"Do you know where he is?" he quickly interrupted her.
He gave her a scrutinising glance, which she endured without letting her eyes sink.
"You know that I am now entirely devoted to you," she said, candidly.
"Pardon me--I am wrong: go on, I beg you."
"When I said I wished to ask your advice, I was wrong; I should have said I had a prayer to address to you."
"Be assured that if it be possible for me to grant it, I will do so without hesitation."
White Gazelle stopped for a moment; then, making an effort over herself, she seemed to form a resolution, and went on:
"You have no personal hatred to Red Cedar?"
"Pardon me. Red Cedar is a villain, who plunged a family I love into mourning and woe: he caused the death of a maiden who was very dear to me, and of a man to whom I was attached by ties of friendship."
White Gazelle gave a start of impatience, which she at once repressed. "Then?" she said.
"If he fall into my hands, I will remorselessly kill him."
"Still, there is another person who has had, for many years, terrible insults to avenge on him."
"That is true; he told me he had a fearful account to settle with this bandit."
"Well," she said quickly, "be kind enough to let my uncle, I mean Bloodson, capture Red Cedar."
"Because the hour has arrived to do so, Don Valentine."
"Ever since the bandit has been confined in the mountains with no hope of escape; I was ordered by my uncle to ask you to yield this capture to him, when the moment came for it."
"But suppose he let him escape!" said Valentine.
She smiled with an indefinable expression.
"That is impossible," she answered, "you do not know what a twenty years' hatred is."
She uttered these words with an accent that made the hunter, brave as he was, tremble.
Valentine, as he said, would have killed Red Cedar without hesitation, like a dog, if chance brought them face to face in a fair fight; but it was repulsive to his feelings and honour to strike a disarmed foe, however vile and unworthy he might be. While inwardly recognising the necessity of finishing once for all with that human-faced tiger called Red Cedar, he was not sorry that another assumed the responsibility of such an act, and constituted himself executioner. White Gazelle carefully watched him, and anxiously followed in his face the various feelings that agitated him, trying to guess his resolution.