ht into my face. "I don't know
what's worse, their fury or their pity. The childishness of it! The
childishness.... Do you imagine, Senor, that Manuel or the Juez O'Brien
shall some day spare you in their turn? If I didn't know the courage of
your nation..."

"I despise the _Juez_ and Manuel alike," I interrupted angrily. I
despised Castro, too, at that moment, and he paid me back with interest.
There was no mistaking his scathing tone.

"I know you well. You scorn your friends, as well as your foes. I have
seen so many of you. The blessed saints guard us from the calamity of
your friendship...."

"No friendship could make an assassin of me, Mr. Castro...."

"... Which is only a very little less calamitous than your enmity," he
continued, in a cold rage. "A very little less. You let Manuel go....
Manuel!... Because of your mercy.... Mercy! Bah! It is all your pride--your
mad pride. You shall rue it, Senor. Heaven is just. You shall rue it,
Senor."

He denounced me prophetically, wrapped up with an air of midnight
secrecy; but, after all, he had been a friend in the act, if not in
the spirit, and I contented myself by asking, with some pity for his
imbecile craving after murder:

"Why? What can Manuel do to me? He at least is completely helpless."

"Did the Senor Don Juan ever ask himself what Manuel could do to
me--Tomas Castro? To me, who am poor and a vagabond, and a friend of
Don Carlos, may his soul rest with God. Are all you English like princes
that you should never think of anybody but yourselves?"

He revolted and provoked me, as if his opinion of the English could
matter, or his point of view signify anything against the authority of
my conscience. And it is our conscience that illumines the romantic side
of our life. His point of view was as benighted and primitive as the
point of view of hunger; but, in his fidelity to the dead architect of
my fortunes, he reflected dimly the light of Carlos' romance, and I had
taken advantage of it, not so much for the saving of my life as for the
guarding of my love. I had reached that point when love displaces one's
personality, when it becomes the only ground under our feet, the only
sky over our head, the only light of vision, the first condition of
thought--when we are ready to strive for it, as we fight for the breath
of our body. Brusquely I turned my back on him, and heard the repeated
clicking of flint against his blade. He lighted a cigarette, and crossed