[CHAPTER XXIX.]
THE AMBUSCADE.
If the lightning had struck the ground at the Spanish girl's feet, it would not have caused her greater terror than this revelation, which she was far from expecting, made in a dear, dry, and unmoved voice.
Her features were contracted—the blood mounted to her head—she tottered on her horse, and would have fallen off, had not Valentine held her. But overcoming by the strength of her will the terrible emotion that troubled her, she repulsed the young man, saying in a firm voice, and with an implacable accent:
"You are well informed, sir; such is my intention."
Valentine felt momentarily stupefied. He regarded this woman, who had hardly emerged from childhood, whose lovely features, distorted by the passions that agitated them, had become almost hideous: he recalled, as in a dream, another woman nearly as cruel whom he had once known. An indescribable feeling of sorrow pervaded his heart at the terrible reminiscence thus suddenly evoked. So much perfidity seemed to him to go beyond the limits of human wickedness; and for an instant he almost fancied himself in the presence of a demon.
"And you dare confess it to me?" he at length said, with badly concealed terror.
"And why not? What can you do to me? Kill me! A glorious revenge for a brave man! And, besides, what do I care for life? Who knows? perhaps, without wishing it, and fancying you are punishing me, you would do me an uncommon service by killing me."
"Kill you? Nonsense," the hunter said, with a smile of contempt. "Creatures of your kind are not killed. In the first flush of passion we crush them under our boot heel, like venomous reptiles: but, on reflection, we prefer plucking out their teeth. That is what I have done, viper? Now bite if you dare!"
A fearful rage took possession of the Spanish girl; she raised her whip, and with a movement more rapid than thought struck Valentine across the face, merely hissing the word: