'Stand aside, Captain Guebhard!' said she haughtily, and now dreading every moment to hear the step of Cecil ascending the path; 'stand aside—from this day you and I must be to each other as the dead.'
'As the dead—yes—be it so. I know you hate me now—though once you did not do so.'
'I never even valued you as a friend, though you flattered yourself that you stood even higher than a friend in my estimation; and now as a deserter from the Servian cause——'
'I am more Bulgarian than Servian in my blood, perhaps more Italian than either,' said he, hotly. 'Milano omitted to give me the cross, though I had won it in our first battle, so I have assumed the crescent in its place; that is all—and the crescent will prevail in the end.'
'Never! we shall live to see the crescent thrust into Asia or the sea; but as I did not come here to talk politics, I have the honour to wish you good-morning, Captain Guebhard, and trust that our comedietta is over.'
'It is a tragedy, as you may find,' was the grim and menacing response.
'What do you mean, sir?'
'Simply what I say.'
'Insolent! But I fear you will never make your fortune as a Romeo.'
Oaths never rose to the lips of Guebhard; he was—though a finished villain—too polished a man to indulge in such: but terrible was the hatred that baffled passion was now raising in his lawless breast. A dark and angry red shot for a moment across his usually pallid face, and his eyes gleamed with a vindictiveness of expression that made the heart of Margarita throb wildly, and with sudden apprehension; but she could not pass him.