"You?" said Hawbury, elevating his eyebrows in some surprise, and fixing a cool stare upon Girasole. "And what the devil's _this_ row about, I should like to know? I don't know _you_. What have you against _me_?" "Inglis milor," cried Girasole, who was stung to the quick by a certain indescribable yet most irritating superciliousness in Hawbury's tone--"Inglis milor, you sall see what you sall soffair. You sall die! Dere is no hope. You are condemn by de brigand. You also are condemn by me, for you insult me." "Well, of all the beastly rot I ever heard, this is about the worst! What do you mean by all this infernal nonsense? Insult you! What would I insult you for? Why, man alive, you're as mad as a March hare! If I thought you were a gentleman, I'd--by Jove, I will, too! See here, you fellow: I'll fight you for it--pistols, or any thing. Come, now. I'll drop all considerations of rank. I'll treat you as if you were a real count, and not a sham one. Come, now. What do you say? Shall we have it out? Pistols--in the woods there. You've got all your infernal crew around you, you know. Well? What? You won't? By Jove!" Girasole's gesture showed that he declined the proposition. "Inglis milor," said he, with a venomous glitter in his eyes, "I sall haf youair life--wis de pistol, but not in de duello. I sall blow your brain out myself." "Blow and be hanged, then!" said Hawbury. And with these words he fell back on his straw, and took no further notice of the Italian. [Illustration: "INGLIS MILOR, I SALL HAF YOUAIR LIFE."] CHAPTER XXVIII. TORN ASUNDER. When Dacres made his attempt upon the house he was not so unobserved as he supposed himself to be. Minnie and Mrs. Willoughby happened at that time to be sitting on the floor by the window, one on each side, and they were looking out. They had chosen the seat as affording some prospect of the outer world. There was in Mrs. Willoughby a certain instinctive feeling that if any rescue came, it would come from the land side; and, therefore, though the hope was faint indeed, it nevertheless was sufficiently well defined to inspire her with an uneasy and incessant vigilance. Thus, then, she had seated herself by the window, and Minnie had taken her place on the opposite side, and the two sisters, with clasped hands, sat listening to the voices of the night. At length they became aware of a movement upon the bank just above them and lying opposite. The sisters clasped one another's hands more closely, and peered earnestly through the gloom. It was pretty dark, and the forest threw down a heavy shadow, but still their eyes were by this time accustomed to the dark, and they could distinguish most of the objects there. Among these they soon distinguished a moving figure; but what it was, whether man or beast, they could not make out.