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Updated: June 17, 2025
"Bueno, bueno; well spoken, young Englishman!" cried one or two voices from amid the crowd; and several people, anticipating a fracas, started to their feet, as did Alvaros, whose features were now livid and twitching with mingled fury and fear. "Pig of an Englishman," he exclaimed, clapping his hand on his sword hilt, "you shall die for this!"
For nearly a full minute Alvaros glared at Don Hermoso, as though he could scarcely believe that he had heard aright, could scarcely credit the fact that a "rascally Cuban", as he mentally termed Montijo, had had the unparalleled, the unspeakable audacity to spurn ay, spurn was the correct word an alliance with him, Don Sebastian Alvaros, Captain in the army of His Majesty the King of Spain!
The Capitan- General, who was a fine, stately, white-haired man, listened with the most courteous attention to what the two Englishmen had to say, and then, with equal courtesy, proceeded to pooh-pooh the whole story, insisting upon the exceeding unlikelihood of any officer of Captain Alvaros' standing in the Spanish service stooping to so degrading and cowardly a step as that of hiring an assassin to "remove" an almost total stranger from his path.
"I am very much obliged to you, Senor Alvaros, for the friendly feeling which has prompted you to give me what I suppose you wish me to understand as a `warning'. But I must tell you candidly that I believe you are taking a very exaggerated view of the danger if danger there be, which I greatly doubt.
Then, the whole of the negroes employed upon the plantation having been assembled, Carlos related to the blacks the several sufferings and indignities which Alvaros had caused to be inflicted upon the members of the Montijo family, and how to him was due the death of the Senorita, his sister, whom they had all loved so well: and when he had finished his story he flogged Alvaros until the miserable wretch screamed and howled for mercy, offering the most abject excuses and apologies for his conduct, and vowing by all the saints that if Carlos would but release him he would leave Cuba, never to return; that he would surrender the Montijo estates to their rightful owner; that he would never breathe to a single living soul a syllable as to what had passed; and that he would also do a number of other unlikely, not to say impossible, things.
"You have named the man who employed me; it is therefore evident that you know a great deal more about this affair whatever it may be than he suspects, so it is useless for me to attempt to keep the secret from you. Senor Alvaros is indeed the man who employed me; but I am not going to be such a fool as to go back and tell him that I have failed.
"Very well, then," exclaimed Alvaros, "if you prefer to have me for an enemy, instead of a friend and ally, be it so, Senor Montijo; I will not disappoint you. But beware! You have insulted me, and I am a man who never forgets or forgives an insult!"
This last was an exceedingly difficult route, so difficult, indeed, that there were several spots at which it could be made absolutely impassable with very little difficulty, the most suitable of all, perhaps, being at the waterfall near which Alvaros was supposed to have met his death.
"I should return to my property, and if Alvaros happened to be in possession of it well, it would be so much the worse for Alvaros, that's all!
Later in the day that is to say, about eleven o'clock in the morning Don Hermoso was visited by a file of soldiers, who informed him that the governor demanded his presence, and roughly commanded him to follow them. Having obeyed this command, the Don presently found himself in a kind of office, and confronted with Alvaros, who ordered the two guards to leave him alone with their prisoner.
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