Now, merely to prove that I have both the inclination and power to carry out my threat, I will have you shot.

Lope! Garzo!" Two of the ragged bandits immediately appeared.
"Bind me the arms of this man and blindfold him." The order was deftly obeyed.
"Now take him from my sight and shoot him." Seizing Ridge by the shoulders, the men began to drag him away.
Until this moment he had not known whether to acknowledge himself an American or claim to be a Spaniard, nor had he believed that the extremely courteous leader of bandits with whom he had just breakfasted, and who might be either a Cuban patriot or a Spanish guerilla, would do him serious injury.

Now, moved by an agony of terror, he shouted out the word whispered to him a few hours before by the commander of the _Speedy_, the secret countersign of the Cuban Junta.
Its effect was magical.

The men who were dragging him to a summary execution loosed their hold and stared at him in amazement, while the young leader sprang to where Ridge stood, tore the bandages from his eyes, severed his bonds, and embraced him.
"Why, my brother, did you not disclose your identity long ago ?" he said.
"Because," replied Ridge, in a voice that still trembled from his recent fright, "I knew not to which side you belonged." "What! Did you for a moment think that I might be a vile Spaniard?
I, Enrico del Concha, a Cuban of the Cubans?
Alas! that such a suspicion should fall upon one of my name." "And what," inquired Ridge, "did you take me for ?" "A Spanish spy, of course.

Do you not speak the language without even a Cuban accent?
Did you not decline to tell me how or what you were?
Above all, did you not carry on your person despatches addressed to certain Spanish generals ?" Ridge clapped a hand to his breast pocket.
"Yes, senor, they are gone," laughed the other.
"My rogues are clever thieves, and took them from you when we first met, together with your money, for which they were searching.
Hereafter you must provide for your private papers a place of greater safety.