'These two went near to it, poor devils,' said the voice. 'Had my cut
been one second later, that savage would have drilled a hole in him as
big as my head. By all the saints! the girl is lovely, or would be if
she were washed. I shall beg her of Cortes as my prize.'
The voice spoke and I knew the voice. None other ever had that hard
clear ring. I knew it even then and looked up, slipping off the
death-stone as I looked. Now I saw. Before me fully clad in mail was my
enemy, de Garcia. It was HIS sword that by the good providence of God
had pierced the breast of the priest. He had saved me who, had he known,
would as soon have turned his steel against his own heart as on that of
my destroyer.
I gazed at him, wondering if I dreamed, then my lips spoke, without my
will as it were:
'DE GARCIA!'
He staggered back at the sound of my voice, like a man struck by a shot,
then stared at me, rubbed his eyes with his hand, and stared again. Now
at length he knew me through my paint.
'Mother of God!' he gasped, 'it is that knave Thomas Wingfield, AND I
HAVE SAVED HIS LIFE!'
By this time my senses had come back to me, and knowing all my folly, I
turned seeking escape. But de Garcia had no mind to suffer this. Lifting
his sword, he sprang at me with a beastlike scream of rage and hate.
Swiftly as thought I slipped round the stone of sacrifice and after me
came the uplifted sword of my enemy.
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