"Avenge her!" muttered Ronald through his clenched teeth. "Noble senora, that task shall be mine—"
"Alas! cavalier," interrupted the abbess, "we commit a deadly sin in talking thus."
"Echemos pelillos a la mar, says the proverb; we must forget and forgive," chimed in El Pastor. "Vengeance belongs not to this earth,—'tis not ours, miserable reptiles that we are. What sayeth the holy writ? Lo, you now—"
"Peace, Ignacio; I would speak. You are getting into the burden of some old sermon of yours, and it is a wonder you put so many words together without another proverb," said the lady abbess, as she took Ronald's hand kindly within her own, which indeed was a very soft and white one. "El Pastor's account of this affair is somewhat confused. Tell me, senor, how long it is since this dreadful deed was perpetrated?"
"But yesternight—only yesternight. To me it appears as if a thousand years had elapsed since then, and the events of years ago seem to have passed but yesterday. All is confusion and chaos in my mind."
"The noble senora was, perhaps, some relation of yours?'
"No. She is of Spain,—I of Scotland."
"Your wife, possibly, senor?"
"My wedded wife indeed she would have been, had she lived; but that resolve came too late!" he replied in a troubled voice, as he pressed the hand of Catalina to his lips. "But, senoritas, I must not spend longer time in childish sorrow," he added, starting up and erecting his stout and handsome figure before the eyes of the sisterhood, who, in spite of their veils and hoods knew how to admire a smart young soldier with a war-worn suit of harness. "It would not become me to do so, and my duties call me elsewhere. Every means must be taken to bring retribution on the head of the demon Narvaez, and I trust that the great Power which suffers no crime to pass unpunished, will aid me in discovering him one day before I leave Spain. Divine vengeance will again place him at my mercy as he has been twice before, when, but for my ill-timed interference, Don Alvaro had slain him, and my heart leaps within me at the thought of having his base blood upon my weapon. Yes, senoritas, his blood, shed with my own hands and streaming hot and thick upon them, can alone avenge the death of Catalina. Some fatality seems continually to throw this monster in my way, and if ever we cross each other again, most fully, amply, and fearfully shall this unfortunate be revenged; for I have sworn a secret oath—an oath which may not be broken, that wherever I meet Cifuentes within the realm of Spain—on moor or mountain, in city, camp, or field, there will I slay him, though the next moment should be my last!"
His form appeared to dilate while he spoke, and his eyes sparkled with a keen and fiery expression, which attested the firmness of his determination and the bold recklessness of his heart. The excitement under which he laboured imparted a new eloquence to his tones and grace to his gesture; but he panted rather than breathed while he spoke, and the fierce glitter of his eye, together with the strange ferocity of the words which his love and sorrow prompted, caused the timid nuns of Santa Cruz to shrink back from the iron gratings.