interpose, these executioners were cut down with the "crimson
blade" (cold steel); and we bore off our friend with more of eagerness
and triumph than at all befitted our own consciousness of power, or
suited the temper of our Chief.

Never did Esmo speak so sharply or severely as in the brief reprimand
he gave us when we reassembled; the justice of which. I instinctively
acknowledged, as he ceased, by the salute I had given so often at the
close of less impressive and less richly deserved reprimands on the
parade ground or the march. Uninjured, and speedily relieved from the
effects of the _quarry_, Davilo was carried off to a place of
temporary concealment, and we dispersed.

Eveena heard my story with more annoyance than interest, mortified not
a little by the reproof I had drawn upon myself and my followers; and,
despite her reluctance to seem to acknowledge a fault in me,
apparently afraid that a similar ebullition of feeling might on some
future occasion lead to serious disaster.

CHAPTER XXIX - AZRAEL.

To detain as a captive and a culprit, thus converting my own house
into a prison, my would-be murderess and former plaything, was
intolerably painful. To leave her at large was to incur danger such as
I had no right to bring on others. To dismiss her was less perilous
than the one course, less painful than the other, but combined peril
and pain in a degree which rendered both Eveena and myself most
reluctant to adopt it. From words of Esmo's, and from other sources, I
gathered that the usual course under such circumstances would have
been to keep the culprit under no other restraint than that
confinement to the house which is too common to be remarkable,
trusting to the terror which punishment inflicted and menaced by
domestic authority would inspire. But Eive now understood the limits
which conscience or feeling imposed on the use of an otherwise
unlimited power. She knew very nearly how much she could have to fear;
and, timid as she was, would not be cowed or controlled by
apprehensions so defined and bounded. Eveena herself naturally
resented the peril, and was revolted by the treason even more
intensely than myself; and was for once hardly content that so heinous
a crime should be so lightly visited. In interposing "between the
culprit and the horrors of the law, she had taken for granted the
strenuous exertion of a domestic jurisdiction almost as absolute under
the circumstances as that of ancient Rom