Once again Dick laughed.
“Nay, ’tis a beautiful thing,” he said, holding it in the palm of his hand, the point toward her. “Think you not so?”
The girl shrank away and he bent toward her. “You said you loved another, mistress,” he said suddenly, fiercely. “Is it truth?”
Anny smiled at him fearlessly.
“Ay, sir, truth!” she said quietly.
The Spaniard’s smile returned, and the blue knife with the gold band on it seemed suddenly to have become part of his hand as with a deft movement he laid the bright steel against the girl’s bosom.
Hal and Sue leaned forward to see this new foolery of the Captain’s, each thinking that his love-making was a little too open to be decent.
“Oh! my sweet one, how fair my blade looks against thy white breast,” said Dick, his eyes holding Anny’s. “You gave me back my ring, but I am generous; see, I give it back to you.” With the last words the knife seemed suddenly to quicken and spring from his hand, and Anny staggered back from the table, her hand clasped to her breast.
“Oh! how you hurt me, sir,” she said simply, the smile still on her lips and her cheeks still bright with the excitement of a moment before. Then her eyes closed and she dropped on to the floor, the little thud her body made on the stone flags echoing all round the kitchen like a thunder-clap, and the knife Black’erchief Dick held was red blood up to the hilt.
He looked at it dazedly, a horrified expression on his usually inscrutable face.