CHAPTER VI
The pale Frenchman looked full at Jacinto Quesada, and suddenly his small slate-colored eyes blazed like sunlight on ice.
"Do you not comprehend of the signs the meaning?" he asked sharply in tolerable Spanish.
"No."
"Nor that which I desire you to understand when I do this thing?"
Impetuously he stepped forward and grasped, with his right hand, the right hand of Jacinto Quesada. What followed seemed only a most ardent handshake. Then he dropped Quesada's hand and stepped back, assuming his old passive pose. And only Quesada knew that there had passed between them another signal—he alone knew that the Frenchman, on gripping his hand, had tapped the wrist of that hand with his index finger twice.
Rumpling his brow, the youthful bandolero consulted with himself for a space. Then, his face clearing, decisively he said:
"No, Frenchman, your signals to me have no meaning. It is, perhaps, that I am not of sufficient knowledge; I am only a poor Moor of Andalusia, you know. But what is the message you wish to convey by your cabalistic signs? I am curious, senor; tell me in honest Spanish and interestedly I shall listen."
The tall blond Frenchman laughed ruefully under his waxed mustache.