Have you
dared to delude me by showing the wrong desk?"
Dolly met his gaze still, and then walked towards him. The band had
struck up, and the company were singing with a fine patriotic roar,
which rang very nobly in the distance--"Britannia, rule the waves!"
Dolly felt like a Briton as the words rolled through her, and the melody
lifted her proud heart.
"You have deluded yourself," she said, standing proudly before the
baffled spy; "you have ransacked my father's private desk, which I
allowed you to do, because my father has no secrets. He leaves it open
half the time, because he is a man of honour. He is not a man of plots,
and wiles, and trickery upon women. And you have deluded yourself, in
dreaming that a daughter of his would betray her Country."
"By the God that made me, I will have your life!" cried Carne in
French, as he dashed his hand under his coat to draw his dagger; but the
pressure of the desk had displaced that, so that he could not find it.
She thought that her time was come, and shrieked--for she was not at all
heroic, and loved life very dearly--but she could not take her eyes from
his, nor turn to fly from the spell of them; all she could do was to
step back; and she did so into her father's arms.
"Ho!" cried the Admiral, who had entered with the smile of good cheer
and good company glowing on his fine old countenance; "my Dolly and a
stranger at my private desk! Mr. Carne! I have had a glass or two of
wine, but my eyes must be playing me extraordinary tricks.
Pages:
628
629
630
631
632
633
634
635
636
637
638
639
640
641
642
643
644
645
646
647
648
649
650
651
652