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 forward, trepidation in his manner, fear in his face.

"But, Don Gabriel, you are not going to whip him?" he asked, standing off a little way.

"No, Don Felipe. It is not the way of a gentleman of my country to strike a helpless man. I degrade him in your eyes, and leave him to consider what might have happened to him if I had been a Mexican."

Henderson turned to the people, who had come out a little way from the wall when they saw that the Yankee sailor did not shoot Don Felipe down at the first movement of his foot.

"The man that releases him will be the first man to die," he said.