An instant of stupor succeeded to the murder so suddenly accomplished. Don Antonio did not stir; Fabian seemed to forget that the bandit had only hastened the execution of the sentence which he himself had pronounced.
“Wretch!” cried he, rushing towards Cuchillo, with the barrel of his carbine in his hand, as though he did not deign to raise its butt against the executioner.
“There, there!” said Cuchillo, drawing back, whilst Pepé, more ready to acquit Don Antonio’s murderer, interposed between them; “you are as quick and passionate as a fighting-cock, and ready every instant to sport your horns, like a young bull. The Indians are too busy elsewhere to trouble themselves about us. It was a stratagem of war, to enable me more speedily to render you the signal service required of me. Do not therefore be ungrateful; for, why not admit it? you were just now a nephew, most unsufferably encumbered with an uncle; you are noble, you are generous; you would have regretted all your life that you had not pardoned that uncle? By cutting the matter short for you, I have taken the remorse upon myself; and so the affair is ended.”
“The rascal knows what he is about, undoubtedly,” remarked the ex-carabinier.
“Yes,” replied Cuchillo, evidently flattered, “I pride myself upon being no fool, and upon having some notion of the scruples of conscience. I have taken your doubts upon mine. When I take a fancy to people, I sacrifice myself for them. It is a fault of mine. When I saw, Don Tiburcio, that you had so generously pardoned me the blow—the scratch I inflicted upon you—I did my best to deserve it: the rest must be settled between me and my conscience.”
“Ah!” sighed Fabian, “I hoped yet to have been able to pardon him.”
“Why trouble yourself about it?” said the ex-carabinier. “Pardon your mother’s murderer, Don Fabian! it would have been cowardice! To kill a man who cannot defend himself, is, I grant, almost a crime, even after five years’ imprisonment. Our friend Cuchillo has saved us the embarrassment of choosing: that is his affair. What do you say, Bois-Rose?”
“With proofs such as those we possess, the tribunal of a city would have condemned the assassin to atone for his crime; and Indian justice could not have done less. It was God’s will that you should be spared the necessity of shedding the blood of a white man. I say as you do, Pepé, it is Cuchillo’s affair.”
Fabian inclined his head, without speaking, in acquiescence to the old hunter’s verdict—as though in his own heart he could not determine, amidst such conflicting thoughts, whether he ought to rejoice, or to grieve over this unexpected catastrophe.
Nevertheless, a shade of bitter regret overspread his countenance; but accustomed, as well as his two companions, to scenes of blood, he assented, though with a sigh, to their inexorable logic.