"Blood and murder!" she shrieked, jumping up and down with convulsive gestures; "murder and damnation! blood, blood, blood!"
"All this for me?" said D'Alvimar, unable to conceal his terror at that moment.
"For you! for you!" cried the frenzied creature, "and death and hell! soon, instantly, within three months, three weeks or three days! damned! damned! hell!"
"Enough! enough!" said Bois-Doré, who understood but little Spanish, but who saw that D'Alvimar was pale and on the verge of swooning; "this child is possessed of a bad devil, and it may be that it is sinful to listen to her."
"Yes, monsieur," rejoined D'Alvimar, "doubtless she is possessed of the devil, and her threats are vain and beneath contempt, for hell is powerless against the will of God; but if I were châtelain and dispenser of justice here, I would throw this brigand and this vile worm into prison, and I would hand them over to——"
"La la!" said Monsieur de Beuvre, "there is no reason for being so angry. I don't know what was said to you, but I am surprised that you ended by sneering at it. However, I agree that this mad young monkey's gusts of temper are a disgusting comedy, and I see that my daughter is disturbed by them. Come, knave," he said to La Flèche, "we have had enough. Keep the tokens, if all consent, and go and get yourself hanged elsewhere."
La Flèche had not awaited this permission to decamp. He was in great haste to elude the Spaniard's benevolent designs in respect to him.
Little Pilar was not at all disturbed. On the contrary, she picked up the gold and silver pieces which had served as tokens, and when she came to D'Alvimar's stone she threw it disdainfully at his feet. He was so angered that he would perhaps have treated her as he did the young wolf, had he still the weapon of which he had made such prompt and deadly use.
But when he involuntarily felt for it, he found nothing, and Lauriane, who was watching him, congratulated herself upon having disarmed him. He met her eyes and made haste to smile; then he tried to change the conversation, and Bois-Doré asked Lucilio for an air on the bagpipe to dispel the unpleasant effect of this episode, while La Flèche, carrying his great basket on his head and his instruments of magic under his arm, and dragging along with the other hand the little sybil, still quivering from head to foot, hastily passed the drawbridge and portcullis.
"Now will you give me something to eat?" she said, when they were in the open country.