"Isacco, the Jew, burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter, in which Don Julian and his comrades joined.
"'Out upon ye, villains,' exclaimed Perez the potter, shaking his clenched hand at them.
"'O Perez, por amor de mi,' urged his sister, in a breathless voice.
"'Teresa, my poor Teresa,' muttered the brother through his hard-set teeth, 'I had doubts, dreadful doubts; but I expected not this. Answer, Señor Don Julian d'Aviero, does this black-hearted slave of Mammon, this villain of an abagado, forget that he retains in his repositories the inheritance left us by old Gil Perez, the alcalde of Santarem?'
"'In truth, most blustering señor, most valiant cavalier of crocks and cans, your father's honest brother has not forgotten that important fact,' replied Julian d'Aviero, in his cool, dry way. 'The abagado will act true to his trade, by deceiving those who trust him. His trade! May the great Devil confound it, for it has stripped me of as fair an heritage as ever came from a miserly sire to a spendthrift son. Well, Señor Perez, in short, to possess himself of your two thousand dollars, and practise a little profitable conveyancing, your relative the lawyer has stoutly declined to ransom you, saith our messenger, swearing by the bones of St. James, he would not yield the hundredth part of a pezzo to save you from the jaws of hell.'
"'Be it so,' muttered Perez, between his clenched teeth; 'in the world that is to come, he will meet with his reward.'
"'Were it but to provoke the abagado, I would willingly set you free, Señor Potter; but the laws of this free community say nay.'
"'But my sister——'
"'Has found no more favour than yourself. Santos! You are a strange fellow, Señor Perez. Who the devil ever expects to find an apostle in the carcase of an abagado?'
"'Madre de Dios! my poor Teresa!' said the young man, folding his sister to his breast; while she responded by an agony of grief and terror, such as I had never before witnessed.