"You hound of a Don!" cried Wilkes, preparing to knock Miguel down if he should attempt to rise; "what I want to—"
"Wilkes, let him get up," said Jack quietly, coming round the table, the rapier still in his hand.
Miguel rose stiffly, his face expressing the purest amazement.
"Verdaderamente!" he exclaimed. "If it is not my dear friend Jack! There is some strange mistake. And I did not recognize you in your uniform, Jackino! Last time I saw you, you remember, you were dressed as one of ourselves. Truly, dress makes a world of difference, amigo mio."
His tone had all the oily suavity that Jack knew so well, and so cordially detested. Wilkes was looking from one to the other with concentrated interrogation in his eye, ready at a word from Jack to lay the Spaniard low again.
"Shut the door, Bates," said Jack, as he saw the one-eyed man slinking in that direction. "That's your man, I think?" he added, addressing Miguel.
"My servant, who accompanied me from Saragossa," replied Miguel. "And I am at a loss to understand—"
"So am I," interrupted Jack. "I am at a loss to understand why a man in your position should countenance violence, robbery, almost actual murder."
"Robbery! Murder! Really, my dear friend, these are strange words to me. I was in the street, and one of these men—soldiers in the army of the Marquis of La Romana—told me that an English ruffian—it was a mistake, yes, but he said an English ruffian—had forced himself into this house: for what purpose? It could only be, as you say, to rob or murder. You know what sad excesses your troops, usually so excellently disciplined, have been guilty of; and having but a short time ago heard that your colonel—Beckwith, is that his name?—had sternly ordered his men to refrain from acts of pillage, why, my dear friend, was it not natural for me to come in and do what little I could to prevent such admirable orders from being disobeyed? That explains—"
"Oh!" said Jack. "And your man—was that his errand too?"