"Doubtless, I was," replied the neophyte; "for Cortes was afar, and Alvarado full three spears' length behind. Nevertheless, I did not despair of maintaining the fight, until my friends came up to my relief."
"Thou wert a captive!" cried the Zegri, impetuously,—"a living captive in the hands of Mexicans! Dost thou know the fate of a prisoner in such hands?"
"By my faith," said Don Amador, "I have heard, they put their prisoners to the torture."
"They sacrifice them to the gods!" cried the Moor. "And the death," he continued, his swarthy visage whitening with horror, "the death is of such torment and terror as thou canst not conceive; but I can, for I have seen it! Now hear me: I saw my benefactor a captive, and I knew his life would end on the stone of sacrifice, offered up, like that of a beast, to false and fiendish gods! I say, I saw thee thus; I knew this should be thy doom; and I did all that my gratitude taught me, to save thee. I struck thee down, knowing, that if I slew thee, the blow would be that of a true friend, and that thou shouldst die like a soldier, not like a fatted sheep. Heaven, however, gave me all that I had dared to hope: I harmed thee not; and yet the Mexicans believed that death had robbed them of a victim. I harmed thee not; and the heathens suffered me to drag away what seemed a corse; but which lived, and was my benefactor,—the saviour of myself, and the protector of my child!"
As Abdalla concluded these words, spoken with much emphasis and feeling, a tear glistened in his eye; and the neophyte, starting up and eagerly grasping his hand, exclaimed,—
"Now, by heaven! I see all the wisdom and truth of thy friendship; and I beg thy pardon for whatever insulting words my folly has caused me to speak. And, now that I know the blow was struck for such a purpose, I confess to thee, as thou saidst thyself, it would have been true gratitude and love, though it had killed me outright."
"I have done thee even more service than this," said the Zegri, calmly; "but, before I speak it, I must demand of thee, as a Christian and honourable soldier, to confess thyself my just and true captive."
"Thy captive!" cried Don Amador. "Dost thou hold me then as a prisoner, and not as a guest and friend? Dost thou check my thankfulness in the bud, and cancel thy services, by making me thy thrall?"
"I will not answer thy demands," said Abdalla. "I call upon thee, as a noble and knightly soldier, fairly captured, in open war, by my hands, to acknowledge thyself my captive; and, as such, in all things, justly at my disposition."
"If thou dost exact it of me," said the cavalier, regarding him with much surprise and sorrow, "I must, as a man of honour, so acknowledge myself. But I began to think better of thee, Abdalla!"