"Faugh!" She snapped her fingers in his face. "That for your comrades! Fools they are, as blind as you yourself. Why, my first aim was to save you from their fate! 'Twas so I planned. What can they do against Constantinople? They are helpless; anon they will come crawling on their knees begging food."
"They prevailed against the city once," returned Hugh calmly.
"They? You deceive yourself! 'Twas not they, but I. Oh, I wot well old Dandolo stormed a few towers, but what did he gain thereby? Naught but dead men and sore wounds. 'Twas all you could do with his aid to withstand the Greeks who came against you from the city. Had there been any one but the False Alexius, craven hound, to lead our people, they, would have torn you in pieces. Even so, 'twas my father and I turned the city from Alexius, and put Isaac back on the throne—and when the time is ripe we will put another in his place."
Hugh shrugged his shoulders.
"Have it as you will, lady. I will abide in patience whatever end God hath for me."
"'Tis a sorry end," she flashed. "A puling, bloody, tortuous end of whining misery. We will make use of you—as we made use of your host—and when we have that which we seek, we will cast you in a dungeon to die—as those of the host will die from battle and hunger and thirst."
Hugh held silent. By speech, he perceived, he only inflamed still further the woman's hatred. But she was not finished with him. She came close to him, so close that her breath fanned his cheek.
"As for that trumpery, white-and-gold demoiselle you thought to find, Messer Hugh, know that I shall make it my especial charge to see that she comes to no less pleasant an end than yours. Ah, that hurts, doth it? I have touched your fears. Be assured I will have her in mind. For the present, 'tis true, I may not touch her. But a time is coming when she will be in my power. Then——" She laughed again that shrill, hysterical peal, fraught with madness—"then, I say, I may choose to place the wreckage that was you so that you may see the sport these black men make of her."
Hugh's face grew purple; the veins swelled out on his forehead. Even Helena shrank back before the hatred in his face.
"You are not a woman," he said hoarsely. "You are a devil. May God condemn you to the depths of hell! May the Virgin turn her face from you and mark your wickedness before the world! May the Fore-runner and He who came after him condemn you in the Court of Heaven! May Holy Peter at the Gate——"