"Then your company and the band of robbers in this forest are the same?"
"If you call them robbers,—they forage when there is need. I did not have them all at the chateau. The good fellows who brought you here were not at Lavardin with me. It is well, when one is in a place, to have resources outside. And so we meet again, my young interloper! You were rude to me once or twice at Lavardin. I shall pay you for that, and settle scores on behalf of my friend the Count as well."
"How much ransom do you want?" I asked bluntly. "Name a sum within possibility, and let me go for it immediately: you know well you can rely upon my honour to deliver it promptly at any place safe for both of us, and to keep all a secret."
"Do not insult me again. I have told you I am above purchase."
Despite his jesting tone, my hope began to fall.
"You are not above prudence, at least," I said. "I assure you there are people who will move earth and heaven to find what has become of me, and whose powers of vengeance are not light."
"If I went in fear of vengeance, my child, I should never pass an easy moment. I have learned how to evade it,—or, better still, to turn it back on those who would inflict it. I fear nobody. When the game is not worth the risk, one can always run away, as I did from Lavardin when the Count's death threw his men into a panic."
"Good God!" I cried, giving way to my feelings; "what will move you, then? What do you wish me to do? Shall I humiliate myself to plead for my life? shall I beg mercy? If I must descend to that, I will do so."
For you will remember another life than mine was staked upon my fate, and time was flying. How long could she endure without food, without drink, without renewal of air, in that locked-up place of darkness?
"Mercy, I beg," I cried, in a voice broken by fears for her.