"Now give me the little pistol and the pearl-handled dagger out of the inner compartment in my traveling-bag.... The large, deep pocket that fastens with a snap. What! you would rather not!... You do not like to handle them.... Fi donc, Mademoiselle! A soldier's daughter—and guilty of such cowardice!..."
Juliette winced at the thrust. It was her turn to bite her lips. She steadied them and mastered her voice sufficiently to say:
"I dislike to touch such weapons, because I have never learned to use them. And I will ask you, Madame, not to speak jestingly of my father to me!"
"Give me the pistol and stiletto, then!" stipulated her tormentress.
In silence Juliette took one of the candles, and set it near the traveling-bag upon the table near the supper-tray which the chambermaid had neglected to remove. She dived into the deep pocket as directed, and drew out a double-barreled pistol, mounted in ebony and silver, and the dagger, a costly toy of Indian workmanship. Something else fell upon the floor with a faint tinkle. It was a miniature set with pearls, that had rolled under the table. She laid the pistol and dagger there, took the candlestick and stooped to pick the miniature up. The portrait within the oval of pearls and gold was that of a girl-child of some five years. In the pictured face that smiled up at her with eyes as deeply blue as the spring skies of Italy, Juliette with a thrill and shock indescribable, recognized herself....
"It was the August of 1856. Thou hadst five years, and thy curls were as soft and yellow as chicken-down.... Thy mother used to say: 'Juliette will never be black like me!'"
The beloved voice was in her ears, with the very throb of his aching heart in it. De Bayard's daughter knelt so long upon the floor, motionless, staring at the horror, that Adelaide accused her jestingly of having fallen asleep.
"Get up! Wake! Give me my pistol and the dagger. I call them my babies—they sleep under my pillow ever since—never mind!... Ah! You have blown out the candle.... Light it at this one!—or perhaps you will have light enough without it?... Ugh! how cold your hand is, you chilly little frog!"
Juliette had blown out the candle so that she might unseen return the portrait to the dressing-bag. Had Straz's Sultana not been heavy with laudanum, she would have perceived this.
Now she yawned, stretched, smiled, declared herself actually sleepy, in spite of a mattress apparently stuffed with potatoes and stones....