“Och! blood, turf, and murther! If there isn’t that Frinch scoundhrel Dubrosc!”
I looked up. The man was standing over us.
“Ah, Monsieur le Capitaine!” cried he, in a sneering voice, “comment vous portez-vous? You came up dove-hunting—eh? The birds, you see, are not in the cot.”
Had there been only a thread around my body, I could not have moved at that moment. I felt cold and rigid as marble. A thousand agonising thoughts crowded upon me at once—my doubts, my fears on her account, drowning all ideas of personal danger. I could have died at that moment, and without a groan, to have ensured her safety.
There was something so fiendish in the character of this man—a polished brutality, too—that caused me to fear the worst.
“Oh, heaven!” I muttered, “in the power of such a man!”
“Ho!” cried Dubrosc, advancing a pace or two, and seizing my horse by the bridle, “a splendid mount! An Arab, as I live! Look here, Yañez!” he continued, addressing a guerillero who accompanied him, “I claim this, if you have no objection.”
“Take him,” said the other, who was evidently the leader of the party.
“Thank you. And you, Monsieur le Capitaine,” he added ironically, turning to me, “thank you for this handsome present. He will just replace my brave mustang, for whose loss I expect I am indebted to you, you great brute!—sacre!”
The last words were addressed to Lincoln; and, as though maddened by the memory of La Virgen, he approached the latter, and kicked him fiercely in the side.