"Stand down, Marie," cried Wat, "or they will surely do you an injury. I saw a man's head behind yon highest dune."
"I care not so be they kill me outright. I do not want to be only wounded," answered the Little Marie, laughing recklessly. Nevertheless, she began obediently to descend.
Wat's warning came too late. Haxo himself, full of bitterness and foaming with the desire for vengeance, had managed to limp near enough to witness the destruction of his men in the defile. While the girl was priming her pistols, he had taken careful aim. Now he fired.
Marie gave a low, quick cry and put her hand to her breast to feel where the wound was. Then she steadied herself and attempted to go on with the preparation of her pistol.
But with a little moan of pain she sank back into Wat's arms, who gently laid her down in the shade of the wall. Scarlett brought her water in the brim of his broad hat. He sprinkled it on her face. A brief examination showed that Haxo's bullet had struck the girl an inch above the left breast. Scarlett and Wat looked squarely at each other. The significance of that single glance was not lost on the Little Marie.
A bright look of manifest joy instantly overspread her face.
"I am glad—very glad," she said, fighting a little with her utterance; "lift me up so that I may tell you. I am glad that I am to die. Yes, I know it. I wished nothing else. I tried so hard to die to-day, my captain, fighting your enemies; for I knew that I should never see you again, that you would sail away without a thought for the Little Marie who wrought so hard to take you out of prison. I knew that you were going to seek one whom you love, and that I could not come with you. But now I can keep you—keep you all, till it is time for me to go away."
She put an arm up about Wat's neck as he bent over her and drew his head down.
"Only this once," she said, smiling. "Even she would not be angry, for she has all—I nothing. And it is right—right—oh! so right. For you could not love the Little Marie—wife and mother she could not be; her life had been wicked—yet her heart was not all bad. And oh! but she loved you—yes, she loved you so dear. She could not help that—nor could you, my captain. Forgive Marie for loving you. But, then, you should not have spoken so graciously to the poor girl to whom none ever spoke kindly or gently."
Wat bent over the girl.