He turned to Pépe, and spoke in the lazy Spanish of the Argentine.
"And now, you dog," he said, with manner as smooth as his words were harsh, "how dare you come fawning on me, after helping these filthy, misbegotten sons of Satan to kidnap a lady?"
Pépe writhed with discomfort and apprehension, even while his eyes continued to adore his idol over the rim of the glass from which he sipped his rum. And this contradiction in expression interested Mrs. Brundage so much that she went quietly about her work, hoping by hard listening to steal some meaning from the soft words which came pouring out in exculpation.
CHAPTER XV.
THE LIZARD.
Pépe el Lagarto was pleading his innocence of the only thing which he counted sin, and asseverating his devotion to the only being he loved; and this, condensed, is the story to which Mrs. Brundage attached all meanings but the right one.
He had been in THEIR hands, oh! many months. He did what THEY would, so long as they paid him in coca-leaf to chew, a little cocaine when the leaves ran out, and enough food to live by.
THEY could get coca-leaf—but the Lizard could get it from no other. Nothing mattered but the leaves—and Dicco el Cojeante. Five years it was since Pépe had seen him; Pépe had taken to the sea once more to find him, perhaps, in England.
Oh, yes! Last night they had brought in a woman—a lady abducted. He would have put his knife in her, had THEY so bidden him—until he knew that she was El Cojeante's woman. Now, he would knife THEM, any or all, before El Cojeante's woman should lose a hair.