"Stop, stop!" he cried in a choking voice to his friends.
The latter obeyed.
"I could kill you," Valentine said; "you are really in my power; but what do I care for your life or death? I hold both in my hands. Rise! Now, one word—take care that you do nothing against the count."
The general had profited by the hunter's permission to rise; but so soon as he felt himself free, and his feet were firmly attached to the ground, a revolution was effected in him, and he felt his courage return.
"Listen in your turn," he said. "I will be as frank and brutal with you as you were with me. It is now a war to the death between us, without pity and without mercy. If I have to carry my head to the scaffold, the count shall die; for I hate him, and I require his death to satisfy my vengeance."
"Good!" Valentine coldly answered.
"Yes," the general said sarcastically. "Come, I do not fear you! I do not care if you employ the papers with which you threatened me, for I am invulnerable."
"You think so?" the hunter said slowly.
"I despise you; you are only adventurers: You can never touch me."
Valentine bent toward him.