"Come, come!" he said at last. "You must sleep over this, Hume! You must not set me a task beyond my power—I——"
But I broke in upon him with a curse. "What!" I shrieked. "You bragged and bleated of the torture you had in store for me—and when I bid you kill me as I wish to die, you shrink and blanch and mouth your feminine humanity. But you've given me your promise—and you'll keep it or by—" I finished with a storm of maledictions so blasphemously horrible, and which I delivered with such wild and awful force, that even the stolid negroes staggered back and rolled their eyes. As for Sir Charles, he turned sheet white before I was half through, and with a look of something marvellously resembling terror, he turned and simply rushed out of the room.
I screamed my curses after him, straining and tugging at my bonds like one possessed. But at length, thoroughly outworn with the exertion, I stopped and feigned to swoon.
Next moment the cellar was in darkness, and I heard the negroes stumble out and bolt the door behind them.
I'll not relate the anguish I endured that night, more than to say it made an old man of me—in mind, if not in body. I did not sleep. I could not if I would, for I was companied with memories sharp enough to sting a soul from torpor deep as death. And I would not, if I could, because I feared that those were by me who might take advantage of my slumber to extend my sleep beyond mortality.
But none came near me, and through the dragging hours I heard no sound. Morning came without the black dark lessening one whit, until the negro, Beudant, brought a candle with some breakfast. He was plainly afraid of me at first, and without doubt I was not a pleasant thing to gaze upon. But his fears faded as he fed me and saw me grateful for the food.
"You are in a gentler mood, monsieur, than overnight," he presently remarked. "It is better so, believe me. If I were you, I would not die upon a cross."
"Just so," I answered quickly. "I do not wish to die at all, would you like to make yourself a rich man, M. Beudant?"
"Why, yes, monsieur."
"Then help me to escape, and I shall fill your hands with gold."