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270 men who were conducting him, and entered first into the hut where Don Blas lay. As soon as he saw the person they had brought him, his pale face became livid, and hatred gleamed in his eyes; he, however, said nothing. The prisoner stood unmoved, and an air of impudent assurance had replaced the expression of stupefaction that was visible a moment before in his countenance.

"What! Señor Don Blas!" cried he; "can I believe my eyes? Are you dangerously wounded? The conducta, it seems, has been pillaged in part, and I am accused of having assisted in that piece of villainy. Good God! it seems as if it were only a dream."

"I fear that it is something worse than a dream," replied the captain, coldly.

"What do you mean by that coldness?" said the bravo, for it was really he. "Your lordship will, perhaps, be less pleased at seeing me than I am in meeting you."

"On the contrary," answered Don Blas, in a voice to which excitement had restored all its former firmness, "I doubt if you are as glad to see me as I am to have you in my power."

"I do not understand you, Señor Captain," returned the bravo, impudently.

"You will understand me," said the captain. "If I am pleased at meeting you again, it is only that I may treat you as a highwayman, as a murderer, by shooting you at once, without benefit of clergy."

The look of the captain, which expressed an implacable hatred, added strength to his words; and the bravo, the predominant feature of whose character was evidently not courage, seemed almost to quail under this terrible menace, and he lost countenance for a