ink so?"

"I know so!"

Nick hoped she did.

"And all I regret is," added the vixenish Spaniard, "that the bullet of
my watchman did not end your villainous life."

"We can end it now, senora, if you say the word," put in Matthew Stall,
with grim readiness.

Nick never accepted such scenes as this at their face value, for he had
witnessed many a similar game of bluff. This one might be all right and
on the level, he reasoned, yet there still existed the possibility that
he was recognized, and that these remarks implying the contrary were
only a part of some well-laid plan.

"If you think I'm a thief, why don't you hand me over to the police?" he
shrewdly demanded.

The ruse worked. For a moment Cervera was caught with no ready reply,
and Nick promptly decided that he was known, hence could not well be
given to the police.

Yet these parties so obviously aimed to hide the fact that he was known
to be Nick Carter, that Nick quickly resolved to let them have all the
rope they wanted, and to meet them with a counter-move--that of boldly
declaring his own identity, and so disarming them of any misgiving that
he had recognized Kilgore and Matthew Stall, or even had any suspicions
of Senora Cervera.

It was a very clever counter, and Nick went at it cleverly.

"Why don't you give me to the police, if you think I'm a thief?" he
repeated, when Cervera made no reply.

"The police?--bah!" she now cried, with a sneer. "For what? That you may
square yourself in some way, or make your escape, and then come back
here to attempt the job again?"

"H'm!" thought Nick. "They don't want to let me go before learning what
I suspect. I won't do a thing but fool them in that."

"Police be hanged!" Cervera quickly added. "In my country we have a
surer way of removing such villains as you."

"What way?" queried Nick, coolly.

"_Caramba!_ The garrote!"

"Choke 'em off, eh?"

"Or the poniard!"

"A stab between the ribs, I take it."

"Yes! It is what you deserve."

"But you will not try it on me," declared Nick, confidently.

"Don't you be too sure of it."

"Oh, I'm sure enough of it."

"The law would never reach us--don't think that," cried Cervera, with a
passionate sneer. "_Caramba!_ we'd plant your miserable bones where
they'd never be found. Don't think, you wretch, that we fear to do it."

"Yet I don't fear that you will."

"You don't?"

"Not I, Senora Cervera."

"How dare you utter my name with your foul