"Tell where it is and your father's life will be spared."
She glanced at M. Roussillon.
"No, Alice," said he, with a pathetically futile effort to make a fine gesture, "don't do it. I am brave enough to die. You would not have me act the coward."
No onlooker would have even remotely suspected the fact that M. Roussillon had chanced to overhear a conversation between Hamilton and Farnsworth, in which Hamilton stated that he really did not intend to hurt M. Roussillon in any event; he merely purposed to humiliate the "big wind-bag!"
"Ah, no; let me die bravely for honor's sake—I fear death far less than dishonor! They can shoot me, my little one, but they cannot break my proud spirit." He tried to strike his breast over his heart.
"Perhaps it would be just as well to let him be shot," said Hamilton gruffly, and with dry indifference. "I don't fancy that he's of much value to the community at best. He'll make a good target for a squad, and we need an example."
"Do you mean it?—you ugly English brute—would you murder him?" she stamped her foot.
"Not if I get that flag between now and sundown. Otherwise I shall certainly have him shot. It is all in your hands, Mademoiselle. You can tell me where the flag is." Hamilton smiled again with exquisite cruelty.
Farnsworth stood by gazing upon Alice in open admiration. Her presence had power in it, to which he was very susceptible.
"You look like a low, dishonorable, soulless tyrant," she said to Hamilton, "and if you get my flag, how shall I know that you will keep your promise and let Papa Roussillon go free?"