"Hear me, camarado, I have to punish thee for robbing me of a thousand ducats——"
"I swear that Merodé never gave them to me!"
"Silence! I have to punish Ernestine, the count's daughter, for robbing me of my hard won gold and treasury bills, and for leaving me like a fool, drugged, senseless, and snorting, for two days in Fraü Krümple's hut; I have to punish Carlstein, for riding over me like a dog in the streets of Vienna, without a word of pity, because he knew me to be Bandolo. (Ha! did not that name bring one thought of terror to his haughty heart?) I have to punish the Scottish Captain Rollo, for wounding, discovering, and disarming me—for insulting me, and crossing my purposes, and marring my profits on a hundred occasions; last of all, I am not to be outwitted by a mere animal like thee; and thus I rob thee of thy ducats, and avenge myself like Bandolo the Spaniard—like the man I have always been!"
He levelled a pistol at Gabrielle, but it flashed in the pan; and that flash showed her a face that froze her very blood; for the pallid and distorted visage of the Spaniard, with his inflated nostrils, and sharp jackal-like teeth, made him resemble a fiend—a vampire—any thing but a man. Yet she sprang forward, and said in a piercing voice, while clasping her trembling hands, and bending upon him a timid and imploring smile—a smile that would have fascinated the most ascetic saint, and softened even the heart of a Nero—
"Ah, Spaniard, you cannot have the heart to kill me! I never did you wrong."
Bandolo laughed like a hyena, and cocked his second pistol; then she uttered a wild cry, and hung upon his arm, saying—
"Spare me—spare me! Do not kill me—I am too young to die—I must see my sister—do not kill me—none shall know—none shall hear! Spare me, and you will be rewarded—my father—my sister——"
The bright flash of the pistol was followed by a dull, but terrible sound: the barbarian had shot her dead, and she fell quivering at his feet.
Unfortunate Gabrielle!
"Now go to Hesinge—to the Schottlanders—-and get your eight hundred ducats, or so much as this carrion is worth!" said Bandolo, as he sprang through the thicket, and vanished.