Count Hannibal

Bigot stopped him with an oath that was in part a cry of pain.

"D---n her!" he exclaimed in fury, "'tis she is that besides! I know

it. 'Tis she has been our ruin from the day we saw her first, ay, to

this day! 'Tis she has bewitched you until your blood, my lord, has

turned to water. Or you would never, to save the hand that betrayed us,

never to save a man--"

"Silence!" Count Hannibal cried, in a terrible voice. And rising on his

elbow, he poised the dagger as if he would hurl it. "Silence, or I will

spit you like the vermin you are! Silence, and listen! And you, old ban-

dog, listen too, for I know you obstinate! It is not to save him. It is

because I will die as I have lived, fearing nothing and asking nothing!

It were easy to bar the door as you would have me, and die in the corner

here like a wolf at bay, biting to the last. That were easy, old wolf-

hound! Pleasant and good sport!"

"Ay! That were a death!" the veteran cried, his eyes brightening. "So I

would fain die!"

"And I!" Count Hannibal returned, showing his teeth in a grim smile. "I

too! Yet I will not! I will not! Because so to die were to die

unwillingly, and give them triumph. Be dragged to death? No, old dog,

if die we must, we will go to death! We will die grandly, highly, as

becomes Tavannes! That when we are gone they may say, 'There died a

man!'"

"She may say!" Bigot muttered, scowling.

Count Hannibal heard and glared at him, but presently thought better of

it, and after a pause-"Ay, she too!" he said. "Why not? As we have played the game--for

her--so, though we lose, we will play it to the end; nor because we lose

throw down the cards! Besides, man, die in the corner, die biting, and

he dies too!"

"And why not?" Bigot asked, rising in a fury. "Why not? Whose work is

it we lie here, snared by these clowns of fisherfolk? Who led us wrong

and betrayed us? He die? Would the devil had taken him a year ago!

Would he were within my reach now! I would kill him with my bare

fingers! He die? And why not?"

"Why, because, fool, his death would not save me!" Count Hannibal

answered coolly. "If it would, he would die! But it will not; and we

must even do again as we have done. I have spared him--he's a

white-livered hound!--both once and twice, and we must go to the end with

it since no better can be! I have thought it out, and it must be. Only

see you, old dog, that I have the dagger hid in the splint where I can

reach it. And then, when the exchange has been made, and my lady has her

silk glove again--to put in her bosom!"--with a grimace and a sudden

reddening of his harsh features--"if master priest come within reach of

my arm, I'll send him before me, where I go."