“I know it would,” says I, “and by that token am I going to stay. A rebel, Captain, snaps her fingers at the King.”
Thereupon I as suddenly sat down. But none the less I admitted the prudence and foresight of the Captain; also thought his situation was a pretty one. He knew the weakness of his heart and the imminence of his duty, and that in my humble person he had found a most determined enemy to both. He was in my toils, indeed, nor must I loose a single bond ere the pressure had been applied, and his will had been bent to my devices.
Therefore, with gentle smiles I played him. Tender was my interest in his mental state and physical; deplored as deeply his splintered limb as his heart’s disturbance; and wore an ingenious air of sympathy, both for him and for myself, that I should have unwittingly conferred such pain upon an unoffending gentleman.
“My dear Captain, had I only known,” says I, “I would neither have bestowed a pistol on a prisoner nor a glance upon yourself.”
“I cannot say which has wrought the greater havoc,” says the Captain, lifting up his painful face.
“Sir, you can, I think,” says I, gazing at him with my brightest eyes.
He admitted the witchery of them, for he laughed and dropped his own.
“True,” he sighed. “God help me!”
“This is no particular season for your prayers,” I answered, softly, and sighed much the same as he. “Am I so much a devil then, or to be avoided like one? Had you been a brother I could not deplore your accident more tenderly.”
“No, no; not that,” says he.