“Did I not tell you a few minutes ago that you are impressed?” I answered. “You have been brought aboard here in order that you may render me a service, which I am convinced you can render if you will. When that service has been faithfully performed, I will not only set you free again but I will also handsomely reward you. You know what the service is that I require of you. Once more, will you or will you not render it?”
“I repeat that I have nothing to say. Put me in irons again if you choose; you cannot make a man tell that which he does not know,” answered Garcia; and as he spoke he turned away, seeming to consider that the dialogue was at an end.
“Here, not so fast, my joker,” interrupted the seaman who had the fellow in charge, seizing Garcia unceremoniously by the back of the neck and twisting him round until he faced me again, “it ain’t good manners, sonny, to turn your back upon your superiors until they tells you that they’ve done with you, and that you can go.”
The half-breed turned upon his custodian with a snarl, and a drawing back of his upper lip that exposed a whole row of yellow fangs, while his hand went, as from long habit, to his girdle, as though in quest of a knife; but the look of contemptuous amusement with which the sailor regarded him cowed the fellow, and he again faced me, meekly enough.
“Now,” said I, “your little fit of petulance being over, let me ask you once more, and for the last time, will you or will you not afford me the information I require?”
“No, Señor Englishman, I will not! I am a Spaniard and Morillo is a Spaniard, and nothing you can do shall induce me to betray a fellow-countryman! Is that plain enough for you?”
“Quite,” I answered, “and almost as satisfactory as though you had replied to my question. You have as good as admitted that you can, if you choose, tell me what I want to know; now it remains for me to see whether there are any means of compelling you to speak. Take him away for’ard, and keep a sharp eye upon him,” I continued, to the sailor who had him in charge. “And as you go pass the word for the carpenter to rig the grating. Perhaps a taste of the cat may loosen this gentleman’s tongue.”
“The cat?” exclaimed the half-breed, wheeling suddenly round as he was being led away; “do you mean that you are going to flog me?”
“Certainly, unless you choose to speak of your own free will,” answered I.
“Very well, then, I will speak; and your blood be on your own head!” he hissed through his clenched teeth. “I will direct you how to find Morillo, and when you have found him he will amply avenge your insult to me, and your audacity in seeking him; he will make your life such an unendurable torment to you that you will pray him, with tears of blood, to put you out of your misery. And I shall be there to see you suffer, and to laugh in your face as he refuses to grant you the boon of a speedy death.”