Interposed Quesada quietly:
"Jacques Ferou robbed our Manuel, too. And you know the great Morales, Don Jaime! He would rather starve than play the mouse to this hawk. Yet he had to pay!
"Ah, Torreblanca y Moncada," he added with rising vehemence, "this hombre Ferou, is a human bloodsucker, as you say! He is a greedy, foul buzzard!"
Don Jaime snapped erect. A portentous gleam was in his stony eyes.
"He robbed Manuel Morales, too!" he exclaimed. "That's enough; not another word! We will give the creature short shrift! Carajo! I have a plan."
Quesada and Morales looked about to see that no henchman of Ferou had chanced to overhear. The doctor understood their wary glances. He lowered his voice.
"All the short jump up the goat path," he said in even tones, "ever since this morning when I heard the French ringworm's conversation in the gorge, I have been formulating this plan. And it is a good plan; it will attain many ends at the one time. It will blight the treacherous plot of Ferou, save you from the Guardia Civil, Quesada, and in the same breath win back for me my stolen money! Ah, it is almost divine in its justice! Mediante Dios—God willing, I will use it as another instrument of my vengeance!"
Quesada gasped.
"You mean to kill the French leech? But my senor doctor, in the whole pueblo, Jacques Ferou is the only man armed! No lo quiera Dios, Don Jaime! God forbid, yet I fear he will slay you first!"
"I have a horse-pistol," said the physician with grave significance. "Yet I do not mean to sully these hidalgo hands of mine by killing him myself. Seguramente, no! He shall die, but from no bullet of mine!"