"And guilty," added Don Amador, with severity, "as I think, of deserting thine own flesh and blood,—thy poor and friendless boy, Abdalla!"
The Almogavar flung himself at the feet of the cavalier, saying, wildly,—
"My flesh and blood! and friendless indeed! unless thou wilt continue to protect him. Señor, for the love of heaven, for the sake of the mother who bore you, be kind and true to my boy! Swear thou wilt protect him from malice and wrong; for it was his humanity to thy kinsman, the knight, that has robbed him of his father."
"Dost thou confess, thou wert about to steal him from his protector? Now, by heavens, Moor, this is but an infidel's ingratitude!"
"Señor!" said Abdalla, "you reproached me for forsaking him; and now you censure me for striving not to forsake him! But the sin is mine, not Jacinto's. I commanded him to follow me, señor; and he would have obeyed me, had he not found thy knight Calavar swooning among the ruins. He tarried to give him succour, and thus was lost; for the soldiers came upon him."
"Is this so, indeed? My kinsman left swooning! Thou wert but a knave, not to tell me this before."
"The knight is safe—he has robbed me of my child," said Abdalla, throwing himself before the neophyte. "Go not, señor, till thou hast promised to requite his humanity with the truest protection."
"Surely he shall have that, without claiming it."
"Ay, but promise me! swear it to me!" cried the Moor, eagerly. "Don Hernan will be awroth with him. The cavaliers will call him mine accomplice."
"They will do the boy no wrong," said Amador; "and I know not why thou shouldst ask me the superfluity of an oath."