"Fiend take these dogs! what do they growl at? Some one surely approaches."
"Impossible," answered Diaz. "Lazarillo is watching the only approach, and all is right; so count on, Narvaez."
"Where was I? Ay—three hundred and ninety-eight, three hundred and ninety-nine, four hundred reals," continued Narvaez, counting the money, "are one hundred pesetas; now, we are thirty in number, including Lazarillo—"
"But the necklace and rings which I took from the old lawyer's daughter?" interrupted the avaricious Julian.
"San Jago of Compostella wither your accursed tongue!" exclaimed Cifuentes, grasping fiercely the hilt of his poniard; "how often am I to lose count by your interruptions? Allow me to deal to each man his share, and then preach, as of old, until you are weary. When you left your cloister at San Juan, you should have left there your monkish greed with your beads and cowl. One hundred pesetas, then, is—is—twenty duros," &c. &c.; and so on he continued to reckon and count, while his brother desperadoes watched round in silence, with louring looks of eagerness, ferocity, and avarice, their hard-featured countenances appearing like those of demons, as the yellow lustre of the lamp fell on their harsh outlines.
"Let us retire now, while we may do so in safety," whispered Ronald. "But how now, Pedro! what is the matter with you?" he asked, on observing that the face of the Spaniard was pale, fierce, and betrayed symptoms of deep excitement.
"Ah! senor officiale," he replied in a scarcely audible voice, "Julian Diaz, the wretch who was this moment disputing with the master rogue, has done me more wrong than even his life can atone for."
"How—how so? Speak low and quickly."
"Two years ago I was about to be wedded to a girl of Merida, Isobel Zuares,—a fair creature, senor, and of good birth, for her grandfather had been an alcalde. The very evening before our marriage, this fiend Julian Diaz, who was then a monk in the Convento de San Juan, sacrilegiously conceived a passion for her at the confessional, and bore her that night by force to the forest of Albuquerque. Dios! O Dios! senor, I never again beheld her,—never again in life at least: poor Isobel!" He paused a moment, and the quivering muscles of his face, which appeared pale as that of a spectre in the moonlight, showed the inward agony of his soul.
"Well, Pedro, and this Diaz—"