"Gomez Arias!" exclaimed the renegade; starting back in amazement. "Gomez Arias! it cannot be!"
"Such is the name," returned Malique, "that our prisoner gave him, and there is no reason why she should deceive us. In troth her anguish was too deep, and her grief but too lively, to leave a doubt of the veracity of her statement."
"Gomez Arias!" cried again the renegade, "and is he really dead!—dead! Malique, art thou sure?—did he not escape?"
"Escape!" muttered the Moor, "his soul escaped from his body. That is all the escape that I wot of."
"Then," continued the renegade, Bermudo, striking his forehead in a paroxysm of disappointed passion, "my revenge is foiled, my victory incomplete. I, too, could once have taken his life; but he owed me more than his base life could pay. Long have I toiled to bring about a day of retribution, and now my hopes are suddenly crushed, and my vengeance wrested from my hand."
"What means this, Alagraf?" inquired Cañeri, surprised at such uncommon demonstrations.
"Is this thy acute perception!" cried Bermudo, "that thou canst not divine the motive that alone brings joy or pain to this blighted heart? Dost thou forget that there is only one solitary feeling that can affect it?"
"Yes, revenge!" replied Cañeri, "but then this Christian! this Gomez Arias—"
"Is my accursed enemy," thundered the renegade; "my foul wronger; once my lord and master; and this captive, this weeping beauty, is perchance his affianced bride, the proud daughter of our bitterest, our redoubtable foe. Yes, she must be the daughter of Alonso de Aguilar. And yet," he added, pondering, "how came she there?"
"What sayest thou?" exclaimed Cañeri, with strong marks of pleasure. "Can it be possible? Thanks, thanks to the holy prophet that vouchsafes such reward to the faithful. This is indeed a most precious gage, as it may perhaps be the means of curbing the overbearing insolence of Aguilar; for, destitute as he is of all sympathy towards the Moors, he may yet feel the anxiety of parental love when he learns the situation of his child. Dispatch, quick; Malique, bring forth thy captive, and ask a meed—'tis granted."