The locksmith going on,
arrested it half-way.
--'Until she had but a minute to live. Then she broke silence, and said,
in a low firm voice which no one heard but this executioner, for all
other living creatures had retired and left her to her fate, "If I had
a dagger within these fingers and he was within my reach, I would strike
him dead before me, even now!" The man asked "Who?" She said, "The
father of her boy."'
Sir John drew back his outstretched hand, and seeing that the locksmith
paused, signed to him with easy politeness and without any new
appearance of emotion, to proceed.
'It was the first word she had ever spoken, from which it could be
understood that she had any relative on earth. "Was the child alive?" he
asked. "Yes." He asked her where it was, its name, and whether she had
any wish respecting it. She had but one, she said. It was that the boy
might live and grow, in utter ignorance of his father, so that no arts
might teach him to be gentle and forgiving. When he became a man,
she trusted to the God of their tribe to bring the father and the
son together, and revenge her through her child. He asked her other
questions, but she spoke no more.
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