“Nothing more.”
“Pardon me,” said the old man, with a grave bow. “I thought—the Spanish of His Excellency misled me.”
The Englishman laughed quietly. “You took me for a scorpion,” he said. “I am not that. I learnt your language here and in the mountains of Andalusia.”
“Then, I beg the pardon of His Excellency.”
Cartoner made a Spanish gesture with his hand and shoulders, indicating that no such pardon was called for.
“Like you,” he said, “I do not love the Scorpion.”
The Spaniard's eyes lighted up with a gleam which was hardly pleasant to look upon.
“I HATE them,” he hissed, bringing his face close to the quiet eyes; and the Spanish word means more than ours.
Then he threw himself back in his chair with an upward jerk of the head.
“I have good reason to do so,” he added. “I sometimes wonder why I ever speak to an Englishman; for they resemble you in some things, these Scorpions. This one had a fair moustache, blue eyes, clean-cut features, like some of those from the North. But he was not large, this one—the Rock does not breed a large race. They are mean little men, with small white hands and women's feet. Ah, God! how I hate them all!”