“You tell me that I shall soon be dead,” he exclaimed, ignoring this talk of Noie. “Well, I am not frightened. I don’t believe you know anything about it, but if you are right the more reason I should live while I can. According to you, Rachel, we have no time to waste in a long engagement. When is it to be?” “Never!” she answered contemptuously, “in this or any other world. Never! Why, you are hateful to me; when I see you, I shiver as though a snake crawled across my foot, and when I look at your hands they are red with blood, the blood of my parents and of Noie’s parents, and of many others. That is my answer.” He looked at her a while, then said: “You seem to forget that I am only asking for what I can take. No one can see you or hear you here, except my women. You are in my power at last, Rachel Dove.” These words which Ishmael intended should frighten her, as they might well have done, produced, as it chanced, a quite different effect. Rachel broke into a scornful laugh. “Look,” she said, pointing to an eagle that circled so high in the blue heavens above them that it seemed no larger than a hawk, “that bird is more in your power, and nearer to you than I am. Before you laid a finger on me I would find a dozen means of death, but that, I tell you again, you will never live to do.” For a while Ishmael was silent, weighing her words in his mind. Apparently he could find no answer to them, for when he spoke again it was of another matter. “You say that you hate me, Rachel. If so, it is because of that accursed fellow, Darrien—whom you don’t hate. Well, he, at any rate, is in my power. Now look here. You’ve got to make your choice. Either you stop all this nonsense and become my wife, or—your friend Darrien dies. Do you hear me?” Rachel made no answer. Now for the first time she was really frightened, and feared lest her speech should show it. “You have been through a lot,” he went on, slowly; “you are tired out, and don’t know what you say, and you believe that I killed the old people, which I didn’t, and, of course, that has set you against me. Now, I don’t want to be rough, or to hurry you, especially as I have plenty of things to see about before we are married. So I give you three days. If you don’t change your mind at the end of them, the young man dies, that’s all, and afterwards we will see whether or no you are in my power. Oh! you needn’t stare. I’ve gone too far to turn back, and I don’t mind a few extra risks. Meanwhile make yourself easy, dear Richard shall be well looked after, and I won’t bother you with any more love-making. That can wait.” Rachel rose from her seat and pointed with the spear to the door in the wall. “Go,” she said. “All right, I am going, Rachel. Good-bye till this time three days. I hope my women will make you as comfortable as possible in this rough place. Ask them for anything you want. Good-bye, Rachel,” and he went, bolting the wall door behind him. CHAPTER XVI. THE THREE DAYS