“I have come, monk,” said he, “according to promise, to hear your final answer. For the last time I ask, will you assist me to wed Beatriz, and live? Methinks the sights and odors about you must have quickened your reflections. Remember, yes is still in time, but shortly no power can save you from your doom.”
“Leave me, Mexican,” replied Olmedo, “my few remaining hours in peace. My answer has been already given. I will not join in your treachery to save myself. Beatriz may die, but she never will be dishonored.”
“Even now her life and honor depend upon your answer. Make her my wife, and she shall be queen of Hawaii. Hear me! No other faith but yours shall exist in Hawaii. This I swear, and you shall be its chief minister. My plans are ripe. I have but to lift my finger and they turn either way, as you decide,” urged Tolta, in his eagerness, forgetting the doubts that but shortly before clouded his mind and angered him.
“Your offers and your threats are alike useless, Tolta. I have not the power, if I had the will, to make Beatriz love you. I may perish, and she too, but we both will die with souls unsullied by falsehood,” answered Olmedo. “Even now He to whom I pray, upholds me and gives me peace. Go, and tempt me no further.” And he turned his face from him in sadness, firmly refusing to listen to him any more.
“Then perish, you and yours; all in whom flows Spanish blood. I doom you all.” Saying this, Tolta left the house, and returned towards the fortress, at each step venting his anger in execrations upon the obstinacy, as he called it, of the monk.
CHAPTER XXIV.
“There is no danger to a man that knows