She laid her hand on his coat sleeve pleadingly, and he lifted it to his lips.
"Niña ... the Queen can do no wrong. But I saw you were driving Sebastian to stubbornness. I tried to let him see we meant to be his friends if he would let us."
"Yes, you were right. Tell me everything, please." She paused just a moment before she said quietly: "But first, what about Mr. Gordon? He is ... uninjured?"
"Beaten and mauled and starved, but still of the gayest courage," answered the Spaniard with enthusiasm. "Did I not say that he was a hero? My cousin, I say it again. The fear of death is not in his heart."
He did not see the gleam in her dark eyes, the flush that beat into her dusky face. "Starved as well as beaten, Manuel?"
"They were trying to force him to give up his claim to the valley. But he—as I live the American is hard as Gibraltar."
"They dared to starve him—to torture him. I shall see that they are punished," she cried with the touch of feminine ferocity that is the heritage of the south.
"No need, Valencia," returned Pesquiera with a dry little laugh. "Mr. Gordon has promised himself to attend to that."
He told her the story from first to last. Intently she listened, scarce breathing until he had finished.
Manuel had told the tale with scrupulous fairness, but already her sympathies were turning.