"Regard now, Master Innocence," said she, holding up one hand and ticking off these several items on her fingers as she spoke: "You have crossed me once. You have beat me once. You have refused me honourable fight. You have hurt me with vile club. And now you would leave me here alone to perish--"

"All true save the last," quoth I, finding my breath with strange difficulty, "for though alone you need not perish, for I will show you where--where you--shall find abundance--of food--and--" But here I stopped and gasped as an intolerable pain shot through me.

"Ah--ah!" said she, leaning forward to stare at me keen-eyed. "And doth it begin to work--yes? Doth it begin so soon?"

"Woman," I cried, as my pains increased, "what mean you now? Why d'ye stare on me so? God help me, what have you done--"

"The milk, fool!" said she, smiling.

"Ha--what devil's brew--poison--"

"I warned you but, being fool, you nothing heeded--no!"

Now hereupon I went aside and, dreading to die thus miserably, thrust a finger down my throat and was direly sick; thereafter, not abiding the sun's intolerable heat, I crawled into the shade of a rock and lay there as it were in a black mist and myself all clammy with a horrible, cold sweat. And presently in my anguish, feeling a hand shake me, I lifted swooning eyes to find this woman bending above me.

"How now," said she, "wilt crave mercy of me and live?"

"Devil!" I gasped. "Let me die and be done with you!"

At this she laughed and stooped low and lower until her hair came upon my face and I might look into the glowing deeps of her eyes; and then her arms were about me, very strong and compelling.

"Look--look into my eyes, deep--deep!" she commanded. "Now--ha--speak me your name!"

"Martin," I gasped in my agony.

"Mar--tin," said she slowly. "I will call you Martino. Look now, Martino, have you not seen me long--long ere this?"

"No!" I groaned. "God forbid!"

"And yet we have met, Martino, in this world or another, or mayhap in the world of dreams. But we have met--somewhere, at some time, and in that time I grasped you thus in my arms and stared down thus into your eyes and in that hour I, having killed you, watched you die, and fain would have won you back to life and me, for you were a man,--ah, yes, a man in those dim days. But now--ah, bah! You are but poor fool cozened into swallowing a harmless drug; to-morrow you shall be your sluggish self. Now sleep, but know this--I may slay you whenso I will! Ah, ah--'tis better to win my love than my hate." So she loosed me and stood a while looking down on me, then motioned with imperious hand: "Sleep, fool--sleep!" she commanded and frowning, turned away. And as she went I heard her singing of that vile song again ere I sank into unconsciousness:

"There are two at the fore.
At the main hang three more
Dead men that swing all of a row--"

Martin Conisby's Vengeance by Farnol, Jeffery, 1878-1952

CHAPTER IV

HOW I LABOURED TO MY SALVATION