"Yes, señor."

"Wore you," the Spaniard spoke slowly--"wore you black armor? Wore you
in your helm a knot of rose-colored velvet?... Ah, it was you unhorsed
me, then!"

"Again, señor, the fortune of war."

A spasm distorted for the moment De Guardiola's every feature. So often
of late had chagrin been pressed to his lips that the cup had grown
poisonous. When he spoke it was with a hollow voice: "Had not Mexia come
in between us!... The light caught the velvet knot upon your helm and it
flamed like a star. I, Luiz de Guardiola, lying at your feet, looked up
and saw it blaze above me like an evil star!" His hand fell heavily upon
the table. "The star may fall, Englishman!"

"The helm that bore the star may decline to earth," answered Ferne. "The
star is fixed--beyond thy snatching, Spaniard!"

Thrust in Mexia, leaving El Dorado for the present less gilded plight of
the Spanish: "Fifty thousand ducats! Holy Virgin! Are we Incas of
Peru--Atahualpas who can fill a hall with gold? Now, twenty thousand--"

"I will not pay one peso," said De Guardiola. His voice, low and
vibrant, was as a warder thrown down. On the instant, all the length of
the table, the hurried speech, the growing excitement, the interchange
of taunt and bravado, ceased, and men leaned forward, waiting. The
silence was remarkable. Down in the square was heard the sentinel's
tread; from a bough that drooped against the wall a globe of vegetable