If I dared I would kill you at once, only then you would
haunt me as your mother haunts me, and also I must answer for it to
Cortes. Fear, Cousin Wingfield, is the father of cruelty, and mine makes
me cruel to you. Living or dead, I know that you will triumph over me
at the last, but it is my turn now, and while you breathe, or while one
breathes who is dear to you, I will spend my life to bring you and them
to shame and misery and death, as I brought your mother, my cousin,
though she forced me to it to save myself. Why not? There is no
forgiveness for me, I cannot undo the past. You came to take vengeance
on me, and soon or late by you, or through you, it will be glutted, but
till then I triumph, ay, even when I must sink to this butcher's work to
do it,' and suddenly he turned and left the place.
Then weakness and suffering overcame me and I swooned away. When I awoke
it was to find that my bonds had been loosed and that I lay on some sort
of bed, while a woman bent over me, tending me with murmured words of
pity and love. The night had fallen, but there was light in the chamber,
and by it I saw that the woman was none other than Otomie, no longer
starved and wretched, but almost as lovely as before the days of siege
and hunger.
'Otomie! you here!' I gasped through my wounded lips, for with my senses
came the memory of de Garcia's threats.
Pages:
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412