Here Hermoine astounds him, for she answers, her brave eyes looking into his and her voice as determined as his: “Yes, this trip you shall!” then falters: “I—I couldn’t bear to suffer as I have done before. When you go to the front again, I go with you. Colonel Guido Amati de Medina shall have a wife. But you shall not think of this till you’re well, and that will be a long time, I’m afraid,” and the girl looks at a slight scar upon her lover’s forehead as if it were a mortal hurt.
At this he anathematizes himself as a heartless wretch to let her mourn for him so long, no matter his duty and his oath to friend, for he sees in the lovely face the lingering traces of a cruel sorrow.
A minute after his sweetheart gives Guy a start. She suddenly cries: “Why what a prophet that little De Busaco is! He—he must have second sight!”
“De Busaco! You have seen him?” mutters the putative Guido Amati anxiously.
“Yes, he’s in the garrison at Lillo, sent there to recover. Frost got into the poor little lieutenant’s wounds after the battle on the ice. Hearing he had seen the last of you, my Guido,” she catches Guy’s hand at this, as if she feared she would lose him even now, “I sent for him and deftly inquired—as if with the interest of a passing friend—Oh, I controlled my feelings well!—how you had passed away. And he told me; but before he left said, ‘I venture this is not the last you will see of Colonel Guido Amati.’ ‘Why not?’ I gasped, a wild hope in my heart. ‘Did you not see him fall?’ ‘Yes,’ De Busaco said nonchalantly, and I thought his manner very heartless then, ‘but my friend, Colonel Guido Amati, has a cat’s nine lives, and at present he has only sacrificed one of them.’ Did the lieutenant guess they would spare your life?”
“Perhaps,” answers Guy. “This English cut-throat, as you call him, not only spared, but saved my life, guarded me, took me to Enkhuysen, and when I lay [[215]]there with the fever of my wounds, saw that I was as well nursed out of it, as if I were his very self.”
“Then he’s not an English cut-throat.”
“No, he’s an English knight, and some day I hope you’ll say he is a gentleman even worthy of your esteem.”
“And so he is! He saved your life from the knives of these cruel Dutch freebooters,” says the girl suddenly; then mutters in a horrified way: “And I induced papa to increase the reward for your savior’s head. Heaven forgive me!—ten thousand crowns are now offered for the man who saved your life!”
“Diablo!” replies Guy, not over pleased at what he hears. “The Englishman is very well able to take care of himself, so we’ll let him alone and return to Colonel Guido Amati.”