'Pardon, I gave what I got. I was as good a Spaniard and as great a devil as any. I carried my knife with the best of them, and drew it as quickly, and plunged it as deep. I've got scars, if you weren't a lady. But I'd warrant to find you their mates on a dozen Spanish hides!'
He seemed to pull with renewed vigor at the recollection. There was a short silence.
'Do you suppose,' said Madame Bernier, in a few moments—'do you remember—that is, can you form any idea whether you ever killed a man?'
There was a momentary slackening of the boatman's oars. He gave a sharp glance at his passenger's countenance, which was still so shaded by her position, however, as to be indistinguishable. The tone of her interrogation had betrayed a simple, idle curiosity. He hesitated a moment, and then gave one of those conscious, cautious, dubious smiles, which may cover either a criminal assumption of more than the truth or a guilty repudiation of it.
'Mon Dieu!' said he, with a great shrug, 'there's a question!... I never killed one without a reason.'
'Of course not,' said Hortense.
'Though a reason in South America, ma foi!' added the boatman, 'wouldn't be a reason here.'
'I suppose not. What would be a reason there?'
'Well, if I killed a man in Valparaiso—I don't say I did, mind—it's because my knife went in farther than I intended.'
'But why did you use it at all?'