Dame Krümpel sprang to her slipshod feet. Bandolo grasped a pistol, rushed to the lattice, and, pressing his nose against it, peered out into the darkness of the forest, and at that instant Ernestine set down her drugged cup of the kirschwasser, and took up his.
"No one is there—por el nombre de Dios, if there was!" growled Bandolo grinding his teeth as he uncocked his pistol, and for a moment became almost sobered; while the beldam in the corner snorted herself asleep again. "Hoity, toity, my poor little Tit—'tis only your perverse fancy! Come, drink with me; this cup of cherry-water will brace your nerves, and set all right in heart and head—it will, by the henckers! (I am half German, you see—even as you are half Spaniard;) ha! ha! Come, my bride—let us clink our cans and be merry."
With a pale and trembling hand Ernestine raised the cup in the old German fashion, clinked it side by side, above and below, with the drugged cup of the subtle but unconscious bravo, and then drained its contents. He gave her a long stare of triumph and derision; then burst into a loud laugh, and drank off his wine at one gulp.
He then set down the cup, and while continuing to look at Ernestine with a leering expression, broke into a German drinking song which he had heard among Tilly's Reitres, and, mingling with it scraps of a Spanish gipsy ballad, rolled his head from side to side with a wild expression of face, that increased every moment.
The song died away in quavering murmurs on his lips; once or twice he raised his hands, but they fell heavily by his side.
Then it seemed suddenly to flash upon his mind, the faculties of which were fast obscuring, that he had drunk of the wrong cup; and the smile of bitter triumph that curled the beautiful lip of Ernestine, and the wonder that sparkled in her haughty eyes, convinced him that it was so!
"Ah, traitress—that cry—you have outwitted me! I thought you had swallowed this drag—it now spreads a drowsy numbness over every limb. Traitress—ass that I am—I have fallen into my own trap—I have drugged myself—she will escape! Maldicion—de—de—Maldetto! By the henckers; I will put a ball through you—I will—I will!——"
Erecting himself on his feet, where he swayed to and fro like a figure on a pivot, he endeavoured to grasp Ernestine; but she started back.
At that moment his aspect was frightful.
Inflamed by passion and desire, ferocity and revenge, his features were alternately brightened by a wild leer, or contracted and savage. His eyes were glittering with that white ghastly glare which some Spanish eyes can alone assume; and, balancing himself on each leg alternately, he approached the bold but startled girl, while his hands wandered nervously among the weapons in his belt. Suddenly he fell prostrate, speechless, and almost unable to move; but his glaring eyes—still fixed on Ernestine—shewed that, though the drugged kirschwasser had fettered every limb, his senses had not yet left him.