“I comprehend all that,” responded Cuchillo. “Well! it is astonishing how people will regret the death of parents, who do not leave them the slightest inheritance!”
Tiburcio could have told him, that on her death-bed his adopted mother had left him a royal, as well as a terrible legacy—the secret of the Golden Valley, and the vengeance of the murder of Marcos Arellanos. Both had been, confided to him—the golden secret upon the especial conditions that Tiburcio would, if necessary, spend the whole of his life in searching for the assassin.
Tiburcio appeared to take no notice of Cuchillo’s last reflection, and perhaps his discretion proved the saving of his life: for had the outlaw been made sure that he was in possession of the secret of the Golden Valley, it is not likely he would have made any further efforts to save him, but the reverse.
“And is that a fact,” continued Cuchillo, interrogatively, “that with the exception of a hut which you have abandoned, a horse which has dropped dead between your legs, and the garments you carry on your back, that Arellanos and his widow have left you nothing?”
“Nothing but the memory of their goodness to me, and a reverence for their name.”
“Poor Arellanos! I was very sorry for him,” said Cuchillo, whose hypocrisy had here committed him to an unguarded act of imprudence.
“You knew him then?” hastily inquired Tiburcio, with some show of surprise. “He never spoke to me of you!”
Cuchillo saw that he had made a mistake, and hastened to reply.
“No, I didn’t know him personally. I have only heard him much spoken of as a most worthy man, and a famous gambusino. That is why I was sorry on hearing of his death. Was it not I who first apprised his widow of the unfortunate occurrence, having myself heard of it by chance?”
Notwithstanding the natural tone in which Cuchillo delivered this speech, he was one of those persons of such a sinister countenance, that Tiburcio could not help a certain feeling of suspicion while regarding it. But by little and little the feeling gave way, and the young man’s thoughts taking another turn, he remained for some moments buried in a silent reverie. It was merely the result of his feebleness, though Cuchillo, ever ready to suspect evil, interpreted his silence as arising from a different cause.