"Baron de Bach, you're talking crazy nonsense. You don't frighten me, but you do disgust me. You think to get some Peruvian amusement out of frightening a woman; well, you had better go to a bull-fight. I detest you! Let me go or I'll cry out!"
He puts one hand over my mouth and holds me as in a vise.
"Dthank you, Blanca! You gif me courage. I haf tell you how a Peruvian loaf; I vill tell you how he plan. In dthe bay off Panama ees my yacht. I vill keep you in Guatemala vhile I send for her, and dthen ve go to Peru, to Ceylon—anyvhere you like but America. I write Madame Steele you air my vife, and she vill soon zee ve air not to be find; she vill go back to New York. It ees no use dthat you cry out, no von hear, or if von do, you spik no Spanish, and I haf my pistol if any interfere. I tell you so much dthat you make no meestake. Ve air not far from dthe house of two old friends of me. Dthey vill take care off you, till my yacht come; you need not fear me, Señorita." He loosens his grasp for an instant, and the dark street seems to whirl. I would have fallen if he had not caught me. I hear, as one dreaming, the caressing words of Spanish—I scarcely feel the hot kisses.
"I'm all alone," I think, looking down the silent street to a far-off lamp, and then up to the brilliant sky, but even that seems strange, for instead of my old friends in heaven, the Southern Cross shines cold and far above me.
"Guillermo," I say, steadying myself against his arm, "you would make a terrible mistake. You don't understand Northern women. You say you love me, and in the next breath you plan to ruin my whole life. I would make you more misery than ever a man endured, and I should hate you bitterly and without end."
"It ees no use dthat you zay such dthings."
"Guillermo, don't let your love be such a curse to me."
"Yes. If any other man had roughly treated me, had abused my confidence, and, finding me defenceless, had forgotten what all brave men owe to women—what would you do to such a man?"
The Peruvian puts his hand before his eyes.