“Ah; and she laughed at the dear captain, as we all heard. But you, senhor, made an effort to induce her to change her mind—did you not?”
“I?” returned Valcour. “By no means, senhor. It is better she should die than marry this brutal Captain de Souza.”
This speech seemed to confirm my suspicion that Valcour himself loved Lesba. But Paola cast one of his quick, searching glances into the spy’s face and seemed pleased by what he discovered there.
“May I speak with my sister?” he asked, a moment later.
“Impossible, senhor. She must remain in solitary confinement until the hour of execution, for the captain’s gallantry will not permit him to bind her.”
Then, approaching de Pintra, Valcour stood a moment looking down at him and said:
“Sir, you have made a noble fight for a cause that has doubtless been very dear to you. And you have lost. In these last hours that you are permitted to live will you not make a confession to your Emperor, and give him the details of that conspiracy in which you were engaged?”
“In Rio,” answered Dom Miguel, quietly, “there is now no Emperor. The Republic is proclaimed. Even at this moment the people of our country are acclaiming the United States of Brazil. Senhor, your power is ended. You may, indeed, by your master’s orders, murder us in this far-away province before assistance can reach us. But our friends will exact a terrible vengeance for the deed, be assured.”
Valcour did not answer at once. He stood for a time with knitted brows, thoughtfully regarding the white-haired chieftain of the Republic, whose brave utterances seemed to us all to be fraught with prophetic insight.
“If your lives were in my hands,” said the spy, with a gesture of weariness, “you would be tried in a court of justice. I am no murderer, senhor, and I sincerely grieve that de Souza should consider his orders positive.”