"Friend," I said, "if you will allow me to speak,
I can convince you that you are mistaken. I am a foreigner, and know
nothing about Santa Coloma."
"No, no," he interrupted, pressing the knife-point warningly against
my stomach, then suddenly withdrawing it as if about to plunge it intome.
"I know you are a rebel. If I thought the Alcalde were not coming
I would run you through at once and cut your throat afterwards. It is
a virtue to kill a Blanco traitor, and if you do not go bound hand and
foot from here then here you must die. What, do you dare to say that
I did not see you at San Paulo--that you are not an officer of Santa
Coloma? Look, rebel, I will swear on this cross that I saw you there."
Suiting the action to the word, he raised the hilt of the weapon to
his lips to kiss the guard, which with the handle formed a cross. That
pious action was the first slip he had made, and gave the first
opportunity that had come to me during all that terrible interview.
Before he had ceased speaking, the conviction that my time had come
flashed like lightning through my brain. Just as his slimy lips kissed
the hilt, my right hand dropped to my side and grasped the handle of
my revolver under my _poncho_. He saw the movement, and very
quickly recovered the handle of his knife. In another second of time
he would have driven the blade through me; but that second was all I
now required.
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