’A triumph indeed; I have found a way to make you speak at last; why, then, to-morrow you will be full of words.  Only this, Cousin Wingfield; Otomie, Montezuma’s daughter, a very lovely woman by the way, is your wife according to the Indian customs.  Well, I know all the story and—­she is in my power.  I will prove it to you, for she shall be brought here presently and then you can console each other.  For listen, dog, to-morrow she will sit where you are sitting, and before your eyes she shall be dealt with as you have been dealt with.  Ah! then you will talk fast enough, but perhaps it will be too late.’

And now for the first time I broke down and prayed for mercy even of my foe.

‘Spare her,’ I groaned; ’do what you will with me, but spare her!  Surely you must have a heart, even you, for you are human.  You can never do this thing, and Cortes would not suffer it.’

‘As for Cortes,’ he answered, ’he will know nothing of it—­till it is done.  I have my warrant that charges me to use every means in my power to force the truth from you.  Torture has failed; this alone is left.  And for the rest, you must read me ill.  You know what it is to hate, for you hate me; multiply your hate by ten and you may find the sum of mine for you.  I hate you for your blood, I hate you because you have your mother’s eyes, but much more do I hate you for yourself, for did you not beat me, a gentleman of Spain, with a stick as though I were a hound?  Shall I then shrink from such a deed when I can satisfy my hate by it?  Also perhaps, though you are a brave man, at this moment you know what it is to fear, and are tasting of its agony.  Now I will be open with you; Thomas Wingfield, I fear you.  When first I saw you I feared you as I had reason to do, and that is why I tried to kill you, and as time has gone by I have feared you more and more, so much indeed, that at times I cannot rest because of a nameless terror that dogs me and which has to do with you.  Because of you I fled from Spain, because of you I have played the coward in more frays than one.  The luck has always been mine in this duel between us, and yet I tell you that even as you are, I fear you still.  If I dared I would kill you at once, only then you would haunt me as your mother haunts me, and also I must answer for it to Cortes.  Fear, Cousin Wingfield, is the father of cruelty, and mine makes me cruel to you.  Living or dead, I know that you will triumph over me at the last, but it is my turn now, and while you breathe, or while one breathes who is dear to you, I will spend my life to bring you and them to shame and misery and death, as I brought your mother, my cousin, though she forced me to it to save myself.  Why not?  There is no forgiveness for me, I cannot undo the past.  You came to take vengeance on me, and soon or late by you, or through you, it will be glutted, but till then I triumph, ay, even when I must sink to this butcher’s work to do it,’ and suddenly he turned and left the place.