'Does the fool dare!'

'Who dare what?'

'You know what I mean. Do you suppose old Miriam carries letters
without taking care to know what is inside them? Will he
apostatise? Tell me. I am secret as the grave!'

'The fool has found an old worm-eaten rag of conscience somewhere in
the corner of his heart, and dare not.'

'Curse the coward! And such a plot as I had laid! I would have
swept every Christian dog out of Africa within the year. What is
the man afraid of?'

'Hell-fire.'

'Why, he will go there in any case, the accursed Gentile!'

'So I hinted to him, as delicately as I could; but, like the rest of
the world, he had a sort of partiality for getting thither by his
own road.'

'Coward! And whom shall I get now? Oh, if that Pelagia had as much
cunning in her whole body as Hypatia has in her little finger, I'd
seat her and her Goth upon the throne of the Caesars. But--'

'But she has five senses, and just enough wit to use them, eh?'