It was a blow. Poor Bythewood, too luxurious and inert to be a great villain, was only a weak one; and, wounded in his most sensitive point, his pride, he writhed for a space with unutterable chagrin and rage. Then he recovered himself. He had heard the worst; and now there was nothing left for him but to cast down and trample with his feet (so to speak) the mask that had been torn from his face.
"Very well! You think you know me, then!"—He seized her wrists.—"Now hear me! I am not to be spurned like a dog, even by the foot of the woman I love. You reject, despise, insult me. As for me, I say this: all shall be as I have pronounced. Your father, your lover,—not Fate itself shall intervene to save them! And as for you——"
Again he heard a rustling by the ravine; this time so near that it startled him. He looked quickly around, and saw, slowly peering through the bushes, a dark human face. Had it been the terrible front of the Fate he had just defied, the soul of Augustus Bythewood could not have shrunk with a more sudden and appalling fear. It was the face of Pomp.
XLV.
MASTER AND SLAVE CHANGE PLACES.
The sergeant and his men were several rods distant: the bush through which that menacing visage peered was within as many feet. Augustus reached for his revolver.
"Make a single move—speak a single word—and you are food for the buzzards!" came a whisper from the bush that well might chill his blood. "You know this rifle—and you know me!" And in the negro's face shone a persuasive glitter of the old, untamable, torrid ferocity of his tribe—not pleasing to Augustus.
"What do you want?"
"Give your revolver to that girl—instantly!"