CHAPTER XII.TEMPTATIONS AND RESOLUTIONS.
Meantime the old gipsy stood face to face with the Englishman, who regarded her with an appearance of ease which an anxious gleam of the eyes contradicted.
“One word,” he said, breaking through all restraints as she was about to address him—“one word before you speak of other things. Is Aurora safe? Is it to tell me this, or ask her at my hands that you come?”
The Sibyl was pleased with his agitation and his eagerness. It promised well for her mission.
“Aurora is safe!” she answered, and it was wonderful how the usual fierce tones of her voice were modulated. Nothing could be more respectful, nay, winning, than her every look and tone. “Aurora is safe as yet—but our people have arisen; they will not be satisfied till her blood reddens the Valley of Stones.”
“But you—you—oh, heavens—you cannot see this done. Poor child, she is innocent as a flower.”
“They do not believe it!”
“But you believe it—her grandame—you will be his friend.”
“There is but one way—only one in the world, I have come to say this. You alone can save her from the fury of our tribe!”
“How can I save her? Point out the way, and if it is to purchase her life with my own, speak, and I will do it.”
“You must leave Granada to-night, and take my grandchild with you!”
The young man’s eyes fell, and the rich color burned, likefire, in his cheeks; but he remembered the scene that had passed that night in the Alhambra, and shook his head.
“She will not go! I could not persuade her to be saved on these terms,” he said.
“No, not on the terms you are thinking of. I would see her torn limb from limb before my eyes; yea, help to rend her to death, rather than see her live the shame of her people; but there is another way. Sometimes the rich men of our people have married among the Gentiles. If men take that privilege, it belongs to our women also. Make Aurora your wife according to the marriage rites of the tribe; go with her privately to your own country—leave the old woman gold enough to keep her from starving, and she will be content.”
“But would this appease your tribe? Would they again receive Aurora?” questioned the young man.
“No; they believe her a castaway; marriage would be no atonement. I know that she is not the thing they suspect; but it would be of no use attempting to convince them. Do what I wish, and they will believe her dead. They cannot take from me the right of a count’s widow to punish those of her own blood with her own hands, privately or not as she wills. They will think that I have given her of the drao, and that she lies in the bottom of the Darro.”
The young man was greatly agitated. He paced the room to and fro; then he sat down, veiling his eyes with his hand, and fell into labored thought. At length he lifted his eyes to the old woman, who had been regarding him all the time in anxious and vigilant silence.
“Will Aurora consent to this?”
“Will the ring-dove fly to her covert when she sees the fowler’s gun pointed to her breast?”
“Last night she left me in anger!”
“Since last night she has felt what would have withered common hearts to a cinder,” replied the Sibyl. “At sunset she was a child! The morning light found her a woman. Like an earthquake, terror and suffering have turned all the fresh soilof her nature uppermost. She is of the pure blood, and that is old and strong as wine that has been forgotten centuries in a vault.”
“But if I consent to your plan—which certainly promises safety to the poor child—it will be but the very thing in fact that I myself proposed last night. No marriage ceremony which you recognize would be held binding among my people.”
“What have we to do with your people? What do we care if they recognize our marriage rites or not?” answered the Sibyl, haughtily. “It is not their opinion that we regard, but our own. IfIam content—I, her nearest relative—who shall dare to cast scorn upon my child, because she defies all laws but those of her own people?”
For a moment the young man’s eyes flashed; but the excitement was momentary. His face became grave and stern; his heart grew heavy, and he shrunk within himself as a proud nature always must, when it comes in possession of a wrong wish.
“Understand me perfectly,” he said. “If I submit to this ceremony, whatever it may be, it will not be considered a marriage among my countrymen. Aurora will never be received as my wife—have no claim on my property save that which I may, of my own free consent, bestow, and in all things her position must depend on my will, my sense of honor. She will not even be looked on with respect; I can give her home, shelter, gold, affection, care, but my wife she cannot be.”
“What Gitana ever was respected by the Busne? We are not fools enough to demand it,” said the old woman bitterly. “As for your laws, we despise them—your gold, surely no woman of our people desires more than her husband chooses to give; your whole nation—what is it to us but a curse and a thing to be abhorred? Could my poor Aurora go back to her tribe in safety, you should not have her for a ton’s weight of the yellowest gold ever sifted from the Darro. No, I ask that ceremony which we hold binding, nothing more, save that I may not be left to starve, and Aurora is yours.”
“But I shall be free by the law to marry another,” said the young man, forcing himself to lay all the painful points of the case before the Sibyl, thus relieving the clamors of his conscience.
“Youdarenot marry another, law or no law. Aurora is of my blood,” answered the Sibyl, and the blaze of her fiery heart broke over her face. “A strong will makes its own laws and defends its own rights. You dare not marry another, she will not permit it. I will not.”
“Heaven forbid that my sweet Gitanilla should ever inherit the fierce nature of her grandame, or my chances of happiness were small, indeed,” said the Englishman, inly. Then addressing the Sibyl, he added, almost solemnly, “no man should promise for himself in the future. I am powerless to answer for my conduct to your grandchild beyond the present feelings of my heart, the immediate promptings of my conscience. It seems to me now impossible that I should ever wrong the trust you both place in me—impossible that any other should ever step between her heart and mine. God only knows what is in the future,” he continued, with mournful sadness, “or how the past may break in and color it.”
He seemed about sinking into a reverie, one of those to which he had been accustomed, and which gave a serious cast to a character naturally ardent and impulsive. But the old gipsy grew impatient, and broke in with something of her native asperity, which had been kept in abeyance during the entire conversation.
“It is getting late—have you decided, Busne?” she said, without once removing her eyes, which had been reading him to the soul. Doubts, struggles, hesitations, all that went to make up the flood of contending feelings that raged beneath his calm, almost sad exterior, she had been keenly regarding.
“Ihavedecided,” answered the young man, in a firm, but very sad voice, “God knows I would have saved her otherwise, if possible! When and where must this ceremony take place? Not in presence of the tribe; that I cannot submit to.”
The gipsy uttered one of her sharp, bitter laughs.
“They would kill her and you. No, no, they will think her dead. Before dawn we went out together; I shall go homealone—they will understand. It is not the first time that old Papita has done that, and always after, those who sought, have found traces of her work—I shall leave them now. Fragments of Aurora’s dress are clinging to the brambles where the Darro runs deepest. They will find footsteps also ground into the soil, and tangles of black hair. They know Aurora’s hair by the purple gloss.”
“But she, Aurora, tell me what you have done with her?” inquired the young man, half terrified by these details.
“She is safe. When the night comes, be ready, and I will take you where she is.”
“At what hour?”
“Close to midnight, when you see the fires go out along the Barranco, expect me.”
“I will.”
“Have mules in readiness, and a disguise for the Gitanilla; something that our people may not fathom readily.”
“It will be easy,” said Clare, after a moment’s thought; “my page died on the coast—Turner must have his garments somewhere among my luggage—I will speak with him.”
“Gold will be wanted,” said the gipsy, fixing her hungry glance on the young man with a meaning he could not possibly misunderstand. He stepped to a desk that lay in its leather case in a corner of the room, and took out several rolls of English guineas, enough to fill one hand.
“When you want more, here is an address; ask freely. Would to God all else were as easy as this,” he said, muttering the latter words in his own language, and placing a strip of paper, on which he had hastily written, in her hand.
The Sibyl’s eyes gleamed, and for the first time he saw a smile of genuine satisfaction flash over her face.
“Oh! this is something like: the Busne is magnificent,” she exclaimed, eagerly concealing the gold in her dress. “Nowthey cannot starve old Papita like a sick hound in its kennel—this is power, and she can defy them. Let them question her if they dare—let them revile her if they have the courage, and say her grandchild had the death of shame. What does Papita care while she has gold and the drao secret.”
The young man smiled faintly. He could not comprehend this fierce passion for gain in a creature left tottering upon the brink of her grave so long, with all her bad passions still retaining their keen edge. He, to whom wealth came freely as the air, could little understand how want and penury, from which in this world gold alone can save us, grinds down the most generous nature. He despised the old gipsy woman in his soul; but had he suffered as she had done, in what might he have been superior? It is easy to scorn the sin to which we have no temptation.
Eager to count over her gold—more than satisfied with her morning’s success, my great grandame left the Fonde chuckling to herself, and hugging her treasure with both arms fondly as a mother caresses her child. On her way down the hill she met Turner, who eyed her like an angry mastiff, and muttered to himself in English something that she did not understand. He stood looking after her as she disappeared among the trees, but she was busy with her gold, and cared nothing for his scrutiny.
“Turner,” said Lord Clare, as that functionary entered the Fonde.
“My lord!” was the terse reply, and by the very tone in which it was uttered Clare saw that the moment was unpropitious for his orders, and he gave them, with a faint blush and some hesitation.
“Turner, you will settle with the people here; pack up, and be ready to start at a moment’s notice.”
“Which way, my lord?”
When Turner was out of sorts his words were very few, and those few came forth with jerks, as if he plucked them up one by one from the depths of his bosom.
“I—I have not quite determined. Across to Malija, perhaps.”
“Humph!”
“This does not seem to please you, Turner.”
“What right has a servant to be pleased, I should like to know?” was the gruff rejoinder.
“When an old servant is a faithful friend too, we like to see him satisfied,” said Clare, in a voice that no woman could have resisted. But Turner felt his advantage. He saw that his master kept something back which he hesitated to speak out, and so resolved not to soften his embarrassment in the least.
“We shall require three saddle mules, the best that can be found in Granada,” said the master, at length.
“Three! humph!” ejaculated Turner again.
“And others for the luggage,” persisted the young man, more decidedly.
Turner bowed stiffly. He understood this change in his master’s tone, and did not like to brave him beyond a certain point. After a moment Clare spoke again.
“You have the clothes that the boy William left, I suppose?” he said, but without looking his old serving man in the face as usual.
“Yes, I have them, my lord.”
“Very well—leave them out—they will be wanted. I take a new page with me from hence.”
Turner did not speak now, but his features fell, and with a grave air, perfectly respectful, but full of rebuke, he stood looking at his young master.
“Have you a wish to discharge old Turner?” said the servant, at length, choking back the emotions that seemed forcing the words from his throat.
“Discharge you, Turner; why, you wouldn’t go if I did,” cried the young lord, forcing a laugh.
“Humph!” groaned the old man; “perhaps it will be vice versa—who knows?”
The blood rushed into Lord Clare’s face, but before he could speak, Turner left the room.