But they were so far from any such thing that they condemned him to be shot.
Then a voice was heard at the door. The sentinel there stumbled back, and Don Tiburcio brushed by him into the room.
"Old man," he called, "come with me! Your daughter----"
Murguía started up, weakly swaying. The senile eyeballs, so lately parched by fear, swam in a moisture not of avarice. Someone was speaking to him of his daughter. He had not seen her yet. They would not let him. And now he must think of her in this new connection, which was his death. And her misery to learn it, and her misery, afterward! On the morrow they would be taking him to the capital, his sentence would be confirmed, he would be shot. Nothing of this he doubted. And he would never see her again.
Murguía stretched out his arms toward the president of the court, "You will let me go to her, señor? Your Mercy will let me go to her?" He murmured her name over and over, "María de la Luz! María--Luzita mia!" until the words became a kind of crooning. Then he would break forth again, entreating, commanding, "Your Mercy will let me see her? Señor, you _will_ let me see her!"
At the first note of intrusion Lopez had brought the pommel of his sword down upon the box in front of him. But the syllables of the girl's name seemed to get into his memory, and he began to stare with a puzzled frown at the half-crazed old man. Lifting his eyes, he met Tiburcio's, and Tiburcio himself nodded in some deep hidden significance. Lopez straightened abruptly, as at an astounding revelation.
"Tell me, Señor Murguía," he said, "your daughter--Yes, yes, man, you shall see her!--But listen, what is she like? Has she large black eyes? Does she wear red sometimes? Come, señor, answer!"
The father gazed, wonderingly, jealously. How should an elegant officer from the City and the Court know aught of María de la Luz?
Tiburcio crept behind the sofa, and bending to Lopez's ear, he whispered, "Si, si, mi coronel, she is the one you have in mind, and she is his daughter."
Lopez swung round and searched the blackmailer's face. "And now----"
"You will let him come," said Tiburcio. "But bring two guards. And have four others with--well, with a stretcher."
Again Lopez searched the dark crescent that was Tiburcio's eye, and again Tiburcio nodded with deep significance. "Bring him," he repeated, "but tell him nothing. Seeing will be enough."