She admitted that she was afraid—­a little.

“And why?” he inquired.

“Because I’ve heard that you kill people,” she bravely told him.

“Oh, but that isn’t so!” Angela broke in, fearful that the mere mention of killing would bring about a murder then and there.  “I’m sure it isn’t!” Nothing must be said to raise the thought in Pancho’s mind.

“Why are you so sure?” Lopez demanded.

“It couldn’t be!  It couldn’t be!” Angela declared.  “Anyone so romantic as you, so—­” And she tried to look her pleasantest.  He must be placated, this wretched man.

“You are wrong,” Lopez informed her, and also the entire room, “I do kill.”  Lucia, who had taken a seat near him, now drew back in alarm.  He was quick to see her action.

“You need not be afraid,” he heartened her.  “I shall not ’urt you.  That is, not yet.  The chile—­” she dished some out for him, hurriedly.  “So!  You are afraid of me because I kill people, eh?” He leaned back, and his lids contracted until his eyes looked wicked and sinister.  The spangles on his sleeves trembled like leaves.

“A little,” Lucia managed to say.

“You sink it wrong to kill?” Pancho wanted to know, gulping down a great mouthful of chile, and smattering a huge slice of bread with butter.  He ate with his knife, like a glutton.  He smacked his lips, and wiped them on the sleeve of his coat, where the brass buttons gleamed picturesquely.

“You talk of killing in such a matter-of-fact way,” Lucia observed.

“An’ why not?” Lopez asked.

The cook brought in the coffee-pot and put it on the table.

“Does life mean as little to you as that?” Lucia asked another question.  This man was an enigma.  He was bad through and through.  They were as helpless as cattle in his hands.

“Life?” Lopez smiled.  “To be ’ere—­zat is life.  Not to be ’ere—­” he gulped down some steaming coffee—­“zat is death.  Life is a leetle thing—­unless it is one’s own.”  He put the big cup down and put in four spoonfuls of sugar, stirred it diligently, and looked around him, the wonder of a child in his face.

“You do kill your prisoners, then?” Lucia brought out.

“Sure!” laughed Pancho.

Could she have heard aright?  “You do?” she cried, and her cheeks took on an ashen hue.

“Ciertamente!” the bandit stated, as though they were talking of the weather.  “You capture ze preesoner.  You ’ave no jail to put ’im in.  You pack him around wiz you.  If you let ’im go, ’e come back to fight you again.  So you kill him.  Eet is very simple.”

“But it seems so cold-blooded!” Lucia said.

“Ah! to you, perhaps!  It is ze difference between zose who live in safety and zose who live in danger.  In safety you ’ave ze bill to pay.  You pay it and you forget it.  In danger you ’ave enemy to kill.  You kill ‘im an’ you forget ’im. Save?” And another heaping knifeful of the chile con carne went into his mouth.