"By my faith," exclaimed Cabrera impatiently, "you are a queer fellow, Diego. Wouldst thou then that these 'poor sheep,' who are as a hundred to one of us, should know their strength, and shoot us down like vermin in a barn?" Montoro flung down the great wooden hammer with which he had been driving stakes, and came forward, his face set with mingled sternness and sorrow. "Ay, truly, Juan de Cabrera, less would it shame me that the heathen should thus treat us, than to know that we Christians have acted that hideous part towards them. Hast thou heard of the late campaign in Trinidad, where our countrymen have burnt alive in cold blood--to save trouble!--nigh upon two hundred men and women, and innocent babes scarcely more helpless than their kind and gentle-natured fathers? How shall Spanish tears or Spanish blood, thinkest thou, ever wash out that foul stain?" Juan de Cabrera turned away for a moment, for he had no answer ready. When he turned round again he said, with an assumption of flippancy he was for once far from feeling,-- "Ah, well, I have not heard this shady tale before, and I don't suppose that it has lost any of its shadows by coming through thy lips. Doubtless it was but a toss up whether our brethren should be killed, or should kill." "Not so," said Montoro, sternly. "Juan Bono hath confessed, himself, that the unhappy creatures whom he thus repaid had been as fathers and mothers to him, and to all his party; but he had been sent to make slaves, and he made them the more readily by burning part of the population before resistance was dreamt of." He stopped abruptly, and stooped to pick up his tool. Then once more raising his eyes to his companion's face, he said slowly and quietly-- "That is all; but a ghastly all; and I would to God that the heathen had shot me ere I heard it." There was a long silence after this ere Cabrera ventured once more to ask-- "But, Diego, for all this thou wilt join us, wilt thou not? Even for the sake of thine own feelings thou shouldst do so to help in the promotion of fair play." "If I were the Governor himself," said Montoro hastily, "I should exert myself in vain for justice where this unfortunate Hatuey is concerned. He has been as a king in his own land, and now we dare to proclaim him a rebel because he proves himself a patriot, and in the face of despair fights for his country and his people's liberty. No; I will have nought to do with 'catching' this noble-hearted heathen Cacique, and aiding to throw him into slavery." Cabrera cast a keen, furtive glance at his companion at the utterance of that last word. Evidently, although Diego had heard that horrible Trinidad news, he had not yet heard of the doom pronounced against the troublesomely desperate Cacique of Hispaniola, when he should be once safely caught in the hands of the Cuban governor. As for Don Juan de Cabrera, he had no inclination to give the information. To turn the subject, he said after a short pause--