He looked the young man in the face,
So full of hate, so frank of hate;
The other, standing in his place,
Stared back as straight and hard as fate.
And now he sudden turned away,
And now he paced the path, and now
Came back, beneath the orange-bough
Pale-browed, with lips as cold as clay.
As mute as shadows on a wall,
As silent still, as dark as they,
Before that stranger, bent and gray,
The youth stood scornful, proud, and tall.
He stood, a tall palmetto-tree
With Spanish daggers guarding it;
Nor deed, nor word, to him seemed fit
While she prayed on so silently.
He slew his rival with his eyes;
His eyes were daggers piercing deep,—
So deep that blood began to creep
From their deep wounds and drop wordwise:
His eyes so black, so bright that they
Might raise the dead, the living slay,
If but the dead, the living, bore
Such hearts as heroes had of yore:
Two deadly arrows barbed in black,
And feathered, too, with raven’s wing;
Two arrows that could silent sting,
And with a death-wound answer back.
How fierce he was! how deadly still
In that mesmeric, hateful stare
Turned on the pleading stranger there
That drew to him, despite his will:
So like a bird down-fluttering,
Down, down, beneath a snake’s bright eyes,
He stood, a fascinated thing,
That hopeless, unresisting, dies.
He raised a hard hand as before,
Reached out the gold, and offered it
With hand that shook as ague-fit,—
The while the youth but scorned the more.