"Then it was YOU that was doggin' us on the Marsh?"

"It was the sarjint I was lavin', Miss."

She looked at him hesitatingly.

"Stay outside there; if you move a step into the room, I'll blow
you out of it."

He stepped back on the gallery. She closed the door, bolted it,
and still holding the gun, opened a cupboard, poured out a glass of
whiskey, and returning to the door, opened it and handed him the
liquor.

She watched him drain it eagerly, saw the fiery stimulant put life
into his shivering frame, trembling hands, and kindle his dull eye--
and--quietly raised her gun again.

"Ah, put it down, Miss, put it down! Fwhot's the use? Sure the
bullets yee carry in them oiyes of yours is more deadly! It's out
here oi'll sthand, glory be to God, all night, without movin' a fut
till the sarjint comes to take me, av ye won't levil them oiyes at
me like that. Ah, whirra! look at that now! but it's a gooddess
she is--the livin' Jaynus of warr, standin' there like a statoo,
wid her alybaster fut put forward."

In her pride and conscious superiority, any suggestion of shame at
thus appearing before a common man and a mendicant was as
impossible to her nature as it would have been to a queen or the
goddess of his simile. His presence and his compliment alike