Part 11 (2/2)
”Ah! that's because you've come to ask some favour fro his most familiar and friendly discourse with a little satire, soreeable to those he conversed with ”But never h I confess some surprise at your hypocrisy, which is all throay upon o_!
I don't at all wonder at your success with the senoritas You're a handsome fellow, Don Carlos; and if it weren't for that scar on your cheek--By the way, you never told me how you came by it You hadn't it when you were last with us”
The red flushed into Santander's face, and up over his forehead to the roots of his hair He had told no one in Mexico, nor anywhere else, how he ca on his jahich beard could not conceal, and which he felt as a brand of Cain
”It's a scar of a sword-cut, your Excellency I got it in a duel”
”Ah! An honourable wound, then But where?”
”In New Orleans”
”Just the place for that sort of thing, as I know, having been there myself” (Santa Anna had made a tour of the States, on _parole_, after the battle of San Jacinto, where he was taken prisoner) ”A very den of duellists is Nuevo Orleans; onist? I hope you gave hiot”
”I did, your Excellency; that, and more”
”You killed him?”
”Not quite I would have done so, but that my second interposed, and persuaded me to let him off”
”Well, he hasn't let you off, anyhow What was the quarrel about?
_Carrai_! I needn't ask; the old orthodox cause--a lady, of course?”
”Nay; for once your Excellency is in error Our _desajio_ originated in so?”
”An endeavour on my part to do a service to Mexico and its honoured ruler”
”Oh, indeed! In ay, Senor Colonel?”
”That band of _filibusteros_, of which, as your Excellency will remember--”
”Yes--yes,” interrupted Santa Anna impatiently He evidently knew all about that, and preferred hearing no ht with, I suppose?”
”Yes, Excellentissiry at his being preferred to yourself, and so called hih to a man of yourthose at Mier?”
”He was”
”Killed there?”
”No, your Excellency; only taken prisoner”
”Shot at Salado?”