I next looked at my man. I had also some vague memory about him—associated with the “Little Street of the Sparrows.”
The locality quickened my recollection; and before proceeding farther, I stopped short, and demanded his name.
“Carrambo! Why do you ask that?” he inquired, in a taunting tone. “Do you intend to report me in the other world, for despatching you prematurely out of this? Ha! ha! ha!”
“Well,” he continued, “I won’t disappoint you. Tell the devil, when you see him, that he is indebted to Captain Torreano Carrasco for sending him a subject. Now, señor! are you ready to die?”
There needed no further proof to tell me I was entrapped. If there had, it was furnished by sight of a half-score savage-looking pelados, who, issuing from the adjacent doors, came running towards us—evidently intending to take part in the combat.
No longer to be a duel. I saw that my challenger had no thought of such a thing. He had changed his chivalric tone, and his voice was once more heard leading the contemptible cry—
“Muera el Americano!”