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.
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