,” she said, “I uttered that prayer to you, begging of you in the Name of Christ to spare the life of an innocent man, and what was your answer, Juan de Montalvo?”
“Once you were my wife,” he pleaded; “being a woman, does not that weigh with you?”
“Once he was my husband, being a man did that weigh with you? The last word is said. Take him, Martin, to those who deal with murderers.”
Then that look came upon Montalvo which twice or thrice before Lysbeth has seen written in his face—once when the race was run and lost, and once when in after years she had petitioned for the life of her husband. Lo! it was no longer the face of a man, but such a countenance as might have been worn by a devil or a beast. The eyeball started, the grey moustache curled upwards, the cheek-bones grew high and sharp.
“Night after night,” he gasped, “you lay at my side, and I might have killed you, as I have killed that brat of yours—and I spared you, I spared you.”
“God spared me, Juan de Montalvo, that He might bring us to this hour; let Him spare you also if He will. I do not judge. He judges and the people,” and Lysbeth rose from her chair.
“Stay!” he cried, gnashing his teeth.
“No, I stay not, I go to receive the last breath of him you have murdered, my son and yours.”