“My fortune,” said Christian, laughing contemptuously, “went into your pocket, you thief! It was so little that I don’t care much about it, either way. And as to my life, try and take it, if you think best.”
“It has been in my hands, Christian,” said Guido, who, as soon as he was assured of his enemy’s generosity, had recovered all his assurance; “possibly it may be so again. You had outraged me, and I was strongly tempted by opportunity to revenge myself; but I could not forget that I had once loved you; and even now, in spite of your additional insults, it only depends upon you to have me love you as much as ever.”
“Many thanks,” replied Christian, shrugging his shoulders; “come, away with you! I have no time to listen to your pathetic drivelling; I have known it by heart this long time.”
“I’m not so guilty as you think, Christian. When I robbed you in the Carpathians it was out of my power to do otherwise.”
“That is just what everybody says who has surrendered himself to the devil.”
“I had surrendered myself to the devil, it is very true, for I was the chief of a band of robbers. My comrades had marked you out for a victim; their eyes were upon us, and, if I had not taken good care to drug you, so as to prevent a useless resistance, they would have killed you.”
“Then I am under obligations to you. Is that what you are driving at?”
“That is it, exactly. I am now in a fair way to make my fortune. Even to-morrow I shall be in a position to restore all that I took from you—forced to do so by men whom I could not control as I wished. A few days later they robbed me myself, and left me in exactly the same case in which you were left.”
“They did quite right. You richly deserved it.”
“Christian, do you remember the amount that was taken from you?”