“Spare my life, señores!” the alarmed count cried, trembling and falling on his face. “I will give you double the sum offered for me by your marquis—double the sum—”
“Get up, Viceroy of Tercera,” Hilo answered, contemptuously touching him with his foot.
“Show us where your gold is, and you may go,” Wolfang eagerly put in. But the other put him aside.
“Bargain with Santa Cruz for your own head, I choose not to risk mine for a few extra ducats,” he said to his avaricious companion, while securing Torrevedros. And grumbling after his usual fashion, the Captain was obliged to submit.
The Commandant de Chaste, in the little village of Nostre Dame de Loup, saw nothing before him but ruin of one sort or another. Partly out of friendship, and partly to save Hilo, by a comprehensive treaty, the two maîtres-de-camp, had urged upon the marquis, the policy of securing a peaceful surrender on the part of the French general, rather than drive to despair, the handful of gentlemen remaining in the illy-fortified town. Once a secret messenger carried a note, in which, under cover of solicitude for his safety, in the event of falling into the power of Santa-Cruz, a surrender was proposed, but met with so little favor from the dauntless old knight, their ambassador found no inconvenience in keeping in mind the caustic answer.
“We must see him in person,” Don Pedro said.—And the next morning the maîtres-de-camp rode over together, under a flag of truce.
The gaunt visages of the cavaliers in the commandant’s ante-room, showed the strait to which they were reduced, but they had lost nothing of their native courtesy, and were all armed from head to heel, ready to repel an assault at a moment’s warning. De Chaste himself laid aside his helmet in honor to his guests, who lost no time in disclosing their errand, when the others had withdrawn. It had been agreed beforehand, that Padilh should relate the leading features of their story in order to afford a basis for the consequent urgency of the surrender they came to propose. The commandant heard the knight through in grave silence: at the end he mused awhile and said:
“His name served him in good stead once, for with any other he would have been hanged at my yard-arm for mutiny. It may not be known to you, messires, the wife of the elder De Ladron, was my sister.”
“Ha!” Inique ejaculated, with a sudden red spot in either sallow cheek.