“On what?” asks the impatient subordinate.
“Many matters—circumstances, events, coincidences.”
“May I know what they are. You promised to tell me, colonel.”
“I did—in time. It has not yet come. One thing I may now make known. When we leave this camping-place we shall take no prisoners along with us.”
“You intend setting them free?” The question is asked, not with any idea that this is Uraga’s design, but to draw out the explanation.
“Free of all cares in this world, whatever may be their troubles in the next.”
“They are to die, then?”
“They are to die.”
“You mean only the men—Don Valerian and the doctor?”
“What a ruffian you are, Roblez! By your question you must take me for the same—a sanguinary savage. I’m not so bloodthirsty as to think of killing women, much less one so sweet as the Senorita Miranda. Men don’t desire the deaths of their own wives—at least, not till after the honeymoon. The Dona Adela is to be mine—shall, and must!”