land?--Love, or esteem, or
gratitude, think you? No, never! My own interest I consult--consult
yours, and decide."

"Interest!" cried Gomez Arias; "there is something reassuring in that
word. I like to hear a man talk of his interest, for then I am tempted
to believe in his sincerity. What, then, canst thou do for thy interest,
Moor? Let us hear in what manner thou art able to serve me."

"I can do much," replied the renegade: "You, Don Lope Gomez Arias, are
at present involved in a most distressing predicament?"

"I am."

"And the source of your disquietude is a woman?"

"Proceed."

"Her name, Theodora?"

"Thou art indeed instructed in this affair--how cam'st thou by the
knowledge?"--and he cast a terrible look on the trembling Roque.

"Senor," cried Roque, "as I hope for salvation, I----"

"Silence, Sirrah!" exclaimed his master.

"Nay," observed the renegade, "blame not yon trembler; it is true that I
applied to him before I resolved upon offering you my services
personally; but from fear, or some other reason, he paid no regard to my
proposal. I therefore waved all further ceremony, and knowing the crisis
to be at hand, I have seized this opportunity to address you."

"And what proposition hast thou to make?" demanded Don Lope.

"To remove from your path this obstacle to your ambition; to rid you
immediately of Theodora."

"Fiend!" fiercely cried Gomez Arias, "thou darest not propose murder to
me?"

"No, Christian," calmly returned Bermudo "dark as my form may be, and
unseemly as my features are, yet I would scorn to imbrue my hands in the
blood of a woman: no, though a ruffian, I am not yet sunk to the
despicable wretch you suppose me. Theodora shall not suffer any
indignity from me, but merely be removed from Granada."

"And what security wouldst thou afford of thy adherence to this promise,
should I be inclined to enter into arrangements?"

"Security! the most firm and unbounded--the love which a Moor has
conceived for her charms."

"What! art thou then the admirer?" sneeringly asked Gomez Arias.

"No!" indignantly exclaimed the renegade--"see you aught of that in me?
Can the signs of any tender sentiment be traced in my visage?"

"Well," muttered Roque, "methinks he speaks very sensibly."

"I cannot love," repeated the renegade; "but a Moor, my superior in
rank, one whom I have bound myself to serve, is powerfully stricken with
the beauty of her you now wish to discard; he will treat he