Yet Guebhard, perhaps, could not have told whether he most loved or hated the memory of the girl he had destroyed.
He knew that too probably, if steel and lead failed, if once in the grasp of Cecil, the latter would trample him to death, choke him like a viper with a heel upon his throat; and, sooth to say, such was the terrible idea that occurred to the pursuer at times while, with fiery exultation, he found himself gaining upon his prey.
The sweat of a great mortal agony gathered on the temples of Guebhard; his mouth was parched; his breath came short and fast; and, half-turning in his saddle, he could see, in the starlight, the white set face of his pursuer almost within arm's length of him, and the outstretched head of his horse more than once actually in a line with his crupper.
The black beard had fallen off now.
'How,' thought Cecil; 'how came it to pass that this man, so full of the common vulgar terror of mere physical peril, ever turned soldier—even in name!'
He next thought it was fortunate that, owing to the slowness of the past day's march, and the short length of it, his horse was tolerably fresh; but that of Guebhard seemed to be in the same condition.
He recalled the assassin-like attempts on his own life; his being tracked in the forest; wellnigh done to death and buried alive; he recalled the forged document which brought, for a time, dishonour on him and destruction close indeed; but more than all did he think of Margarita, done to death so terribly; and Guebhard thought of all these things as he rode wildly on, and the other as wildly and madly pursued him.
He had wrested her from his enemy, and what he had done he would not have undone even had he the power. Since she would not, and could not, be his, she was lost to the other—dead!—taken by his hand, and yet he feared to die!
Whatever the wretch Guebhard felt when alone was given way to there, in the darkness, to the full. No spectator or chance visitor—none of those with whom he had mingled in the Turkish camp—ever saw a change in the pale, delicate, and immutable face of the destroyer, or could have detected the dread secret his calm, soft smile concealed.
He had always feared, however, that sooner or later retribution would come; that his desertion, if not his other crimes, would find him out, and strike him down in the hour of fancied security, and now—now it seemed that the time of fate had come!