He said, “Won’t you give me that light?”
And I understood he demanded a surrender.
“I would see you die first where you stand,” was my answer.
This object in my hand had become endowed with moral meaning—significant, like a symbol—only to be torn from me with my life.
He lifted his head; the light twinkled in his eyes. “Oh, I won’t die,” he said, with that bizarre suggestion of humour in his face, in his subdued voice. “But it is a small thing; and you are young; it may be yet worth your while to try and please me—this time.”
Before I could answer, Seraphina, from some little distance, called out hurriedly:
“Don Juan, your arm.”
Her voice, sounding a little unsteady, made me forget O’Brien, and, turning my back on him, I ran up to her. She needed my support; and before us La Chica tottered and stumbled along with the lights, moaning:
“Madré de Dios! What will become of us now! Oh, what will become of us now!”
“You know what he had asked me to let him do,” Seraphina talked rapidly. “I made answer, ‘No; give the light to my cousin.’ Then he said, ‘Do you really wish it, Señorita? I am the older friend.’ I repeated, ‘Give the light to my cousin, Señor.’ He, then, cruelly, ‘For the young man’s own sake, reflect, Señorita.’ And he waited before he asked me again, ‘Shall I surrender it to him?’ I felt death upon my heart, and all my fear for you—there.” She touched her beautiful throat with a swift movement of a hand that disappeared at once under the lace. “And because I could not speak, I———Don Juan, you have just offered me your life—I——— Misericordia! What else was possible? I made with my head the sign ‘Yes.’”