'
'Father,' said my son to me, 'who is that Spaniard who looks so cruelly
upon us?'
'That is he of whom I have told you, son, de Garcia, who has been the
curse of our race for two generations, who betrayed your grandfather to
the Holy Office, and murdered your grandmother, who put me to torture,
and whose ill deeds are not done with yet. Beware of him, son, now and
ever, I beseech you.'
Now we were come to the palace, almost the only house that was left
standing in the City of Pines. Here an apartment was given to us at the
end of the long building, and presently a command was brought to us that
I and my wife should wait upon the Spanish captain Diaz.
So we went, though Otomie desired to stay behind, leaving our son alone
in the chamber where food had been brought to him. I remember that I
kissed him before I left, though I do not know what moved me to do so,
unless it was because I thought that he might be asleep when I returned.
The Captain Diaz had his quarters at the other end of the palace,
some two hundred paces away. Presently we stood before him. He was a
rough-looking, thick-set man well on in years, with bright eyes and an
ugly honest face, like the face of a peasant who has toiled a lifetime
in all weathers, only the fields that Diaz tilled were fields of war,
and his harvest had been the lives of men.
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