Be dragged to death? No, old dog,
if die we must, we will go to death! We will die grandly, highly, as
becomes Tavannes! That when we are gone they may say, 'There died a
man!'"
"_She_ may say!" Bigot muttered, scowling.
Count Hannibal heard and glared at him, but presently thought better of
it, and after a pause--
"Ay, she too!" he said. "Why not? As we have played the game--for
her--so, though we lose, we will play it to the end; nor because we lose
throw down the cards! Besides, man, die in the corner, die biting, and
he dies too!"
"And why not?" Bigot asked, rising in a fury. "Why not? Whose work is
it we lie here, snared by these clowns of fisherfolk? Who led us wrong
and betrayed us? He die? Would the devil had taken him a year ago!
Would he were within my reach now! I would kill him with my bare
fingers! He die? And why not?"
"Why, because, fool, his death would not save me!" Count Hannibal
answered coolly. "If it would, he would die! But it will not; and we
must even do again as we have done. I have spared him--he's a
white-livered hound!--both once and twice, and we must go to the end with
it since no better can be! I have thought it out, and it must be. Only
see you, old dog, that I have the dagger hid in the splint where I can
reach it.
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