“Common soldiers! I’m a corporal; you forget that, hombre. But why do you think my chances are so poor?”
“Because I’ve heard say there’s a man about the establishment to whom she’s already given what heart she may have had to give—that they’re engaged. The fellow’s groom or cochero, or something of the sort.”
José breathed easier now, noways provoked at having been spoken of as a “fellow.”
“Bah!” contemptuously exclaimed the corporal. “What care I for that horse-cleaner and carriage-washer for a rival! I’ve cut out scores of such before now, and will do the same with him. Lie down there, you devil’s imp!” he added, turning savagely upon the dwarf, and venting his spleen by giving the creature a kick. “Down, or I’ll break every bone in your body.”
“Mercy, master!” expostulated the hunchback. “Don’t be so cruel to a fellow-creature.”
“Fellow-creature! That’s good, ha, ha, ha!” And the brute broke out into a hoarse laugh, till the rocks echoed his fiendish cachinnation.
“Well, your worship,” rejoined he thus inhumanly mocked, with an air of assumed meekness; “whatever I am, it pains me to think I should be the cause of keeping you here. But why should you stay, may I ask? You don’t suppose I’m going to run away? If I were with you as a prisoner—but I am not. I sought an interview with your Colonel of my own free will. Surely you saw that!”
“True enough, he did,” interposed the soldier.
“And what if he did?” growled the corporal.
“Only, Señor, to show that I have no intention to part company with you, nor wish neither. Por Dios! don’t let me hinder you from having that chat with the muchachita. It’s but a step back to the pueblo, and like as not she’ll be on the lookout for you, spite of what your comrade says. Maybe he has an eye to the pretty dear himself, and that’s why he wishes to discourage you.”