Threlka is expert in omelets, and our coffee is such as perhaps you may not find general in these provinces." Was there the slightest mocking sneer in her words?
Did she despise me as a faint-heart?
I could not tell, but did not like the thought.
"Believe me, Madam," I answered hotly, "you have courage, at least.

Let me match it.

Nor do I deny that this asks courage on my part too.

If you please, in these circumstances, _I shall remain_." "You are armed ?" she asked simply.
I inserted a finger in each waistcoat pocket and showed her the butts of two derringers; and at the back of my neck--to her smiling amusement at our heathen fashion--I displayed just the tip of the haft of a short bowie-knife, which went into a leather case under the collar of my coat.
And again I drew around the belt which I wore so that she could see the barrel of a good pistol, which had been suspended under cover of the bell skirt of my coat.
She laughed.

I saw that she was not unused to weapons.