“You ask my name. If it were stained with a tenfold blackness, I would speak it, in the chance of escaping from here. And yet it was a noble one once, until I defiled it! I am, or was, Agustin Canelo,” answered the prisoner.
“I thought so. But, holy Mother of Mercy, what a change!” murmured Garote, as he gazed at the man. “It is good. You are the man that I seek, and I will keep my word, although you murdered my master.”
“Your master? Who are you?”
“Look. You should know me. I have not changed so much. Think; can you not remember the time that I used to carry you upon my back, playing horse?”
“Tadeo Campos?”
“Yes, I am Tadeo Campos. But we have no time to lose. Remove your rags, while I haul in this drunken scoundrel.”
In a few moments Andrez was pulled inside the cell, and his clothes donned by the prisoner, although not without some difficulty, for they were several sizes too small. Tadeo Campos, as we must now call him, relocked the door from the inside, and coolly seated himself upon the body of Andrez, much to the surprise of Canelo.
“Why do you stop here, Campos? Every moment seems an age until I am free from this cursed hole once more,” impatiently exclaimed the latter, fingering nervously the weapons that he had taken from the drunken Jarocho.
“For two reasons. One is, that it is best to give the gentlemen outside a little more time to swill their wine, for, unless their wits are somewhat foggy, you would never pass for our dumpy friend Andrez, here. And the other, is to do justice to your brother’s family—to prove who their son is. Will you promise to do this?”
“I will; any thing so that I can get away from this hole and the tortures of that cursed padre Gayferos. But, supposing the boy is dead?” added Canelo, anxiously.