Page:Lady Barbarity; a romance (IA ladybarbarityrom00snai).pdf/124

 mockery. Then I looked upon them with great eyes of wonder, and then again began to dance and sing:

"A blackbird is my brother, I see him in that tree, A skylark is my lover,  But I prefer a bee."

While I was in the middle of this arrant nonsense, my good friend Flickers, who was paler than a ghost, hung on to his pistol with tenacity, for that piece of iron held all the little courage that he had. I could see the perspiration shining on his face, as he muttered in a voice that trembled like the ague:

"What you are I don't know. But if you're woman or if you're fiend, come a step nearer and I'll—I'll shoot you!"

He pointed the pistol, but the muzzle tottered so that he could not have hit a tree.

"Ha! ha! ha!" I laughed in my throat in a voice that was sepulchral, then danced before them once again and began to sing:

"Water cannot quench me, And fire cannot burn; Pray, how will you slay me?  That have I yet to learn."

The effect of this was to cause the pistol to drop on to the grass from his nerveless hand.

"Go—go 'way!" he stuttered; "go 'way, you—you witch!"