nd you to
the last drop of my blood; but I should be vanquished by numbers, and I
should die with the knowledge that you were left to them. How horrible!
I shudder to think of it. Come--you must go."

"Yes! yes, my angel!" she cried, kissing me passionately on the cheek.

These caresses, the first a woman had given me since my childhood,
recalled, I know not how or why, my mother's last kiss, and, instead of
pleasure, caused me profound sadness. I felt my eyes filling with tears.
Noticing this, she kissed my tears, repeating the while:

"Save me! Save me!"

"And your marriage?" I asked. "Oh! listen. Swear that you will not marry
before I die. You will not have to wait long; for my uncles administer
sound justice and swift, as they say."

"You are not going to follow me, then?" she asked.

"Follow you? No; it is as well to be hanged here for helping you to
escape as to be hanged yonder for being a bandit. Here, at least, I
avoid a twofold shame: I shall not be accounted an informer, and shall
not be hanged in a public place."

"I will not leave you here," she cried, "though I die myself. Fly with
me. You run no risk, believe me. Before God, I declare you are safe.
Kill me, if I lie. But let us start--quickly. O God! I hear them
singing. They are coming this way. Ah, if you will not defend me, kill
me at once!"

She threw herself into my arms. Love and jealousy were gradually
overpowering me. Indeed, I even thought seriously of killing her; and I
kept my hand on my hunting-knife as long as I heard any noise or voices
near the hall. They were exulting in their victory. I cursed Heaven for
not giving it to our foes. I clasped Edmee to my breast, and we remained
motionless in each other's arms, until a fresh report announced that the
fight was beginning again. Then I pressed her passionately to my heart.

"You remind me," I said, "of a poor little dove which one day flew into
my jacket to escape from a kite, and tried to hide itself in my bosom."

"And you did not give it up to the kite, did you?" asked Edmee.

"No, by all the devils! not any more than I shall give you up, you, the
prettiest of all the birds in the woods, to these vile night-birds that
are threatening you."

"But how shall we escape?" she cried, terror-stricken by the volleys
they were firing.

"Easily," I said. "Follow me."

I seized a torch, and lifting a trap-door, I made her descend with me to
the cellar. Thence we passed into a subterra