Rogelio opened his mouth at him, then turned to Pedro. "Prisoner," he piped. Pedro made no sign of hearing him.
"Prisoner!" he repeated, and Pedro looked up, scowling.
"Ho! Art addressing me, _Veedor_? Then change my title. I am a cook. A cook, look thou! A cook bereft, plundered, despoiled, and ravished of a leg! Pray, hast seen it—my missing member?"
Rogelio hesitated, snuffled, and with dignity began again.
"Cook, I tell thee!" Pedro interrupted, explosively. "Thy prisoner hath flown—flown with three legs, one a stolen, and that one mine—not my best, in truth, only my second best; but nevertheless most grievously wanted. Hast seen it, Veedor?"
Rogelio’s mind was not alert. It could pursue a single line of thought with a sort of porcine tenacity, but the intrusion of a second idea produced derangement requiring time to readjust. His attention, now drawn to Pedro’s lost peg and his uncanny-looking stump, was not readily disengaged. He stood surveying the cook’s maimed member with fascination until in the slow revolution of his thoughts they should come back to their former connection. This achieved, he began again.
"Cook!" shouted Pedro, jerking himself erect and glaring at the _veedor_. The latter stopped, and Pizarro interfered.
"Be done, Pedro!" he commanded, angrily. "Cease interruptions and allow the _veedor_ to proceed. Continue, _Veedor_."
"Oh, in the devil’s name, let him have his way!" Almagro broke in. "Call him cook—anything—but begin, Rogelio!"
"Well—cook," said Rogelio, wiping his forehead, "thou art charged with having guilty knowledge of the means whereby the late prisoner, Cristoval de Peralta, hath effected his escape."
Pedro nodded gloomily. "So I have!" he assented. "’T is, alas, true! Unhappily I have such knowledge, _Veedor_. I know that he effected his escape on three legs, as I have said. May the third help him into hell! It was mine, I tell thee, and I want it back. What! Am I a centipede, thinkest thou, to go sloughing legs here and yon, all my days on earth? I’ve lost three, already—one of them mine inheritance of flesh and bone, the other twain hewn from good oak of Aragon. All gone! Stew me, I sicken of losing legs!"
The response produced a new tangle in Rogelio’s thread, and before he had it straightened Riquelme growled and took up the questioning.