“Really! I should have thought an assassination would have better suited an assassin’s son!”
“Torres!” exclaimed Benito, “defend yourself, or I will kill you like a mad dog!”
“Mad! so be it!” answered Torres. “But I bite, Benito Dacosta, and beware of the wounds!”
And then again grasping his manchetta, he put himself on guard and ready to attack his enemy.
Benito had stepped back a few paces.
“Torres,” he said, regaining all his coolness, which for a moment he had lost; “you were the guest of my father, you threatened him, you betrayed him, you denounced him, you accused an innocent man, and with God’s help I am going to kill you!”
Torres replied with the most insolent smile imaginable. Perhaps at the moment the scoundrel had an idea of stopping any struggle between Benito and him, and he could have done so. In fact he had seen that Joam Dacosta had said nothing about the document which formed the material proof of his innocence.
Had he revealed to Benito that he, Torres, possessed this proof, Benito would have been that instant disarmed. But his desire to wait till the very last moment, so as to get the very best price for the document he possessed, the recollection of the young man’s insulting words, and the hate which he bore to all that belonged to him, made him forget his own interest.
In addition to being thoroughly accustomed to the manchetta, which he often had had occasion to use, the adventurer was strong, active, and artful, so that against an adversary who was scarcely twenty, who could have neither his strength nor his dexterity, the chances were greatly in his favor.
Manoel by a last effort wished to insist on fighting him instead of Benito.