Without more ado, down was thrown gun, game bag, powder flask and shot-horn, and, bounding from point to point over all the intervening space, Capitola rushed into Hurricane Hall, and without an instant's delay ran straight into the parlor, where her epicurean friend, the young Creole, lay slumbering upon the lounge.
With her face now livid with concentrated rage, and her eyes glittering with that suppressed light peculiar to intense passion, she stood before him and said:
"Edwin! Craven Le Noir has defamed your cousin! Get up and challenge him!"
"What did you say, Cap?" said Mr. Percy, slightly yawning.
"Must I repeat it? Craven Le Noir has defamed my character—challenge him!"
"That would be against the law, coz; they would indict me sure!"
"You—you—you lie there and answer me in that way! Oh that I were a man!"
"Compose yourself, sweet coz, and tell me what all this is about! Yaw-ooo!—really I was asleep when you first spoke to me!"
"Asleep! Had you been dead and in your grave, the words that I spoke should have roused you like the trump of the archangel!" exclaimed Capitola, with the blood rushing back to her cheeks.
"Your entrance was sufficiently startling, coz, but tell me over again—what was the occasion?"