much of a Picaroon. I think the gallows should
be your end."

I gave rein to my exasperation, because I felt myself hopelessly in his
power. What he was driving at, I could not tell. I had an intolerable
sense of being as much at his mercy as though I had been lying bound
hand and foot on the floor. It gave me pleasure to tell him what
I thought. And, perhaps, I was not quite candid, either. Suppose I
provoked him enough to fire his pistol at me. He had been fingering the
butt, absently, as we talked. He might have missed me, and then.... Or
he might have shot me dead. But surely there was some justice in Cuba.
It was clear enough that he did not wish to kill me himself. Well, this
was a desperate strait; to force him to do something he did not wish to
do, even at the cost of my own life, was the only step left open to
me to thwart his purpose; the only thing I could do just then for the
furtherance of my mission to save Seraphina from his intrigues. I was
oppressed by the misery of it all. As to killing him as he stood--if I
could do it by being very quick with the old rapier--my bringing up, my
ideas, my very being, recoiled from it. I had never taken a life. I was
very young. I was not used to scenes of violence; and to begin like this
in cold blood! Not only my conscience, but my very courage faltered.
Truth to tell, I was afraid; not for myself--I had the courage to
die; but I was afraid of the act. It was the unknown for me--for my
nerve--for my conscience. And then the Spanish gallows! That, too,
revolted me. To kill him, and then kill myself.... No, I must live. "Two
lives, one death," she had said..... For a second or two my brain reeled
with horror; I was certainly losing my self-possession. His voice broke
upon that nightmare.

"It may be your lot, yet," it said. I burst into a nervous laugh. For a
moment I could not stop myself.

"I won't murder you," I cried.

To this he said astonishingly, "Will you go to Mexico?"

It sounded like a joke. He was very serious. "I shall send one of the
schooners there on a little affair of mine. I can make use of you. I
give you this chance." It was as though he had thrown a bucketful of
water over me. I had an inward shiver, and became quite cool. It was his
turn now to let himself go.

It was a matter of delivering certain papers to the Spanish commandant
in Tamaulipas. There would be some employment found for me with the
Royal troops. I was a relation of the Riego