"If you move so much as a finger, I fire!"
So amazed was the invader that he made no attempt to stir, but stood looking at the woman before him with ashen face and dropped jaw.
"Dick Ingle," said Margaret, still with pistol levelled, "you have pursued me for years, first with your unwelcome love and then with malignant hate; you have lied about me to Thomas White; you have tried to ruin my life. Now you say you have killed my brother. Is there any reason why I should not kill you? Nay, do not move so much as a hair, or you are a dead man. I know how to shoot, and I have no hesitation in taking life. Answer me. Have you not deserved death at my hands?"
"The devil take my soul!—I have."
"I like you for owning it. I like you for appealing to the devil, whom you love and serve, instead of to God. If you had denied your deviltries, I swear I would have put a bullet through your heart. As it is, I am satisfied. Go!"
She lowered her pistol and stood looking at him, alone, helpless, unprotected. So he had seen her in imagination many times. So he had vowed he would have no mercy. Now she had shown mercy. She had held his life in her hand, and had spared it. This was the worst of all the wrongs she had done him. The thought galled him beyond endurance. Quick as lightning, he raised his pistol and fired, then covered his eyes with his arm. God forgive the wretch! He loved this woman still.
When he looked again the vision stood there yet, the eyes still dominating him, a cool smile on the haughty lips.
"Coward!" was all she said; but it was enough. Ingle, the redoubtable, the terror of the seas, the conqueror in fifty combats with desperate men, turned and ran as though the fiends were after him. The groups of his men that he passed, seeing a sight never before witnessed,—their leader fleeing with a look of terror on his face,—joined in the retreat toward the steps which led down the bluff, crying as they went, "To the ships! to the ships! Ingle! Ingle!"