Page:Lady Barbarity; a romance (IA ladybarbarityrom00snai).pdf/196

 "You wish me to withdraw, sir?" says I, regretfully and meekly; and, though I was never better complimented, I pretended to be hurt. Therefore, I rose suddenly upon his words.

"The King's commission would be safer," he replied.

"I know it would," says I, "and by that token am I going to stay. A rebel, Captain, snaps her fingers at the King."

Thereupon I as suddenly sat down. But none the less I admitted the prudence and foresight of the Captain; also thought his situation was a pretty one. He knew the weakness of his heart and the imminence of his duty, and that in my humble person he had found a most determined enemy to both. He was in my toils, indeed, nor must I loose a single bond ere the pressure had been applied, and his will had been bent to my devices.

Therefore, with gentle smiles I played him. Tender was my interest in his mental state and physical; deplored as deeply his splintered limb as his heart's disturbance; and wore an ingenious air of sympathy, both for him and for myself, that I should have unwittingly conferred such pain upon an unoffending gentleman.

"My dear Captain, had I only known," says I, "I would neither have bestowed a pistol on a prisoner nor a glance upon yourself."

"I cannot say which has wrought the greater havoc," says the Captain, lifting up his painful face.