“I remained at Gibraltar two days longer.  She had the boldness to disguise herself and come and see me at the inn.  I departed, I had a plan of my own.  I went back to our meeting-place with the information as to the spot and the hour at which the Englishman and Carmen were to pass by.  I found El Dancaire and Garcia waiting for me.  We spent the night in a wood, beside a fire made of pine-cones that blazed splendidly.  I suggested to Garcia that we should play cards, and he agreed.  In the second game I told him he was cheating; he began to laugh; I threw the cards in his face.  He tried to get at his blunderbuss.  I set my foot on it, and said, ’They say you can use a knife as well as the best ruffian in Malaga; will you try it with me?’ El Dancaire tried to part us.  I had given Garcia one or two cuffs, his rage had given him courage, he drew his knife, and I drew mine.  We both of us told El Dancaire he must leave us alone, and let us fight it out.  He saw there was no means of stopping us, so he stood on one side.  Garcia was already bent double, like a cat ready to spring upon a mouse.  He held his hat in his left hand to parry with, and his knife in front of him—­that’s their Andalusian guard.  I stood up in the Navarrese fashion, with my left arm raised, my left leg forward, and my knife held straight along my right thigh.  I felt I was stronger than any giant.  He flew at me like an arrow.  I turned round on my left foot, so that he found nothing in front of him.  But I thrust him in the throat, and the knife went in so far that my hand was under his chin.  I gave the blade such a twist that it broke.  That was the end.  The blade was carried out of the wound by a gush of blood as thick as my arm, and he fell full length on his face.

“‘What have you done?’ said El Dancaire to me.

“‘Hark ye,’ said I, ’we couldn’t live on together.  I love Carmen and I mean to be the only one.  And besides, Garcia was a villain.  I remember what he did to that poor Remendado.  There are only two of us left now, but we are both good fellows.  Come, will you have me for your friend, for life or death?’

“El Dancaire stretched out his hand.  He was a man of fifty.

“‘Devil take these love stories!’ he cried.  ’If you’d asked him for Carmen he’d have sold her to you for a piastre!  There are only two of us now—­how shall we manage for to-morrow?’

“‘I’ll manage it all alone,’ I answered.  ’I can snap my fingers at the whole world now.’

“We buried Garcia, and we moved our camp two hundred paces farther on.  The next morning Carmen and her Englishman came along with two muleteers and a servant.  I said to El Dancaire: 

“’I’ll look after the Englishman, you frighten the others—­they’re not armed!’

“The Englishman was a plucky fellow.  He’d have killed me if Carmen hadn’t jogged his elbow.

“To put it shortly, I won Carmen back that day, and my first words were to tell her she was a widow.