"And this," cried Juan, interrupting the general, "this is to make me a traitor and apostate! Señor, I doubt not that the señor Guzman is at the bottom of all this slander: and I therefore claim to defie,—"
"Peace! wilt thou put thyself in opposition again? If thou dost but raise thy hand in wrath, save against an infidel enemy, thou wert better never to have been born!"
The sudden sternness with which these words were uttered, checked the impetuosity of the youth, and filled him again with anxious forebodings. The general, instantly resuming the milder tones with which he had spoken before, continued,
"So much will be said of thee. Before I offer thee my hand, in token that I desire to forget everything of the past, but that I once truly loved thee, and before I propose to thee a new and honourable duty,—hear,—not what will be, but what has been said of myself, in relation to thine expedition and to thee."
Here the general paused a moment, eyeing the youth intently, as if to read his most secret thoughts; then continuing, he said, with the utmost gravity,
"It has been said of me, señor Juan Lerma, that I sent thee upon thy enterprise of the South Seas, in the malicious thought that the blow of savages might execute the sentence of vengeance I cared not to commit to a Christian assassin. What thinkest thou of this?"
"Even that it is the blackest and insanest of slanders; and that it shows me, I have little cause to marvel at my own loss of credit, when I find that malice can aim even at your excellency's. Whatever may have been your anger, I never believed your excellency would conceal it, much less expend it, in secret vengeance upon a feeble wretch like myself."
"Thou hast but little worldly knowledge," said the Captain-General, half smiling, "or thou wouldst know, that revenge is of a reptile's nature, crawling rather in secret among dark thickets than openly over sunny plains, and none the less venomous, that it can lie half a year torpid. Neither put thou much trust in innocent looks; which, to a shrewd eye, are like sea-water,—the smoother they lie, the deeper can they be looked into."
Having pronounced these metaphorical maxims with much gravity, his eye all the time bent on the youth, Cortes paused for a moment, as if for a reply; when, receiving none, for, in truth, Juan, not well comprehending them, knew not what to answer, he continued,
"Let us understand one another. There has been strife between us,—strife and ill-will. I have perhaps done you injustice: I thought I had cause. By my conscience, young man, I once loved you very well—I have been sorry for you."