She might have been able to find something more agreeable to say; but she gave me this half compliment in a voice so sweet and a look so sincere, that I was moved to the depths of my soul. So true is it, that if the air is pretty, the words of a song do not matter.

She held out to me her beautiful hand, and I had already put my own out to take it, when she suddenly withdrew it, and said: "Where will you get the material for a dike?"

"Under our feet! the turf!"

"The water will wash it away."

"Not under two hours. After us, the deluge!"

"Good!" This time she gave me her hand and I was about to carry it to my lips, but she quickly withdrew it again. "We are guarded night and day, have you thought of that?"

I had not even thought of it, but I was too well on my way to recoil before any obstacle. I replied with a resolution which astonished me: "The Corfuan? I will see to him. I will tie him to a tree."

"He will cry out."

"I will kill him."

"And the arms to do it with?"