"I want you to listen to me, for I have not said all yet."
"What more can you have to tell me?" the other asked sadly.
"Arouse yourself like the man you are, instead of remaining any longer crushed beneath the pressure of despair, like a child or a weak woman. Is there no hope left in your heart?"
"Did you not tell me that this man had an implacable will which nothing could resist?"
"I did say so, I allow; but is that a reason for giving up the struggle? Do you suppose him invulnerable?"
"Yes," he exclaimed eagerly, "I can kill him."
The capataz shrugged his shoulders contemptuously.
"Kill him," he repeated, "nonsense; that is the vengeance of fools! Moreover, you will still be able to do that when all other means failed. No--you can do something else."
Don Martial looked at him earnestly. "You hate him too then, since you do not fear to speak to me as you are doing?"
"No matter whether I hate him or not, so long as I am willing to serve you."
"Besides," the capataz continued, "do you forget who recommended you to me?"
"Valentine; yes, Valentine, who saved my life as you have done, and to whom I have vowed an eternal gratitude."
"Oh," Don Martial said mournfully, "Valentine himself has given up any further contest with this demon."
The capataz grinned savagely. "Do you believe that?" he asked ironically.
"Grief makes you egotistic, Don Martial," the other replied; "but I forgive you on account of the sufferings I have most unluckily caused you."
He broke off, poured out a glass of sherry, swallowed it, and sat down again on his butaca.
"He would be a bad physician," he continued, "who, having performed a painful operation, did not know how to apply the proper remedies to cicatrize and cure it."
"What do you mean?" the Tigrero exclaimed interested, in spite of himself, by the tone in which those words were uttered.
"Do you believe," the capataz continued, "do you believe, my friend, that I would have inflicted such great pain on you if I had not possessed the means to cause an immense joy to succeed it? Tell me, do you believe that?"
"Take care, señor," the Tigrero said in a trembling voice, "take care what you are about, for I know not why, but I am beginning to regain hope, and I warn you that if this last illusion which you are trying to produce were to escape me this time, you would kill me as surely as if you stabbed me with a dagger."