By Heaven!
it was he--Juan de Garcia and no other! I could not be mistaken. There
was the deeply carved, cruel face, the high forehead with the scar on
it, the thin sneering mouth, the peaked beard and curling hair. Chance
had given him into my hand, and I would kill him or he should kill me.
I took three paces and stood before him, drawing my sword as I came.
'What, my dove, have you a bully at hand?' he said stepping back
astonished. 'Your business, senor? Are you here to champion beauty in
distress?'
'I am here, Juan de Garcia, to avenge a murdered woman. Do you remember
a certain river bank away in England, where you chanced to meet a lady
you had known, and to leave her dead? Or if you have forgotten, perhaps
at least you will remember this, which I carry that it may kill you,'
and I flashed the sword that had been his before his eyes.
'Mother of God! It is the English boy who--' and he stopped.
'It is Thomas Wingfield who beat and bound you, and who now purposes to
finish what he began yonder as he has sworn. Draw, or, Juan de Garcia, I
will stab you where you stand.'
De Garcia heard this speech, that to-day seems to me to smack of the
theatre, though it was spoken in grimmest earnest, and his face grew
like the face of a trapped wolf. Yet I saw that he had no mind to fight,
not because of cowardice, for to do him justice he was no coward, but
because of superstition.
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