"Monsieur, you are here at my mercy——"
"At yours—tonnerre de Ciel! well?"
"I am about to kill you by a platoon of musketry."
"Would you dare to murder me—a prisoner of war—in cold blood?" said he, starting.
"Yes—as a spy and assassin; you will therefore have the Christian spirit, I trust, to make your peace with Heaven, and to reveal to me the fate of your wife—of Eulalie de Mazancy—on board that vessel, the schooner Les Droits ds l'Homme, off Barbadoes."
As I said this with considerable solemnity, he changed colour. Rage, malignant hatred, and fear, were all very plainly expressed in his pale and marble-like visage. His stern brow grew frightfully contracted, and glistening beads of perspiration seemed to start from the old sabre-cut that had traversed it. He knocked the ashes carefully from his cigar, and then tossing it away, spat full at me, in all the fury of impotent wrath, and uttered the single word—
"Never!"
It seemed to come from the depths of his chest. He covered his face with his hands; then starting up erect, he cried in a voice of stern authority,—
"Lead on—I am ready."
"Follow me," I replied.