“Since you had the disposal of the Tejano prisoners, I can understand that,” returned the Dictator, with a significant shrug. “It’s about him, then, you’re here, I suppose. Well, what do you want?”
“Your authority, Excellentissimo, to punish him as he deserves.”
“For making that tracing on your cheek, eh? You repent not having punished him more at the time when you yourself had the power? Isn’t it so, Señor Colonel?”
Santander’s face reddened, as he made reply—
“Not altogether, your Excellency. There’s something besides, for which he deserves to be treated differently from the others.”
Santa Anna could have given a close guess at what the exceptional something was. To his subtle perception a little love drama was gradually being disclosed; but he kept his thoughts to himself, with his eyes still searchingly fixed on Santander’s face.
“This Kearney,” continued the latter, “though an Irishman, is one of Mexico’s bitterest enemies, and especially bitter against your Excellency. In a speech he made to the filibusteros, he called you a usurper, tyrant, traitor to liberty and your country—ay, even coward. Pardon me for repeating the vile epithets he made use of.”
Santa Anna’s eyes now scintillated with a lurid sinister light, as if filled with fire, ready to blaze out. In the American newspapers he had often seen his name coupled with such opprobrious phrases, but never without feeling savagely wrathful. And not the less that his own innate consciousness told him it was all as said.
“Chingara!” he hissed out, for he was not above using this vulgar exclamation. “If it is true what you say, Don Carlos, as I presume it is, you can do as you like with this dog of an Irlandes! have him shot, or have him despatched by La Garrota, whichever seems best to you. But no—stay! That won’t do yet. There’s a question about these Tejanos with the United States Minister; and as this Kearney is an Irishman, and so a British subject, the representative of that country may make trouble too. So till all this is settled, the Irlandes mustn’t be either shot or garrotted. Instead, let him be treated tenderly. You comprehend?”
The staff-colonel did comprehend; the emphasis on the “tenderly” made it impossible for him to mistake the Dictator’s meaning, which was just as he desired it. As he passed out of the presence, and from the room, his countenance was lit up, or rather darkened, by an expression of fiendish triumph. He now had it in his power to humiliate them who had so humbled him.