I felt half indignant at the speech. I recognised in the speaker the handsome youth who had been before me with Mercedes Villa-Señor!
A bitter chance that should have made him my protector!
“Let them come on!” I cried, driven to desperation at the thought; “I need no protection from you, sir—thanks all the same! I hold the lives of at least twelve of these gentlemen in my hands. After that, they shall be welcome to mine. Stand aside, and see how I shall scatter the cowardly rabble. Aside, sir!”
If I was not mad, my protector must have thought me so.
“Carrambo, señor!” he responded, without showing himself in the least chafed by my ungrateful answer. “You are perhaps not aware of the danger you are in. If I but say the word, you are a dead man.”
“You’ll say it, capitano!” shouted one on the outside. “Why not? The Yankee has insulted you. Let’s punish him, if it be only for that!”
“Muera! Muera el Americano!”
My assailants, freshly excited by these cries, came surging towards the door.
“Al atras, leperos!” shouted my protector. “The first that sets foot over my threshold—humble as it is—I shall spit upon my sword, like a piece of tasajo. You are very brave here in the Callecito de los Pajaros! I doubt whether there’s one among you who has met the enemy—either at Vera Cruz, or Cerro Gordo!”
“You’re mistaken there, capitan Moreno!” answered a tall dark man who stood out in front of his fellows, and whom I recognised as the chief of the trio who had first attacked me, “Here’s one who has been in both the battles you are pleased to speak of; and who has come out of them, not like your noble self—a prisoner upon parole!”