She was screaming with laughter.
“Oh, oh,” she gasped, “that I should have lived to see this! And he was going to kill me with that sword of his!”
Again she was forced to stop, and sat for some minutes rocking back and forth, shaking with laughter.
I glared at her and cursed her. If there be merit in curses that come from the very bottom of the soul, then is she damned eternally.
CHAPTER XI
TORTURE
But this devil did not heed my curses. Perhaps she knew herself damned already, and so feared God nor man. So, seeing her squatting laughing there, my wrath choked itself out, and I stood silent, hot with hate.
“Go on, Monsieur,” she screamed. “Do not stop, I beg of you. Oh, the delight of this moment!”
I bit my lips to keep them silent. That I, Pierre le Moyne, should be here, a dupe, a gull, a puppet, a fool, a make-sport for this creature!
“It is sublime,” she gasped, “this jest! Everything has played into my hands so nicely, and at last it is to be my turn. I have waited fifteen years for my turn, Monsieur, and now it has come. I think I shall tell you. It is too good to keep to myself; and then, too, I know the secret will be as safe with you as in the tomb,” and she paused to laugh again. “Those two creatures of d’Argenson endeavored to learn something about me, I’ll wager.”
“Yes,” I said, “but they found very little.”