"Why, look you, what could have carried him through the tribes of the West, to the South Sea, and back again?--(a device of thy scheming, too!) And, didst thou not see, I was about to run him through, in the very act of mutinous resistance, when a brute and insensate dog seized my sword-blade in his mouth? And now, for the third time, what but his angel could have brought to his prison-door yonder infidels of Mexico--his only friends, I think?" "Let your excellency question if this circumstance will not, without removing him from punishment, give a still stronger excuse for it? The scribe visited him in the dungeon; a paction with the enemy, sealed by the act of flight with them to their stronghold, has confirmed him thrice over a traitor." "Ay, by heaven! it is true!" said Cortes, smiting his hands together; "and, by and by, I will take him out of his hiding-place, and crown the day of victory with a double triumph!" "And who can affirm," quoth Don Francisco, "that the misbelievers have not taken him for a sacrifice? It is said, the coronation of Guatimozin is deferred only until he can provide a Castilian victim to do honour to the ceremony. By my faith, senor, there is a pleasant twitch in my cheek,--ay, in the scar of the rapier-wound--at the very thought of this retribution!" "Now, by heaven," said Cortes, with an altered voice, "villain as he is, I cannot rejoice that such a dismal fate should befall him. Death, indeed, but not a death of horror! Dost thou think this, then, can be his doom? Alas, poor youth! had he but some one to lament him or to avenge, I were better satisfied with what I have done. I swear to thee, Francisco, we are e'en as base knaves as himself; for we have employed our strength--our cunning and our strength--against a creature that is utterly friendless. Alas, I say; for I remember me of the days of old; and surely I loved him once as my own soul." This outbreaking of feeling did not at all surprise Guzman, who had been familiar from the beginning with the ebbings and flowings of Don Hernan's hate, and who had several times seen him, when the destiny of Juan seemed already closed, affected so much that he shed tears, as he did at the present moment. But Guzman was acquainted with a spell which never failed to banish all compunction from the General's breast; and he did not scruple to employ it now. "It is enough!" muttered Cortes, through his clenched teeth. "Heaven and my conscience acquit me, and I will think of it no more." With these words, he seemed to discharge from his mind all thoughts of the youth so deeply detested, and addressing himself to the task of inspecting in person the condition of all assailable points in the city, betook himself at last, and at the day-dawn, to his repose. END OF VOL. I. End of Project Gutenberg's The Infidel, Vol. I., by Robert Montgomery Bird