"No, Ooncle Hennery," the bandit laughed, "she is yours for keeps. Zat is all. You may go!" And he waved him out. "And you," to Hardy. "Pedro, show zem into ze open space!" "'Im too?" asked Pedro, indicating Morgan Pell who stood, as though made of stone, in one corner. "_Poco tiempo!_" the bandit said. "_Debommultalo!_" his henchman replied. "_Si_," Lopez smiled. And Pedro got the invalid and the lanky Hardy through the door, as a woman might have swept two geese from her path. Left alone with the bandit, Pell remarked: "Look here, there must be some way to settle this thing." But he had grave fears. "To zat, I 'ave come at last," the bandit replied with an emphasis that could not be mistaken. "You have?" Pell's voice was weak. "It shall cost me planty money. I could 'ave tooken you wiz me for ransom--'elluva big ransom--a million dollar, mebbe. But I am not soddid!" He laughed, and rubbed his hands together. "You aren't going to hold me for ransom?" Pell questioned, relief in his voice. "No." "What--what are you doing to do?" The reply was as swift as an arrow. "Kill you." Pell did not believe what he heard. "Kill me?" he repeated, his head on one side, like a bird listening, and pointing to his chest. "_Si._" Lopez had never used a politer tone. "You--you're joking." There was a crack in Pell's voice. "Joking?" "You must be!" huskily. "I thought so all along--now I'm sure of it." The bandit faced him, and threw his cigarette over his shoulder in the chimney-place. "Do I look like a joker?" "You sit there, like that, and talk of killing me in cold blood?" Lopez took him in through half-closed lids. "I do not like you. Nobody like you. Alive, you are no good. Dead, you make two people which I love 'appy. You get me, Senor Wall Street?" "Oh, I see," cried Pell, wildly, and doing his best to keep his legs from giving way, "you would kill me so that my wife can marry this Gilbert Jones?" A sickly smile curled around his mouth. Lopez nodded. "_Si, senor._" "If that's all, I'll give her a divorce!" "You weel give her a divorce?" Lopez repeated, pretending to be much interested and pleased. Pell saw a gleam of hope through the darkness of this moment. "Yes," came breathlessly from him. "Then she can marry him. Don't you see? If that's all you want--he can have her." He was shaking now in every limb. Escape was almost his. He knew he could not be done away with. "I'll give her to him!" He staggered toward Lopez, "I will! I swear I will!" he screamed, his words reaching a high falsetto. Lopez rose. "I would look at you once before I shoot," he said slowly, and took in the other's cringing form. "What?" Pell said. Disgust was on the features of the bandit--contempt and unbelievable loathing. "I 'ave met mans which would not fight for zeir money," he said with great deliberation, his lip curled. "I 'ave met mans which would not fight for zeir lives. But I 'ave never before met ze man which would not fight for 'is woman."