“I think we’ve done the thing neatly, though not exactly the way you wanted it.”
“Anything but that. Still, I don’t despair of getting everything straight in due time. The man Manuel has learnt from his fellow-servant that our American friends have gone on to the settlements of the Del Norte. Strange if we can’t find them there; and stranger still if, when found, I don’t bring them to book at last. Caraja! Neither of the two will ever leave New Mexico alive.”
“What about these two—our Mexican friends?”
“For them a fate the very reverse. Neither shall ever reach it alive.”
“You intend taking them there dead, do you?”
“Neither living nor dead. I don’t intend taking them there at all.”
“You think of leaving them by the way?”
“More than think; I’ve determined upon it.”
“But surely you don’t mean to kill them in cold blood?”
“I won’t harm a hair of their heads—neither I, nor you, nor any of my soldiers. For all that, they shall die.”