Then my senses came to me: I knew what had happened—what was bound to follow; and I began to speak wildly and to pray her to prevent bloodshed between them.
I scarce know what I said; but the words poured from my lips, and for very despair I checked them not. I told her of my orphan state—of that lone grave in Barbadoes, and the sad young mother who had died of a broken heart; I spoke of the long, long journey over seas, the love that had come into my life, and the dreams and the hopes that had filled our thoughts when we reached the fair, strange shores of this new country; and I prayed her, as she was a woman and a wife, to let no harm come to my dear love.
"Ah! madame," I cried, "a face so fair as yours needs not the championship of one English stranger, who holds already a preference for blue eyes and yellow hair. I grant you that he has a sorry taste; but oh! I pray you, stop this duel!"
She loosed her hand from the clasp of mine, and looked at me a moment in silence; then she laughed bitterly.
"Thou little fool! Thou little blue-eyed fool! What do men see in that face of thine to move them so? A painter might love thee for the gold of thy hair, thy white brow, and thy blue eyes,—they would grace a pictured saint above a shrine,—but for a man's kisses, and such love as might tempt him to risk his very life for thee,—cielos! it is more than passing strange." Then, as I stood dumb before her, she tapped me lightly on the cheek. "Go to! Art such a fool as to think that either sword will be drawn for my beauty's sake?"
CHAPTER VIII.
That night I had but little sleep.
About an hour after midnight there was a great stir in the house and the sound of opening doors and hurrying footsteps. The unwonted noises terrified me. I leaned against the door, with a heart beating thickly, and I listened. What evil tidings did those sounds portend? There was a loud outcry in a woman's voice,—the voice of Doña Orosia.