Читать книгу Faithful Margaret - Mrs. J. M. Simpson - Страница 9

"Away with you to rest," ordered Calembours. "We have had enough of you for to-night, by gar! A little more might be bad for you."

Away sneaked the shivering wretch, and lay down among the soldiers at a neighboring camp-fire, and, apparently, fell fast asleep. The brother colonels abused him with mutual heartiness for a while, and then parted to seek their own slumbers.

Toward the morning a yellow mist drifted from the neighboring cypress swamp and brooded over the camp. St. Udo stirred in his sleep at the touch of its clammy breath, and opened his eyes.

And over him hung a face, its wolfish eyes fastened upon his, a thievish hand creeping into his bosom, almost touching him with his gray hair, almost stifling him with a damp hand held an inch above his nostrils. Thoms knelt beside him!

In a moment St. Udo had sprung to his feet and caught him by the throat. A book fell from the long brown hand—his little pocket-album.

"What the duce do you want, confound you?" thundered St. Udo.

Thoms lifted his weary old face supplicatingly, and held up his shaking hands for mercy.

"Are you a thief, or an assassin?" demanded St. Udo, releasing him as unworthy of his wrath, in his age and weakness.

"I—I thought you were dead, colonel," stammered the wretched old creature. "You lay so still that I—I felt your heart to find if it beat."

"Another lie, you old fool," mocked St. Udo. "What did you want with my private album? Answer me, sir."

The old man's speechless look of mock wonder at the album lying upon the ground, his thin, gray locks damp with perspiration, his abject terror and abject helplessness, all appealed to the haughty St. Udo's forbearance. He pushed him contemptuously away with his foot.

"Get up; you are merely a skulking villain. You are not worth my ire!" exclaimed St. Udo. "And mind that you never approach me again, on peril of your life."

"Don't—don't order me away. Let me stay near to watch—to save you!" whined the miserable Thoms.

"Confound safety! if I am to get it at the hands of a worm like you!" shouted St. Udo. "Why do you haunt me day and night? Why do you run upon my trail like a sleuth-hound? The next time I detect anything like this, by all the gods, I'll shoot you down!"

Away stole the trembling Thoms, and was met and stared at by the little chevalier, coming to have an early breakfast with his friend.

"Another raid into Thoms, mon ami?" questioned he, anxiously.

"Who is that devil?" cried St. Udo, passionately.

"Heaven knows! ma foi. I wish we did," quoth the chevalier.