"Oh, twenty-eight or thirty."
"Thees day," said the Mexican, "ees my birthday. I am four hundred and three years of old to-day."
"Another proof," said Tansey, airily, "of the healthfulness of our climate."
"Eet is not the air. I am to relate to you a secret of verree fine value. Listen me, Meester Tansee. At the age of twenty-three I arrive in Mexico from Spain. When? In the year fifteen hundred nineteen, with the soldados of Hernando Cortez. I come to thees country seventeen fifteen. I saw your Alamo reduced. It was like yesterday to me. Three hundred ninety-six year ago I learn the secret always to leeve. Look at these clothes I war—at these diamantes. Do you theenk I buy them with the money I make with selling the chili-con-carne, Meester Tansee?"
"I should think not," said Tansey, promptly. Torres laughed loudly.
"Valgame Dios! but I do. But it not the kind you eating now. I make a deeferent kind, the eating of which makes men to always leeve. What do you think! One thousand people I supply—diez pesos each one pays me the month. You see! ten thousand pesos everee month! Que diable! how not I wear the fine ropa! You see that old woman try to hold me back a little while ago? That ees my wife. When I marry her she is young—seventeen year—bonita. Like the rest she ees become old and—what you say!—tough? I am the same—young all the time. To-night I resolve to dress myself and find another wife befitting my age. This old woman try to scr-r-ratch my face. Ha! ha! Meester Tansee—same way they do entre los Americanos."
"And this health-food you spoke of?" said Tansey.
"Hear me," said Torres, leaning over the table until he lay flat upon it; "eet is the chili-con-carne made not from the beef or the chicken, but from the flesh of the señorita—young and tender. That ees the secret. Everee month you must eat of it, having care to do so before the moon is full, and you will not die any times. See how I trust you, friend Tansee! To-night I have bought one young ladee—verree pretty—so fina, gorda, blandita! To-morrow the chili will be ready. Ahora si! One thousand dollars I pay for thees young ladee. From an Americano I have bought—a verree tip-top man—el Capitan Peek—que es, Señor?"
For Tansey had sprung to his feet, upsetting the chair. The words of Katie reverberated in his ears: "They're going to eat me, Sam." This, then, was the monstrous fate to which she had been delivered by her unnatural parent. The carriage he had seen drive up from the Plaza was Captain Peek's. Where was Katie? Perhaps already—
Before he could decide what to do a loud scream came from the tent. The old Mexican woman ran out, a flashing knife in her hand. "I have released her," she cried. "You shall kill no more. They will hang you—ingrato—encatador!"