will not harm a hair of your head. What your fate will be I refuse to tell you; but if you are a wise man you will accept my offer of freedom.”
“And accept your conditions also. The conditions being those I have stated?”
“Precisely! You have rare penetration, Don Juan! My conditions are as you have guessed. Give up Doña Dolores! leave Cholacaca, and you are free.”
“I refuse.”
“Think well, Señor,” said Xuarez, coldly. “I am not a man to threaten in vain. Your fate will be a terrible one.”
“I quite believe you capable of any enormity, Don Hypolito,” retorted Jack, with a curling lip; “but why waste any more time over the matter? I refuse!”
“On what grounds?”
“On what grounds?” reiterated Jack, in a haughty tone. “Simply that it does not suit my convenience either to give up Doña Dolores or to leave Cholacaca at your bidding.”
Xuarez was nettled at Jack’s elaborately insulting manner; but he did not lose his temper. He was too clever a man to do that. With a sudden change of front, he took a hint from card-players, and tried to force Jack’s hand.
“You love Doña Dolores?”
“That is not a question for you to ask.”
“Pardon me, Señor; I also love Doña Dolores, therefore I am interested in your reply.”
“Are you?” said Jack, facing his questioner sharply; “then you shall have it. I do love Doña Dolores; and, what is more, she returns that love. One person only will she marry, and that person is myself, John Duval!”
“You will never marry her!” exclaimed Xuarez, vehemently. “She is mine!—mine! Before a month is gone, she becomes my wife!”
“Ah!” sneered Jack, with a world of meaning in his tone, “I knew you lied when you said she was not in Acauhtzin.”
“Carrai!” cried Don Hypolito, who was beginning to lose his temper; “I did not lie. She is not in Acauhtzin. She is——”
“Where?” asked Duval, impetuously.
“In a place you will never discover, Señor. Not that it matters much, for, in any case, you will not marry her. No! You are reserved for a worse fate!—a fate which will bitterly punish you for daring to be my rival.”
“I am not a child, to be frightened of big words,” said Jack, scornfully, though his heart quailed at the deadly menace of the Mestizo’s tones. “My friends know I am in Acauhtzin. They will come back for me.”
“They have already tried to do so,” retorted Xuarez, triumphantly. “When they left the harbour, I suppose they discovered you were left behind. The boat returned; but a few shot from the forts, and the war-ships made her retreat, and when I last saw her she was steaming full speed for Tlatonac.”
“Yes? I knew as much. To bring back an army to level Acauhtzin to the ground. To capture you! to rescue me!”
“No one can rescue you!” replied Xuarez, in a sombre tone. “Your only chance of escape is to give up Doña Dolores!”
“To you! to you!” cried Jack, fiercely. “You who love her not for herself, but because she is the guardian of the opal stone! Ah, yes, Señor Xuarez! I know well what you design. You wish to marry Dolores—to secure the opal stone, to gain over the Indians to your cause. All ambition; there is no love. I tell you, Señor, such a thing can never be. Dolores would sooner die than give herself up to a villain like yourself. You will never possess Dolores—you will never be master of the Chalchuih Tlatonac! Turn your ambitions to other things, Don Hypolito. Dolores is not for you!”
Don Hypolito sprang to his feet with a cry of rage. Hitherto he had restrained himself in a most admirable manner; but now the insulting speeches of his prisoner proved too much for even his well-trained temper. A torrent of passion swept away all his reserve, and he burst out into a furious speech.
“Dolores is for me! She will be mine in another week or so. She is the guardian of the opal, and that also will be mine. When I am possessed of the devil stone, the Indians will flock round my standard. I have the fleet, I have an army, I will have the Indians, too, my allies, guided by the devil stone. That, also, will be mine, and Dolores with it. I will become Dictator of Cholacaca. I will raise her to a pinnacle of power. She will rule the South—nay, the North also. Mexico, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Guatemala, they will all be mine. In the North, the United States; in the South, the Empire of the Opal, with myself as Ruler. It is a grand——”
“Dream!” interrupted Jack, faintly, for the pain of his wound was telling on his frame. “It is a dream! a dream!”
“It is no dream! Or, if a dream, it will soon turn out a reality. And you—you low-born Englishman, would dare to bar my way to this fame. Lie there, Señor, and wait my commands. You will die, and by a death which will break even your spirit. You will die and be forgotten, while I, Hypolito Xuarez, will reconstruct on this continent the Empire of Montezuma!”
He spoke to deaf ears, for, overcome by fatigue and pain, Duval had fainted. Xuarez bent over him, and held the lantern to his face. It was deadly pale, and the eyes were closed.
“I do not want him to die,” muttered the remorseless Mestizo, going towards the door. “I shall send a doctor to look after his wound. He shall be made whole again, but only to perish in tortures. Not for you, Don Juan, is Dolores; not for you the opal, but death and dishonour. You fall! I rise! My star quenches yours in its burning splendour.”
In another moment he had quitted the prison, leaving his rival stretched out in the darkness, to all appearances lifeless and lost.
Chapter V.
In Shadowland
Weary body, aching brain,
Tortured mind, and heavy soul,
Fourfold being, one existence!
Life with troublous insistence,
To ye brings but constant dole,
Ceaseless weeping, endless pain;
Yet is all this sorrow vain
When the waves of slumber roll
Over body, over soul.
In such slumber should ye list, hence
Flies the spirit to attain
That far land of dreams and stories,
Misty realms of airy glories,
Where the body hath no being,
Nor the eyes an earthly seeing
And the mind makes no resistance
