"Thou shalt see," replied Guzman, with a grim smile. "What are six warriors to a man fighting for liberty? Give me a Spanish sword,--a weapon of iron,--and let my adversaries be doubled in number." The boldness of this demand greatly excited the admiration of the warlike spectators, who rewarded it with cheers. But they checked their tumult to hear the words of the king. "The white man talks with the lips of a boaster," he said. "Had he not a Spanish sword in the king's garden, among the women? How is this? He is a prisoner!" "Ask thy warriors,--it was not broken off in my hand! How else should they have taken me?" replied Guzman, to the words of scorn; and then added, in Spanish, as if to himself, "So much for striking the accursed hound! I would he and his master were broiling in purgatory; for they have ever brought me bad luck." Juan Lerma heard not these words, but he remembered the broken blade in Befo's body, and again his heart hardened against his foemen. But matters were now approaching to a crisis. The monarch, disdaining to hold further discourse with the prisoner, waved his hand, and a warrior, darting from the ground at the foot of the scaffold, leaped with a single bound upon the platform, and uttered the yell of battle, which was instantly re-echoed by the shouts of the multitude. He was a tall and powerful savage, though meager of frame, of great activity, as was proved by his ready leap, and of a spirit fully corresponding. His equipments were but little superior to those of the captive; his battle-axe was somewhat longer, his buckler a little broader, and he had some slight defence for his head, in a cap of alligator-skin, that crowned his matted hair. No sound of trump and tymbal gave the signal for beginning the fight, as in a Christian tourney. The yell of the infidel, as he sprang upon the mound, and brandished his battle-axe, was all that was allowed or required, to put the prisoner on his guard; and Don Francisco seemed to understand enough of the nature of the ceremony, to look for no further warning. The great superiority of the infidel consisted in his being entirely at liberty, able to begin the attack by leaping upon the stone at any point he chose, and to continue it thereon, by changing his position as often as he thought fit; while the prisoner, secured by a thong not above eighteen inches in length, to the centre of it, enjoyed no such facilities of motion. He might turn, indeed, and as rapidly as he pleased, but always with the danger, if he forgot himself for a moment, of tripping himself, and falling; in which case, his death was certain, for no forbearance was practised in the event of such an accident.