CHAPTER XI. THE SENTENCE OF THE PATRIN
Fleda waked suddenly, but without motion; just a wide opening of theeyes upon the darkness, and a swift beating of the heart, but not themovement of a muscle. It was as though some inward monitor, some gnomeof the hidden life had whispered of danger to her slumbering spirit. Thewaking was a complete emergence, a vigilant and searching attention.
There was something on her breast weighing it down, yet with a pressurewhich was not weight alone, and maybe was not weight at all as weightis understood. Instantly there flashed through her mind the primitivebelief that a cat will lie upon the breasts of children and suck theirbreath away. Strange and even absurd as it was, it seemed to her thata cat was pressing and pressing down upon her breast. There could be nomistaking the feline presence. Now with a sudden energy of the body, shethrew the Thing from her, and heard it drop, with the softness of felinefeet, on the Indian rug upon the floor.
Then she sprang out of bed, and, feeling for the matches, lit a candleon the small table beside her bed, and moved it round searching for whatshe thought to be a cat. It was not to be seen. She looked under thebed; it was not there: under the washstand, under the chest of drawers,under the improvised dressing-table; and no cat was to be found. She173 looked under the chair over which hung her clothes, even behind thedresses and the Indian deerskin cape hanging on the door.
There was no life of any kind save her own in the room, so far as shecould see. She laughed nervously, though her heart was still beatinghard. That it should beat hard was absurd, for what had she to fear--shewho had lived the wild open-air life of many lands, had slept amonghills infested by animals the enemy of man, and who when a little girlhad faced beasts of prey alone. Yet here in her own safe room on theSagalac, with its four walls, but its unlocked doors--for Gabriel Drusesaid that he could not bear that last sign of his exile--here in thefortress of the town-dweller there was a strange trembling of her pulsesin the presence of a mere hallucination or nightmare--the first she hadhad ever. Her dreams in the past had always been happy and without theblack fancies of nightmare. On the night that Jethro Fawe had firstconfronted her father and herself, and he had been carried to the hut inthe Wood, her sleep had been disturbed and restless, but dreamless; inher sleep on the night of the day of his release, she had been tossedupon vague clouds of mental unrest; but that was the first reallydisordered sleep she had ever known.
Holding the candle above her head, she looked in the mirror on herdressing-table, and laughed nervously at the shocked look in hereyes, at the hand pressed upon the bosom whose agitations troubledthe delicate linen at her breast. The pale light of the candle,the reflection from the white muslin of her dressing-table and hernightwear, the strange, deep darkness of her eyes, the ungathered tawnyhair falling to her shoulders, gave an unusual paleness to her face.
"What a ninny I am!" she said aloud as she looked at herself, her tonguechiding her apprehensive eyes, her laugh contemptuously adding itscomment on her tremulousness. "It was a real nightmare--a wakingnightmare, that's what it was."
She searched the room once more, however-every corner, under the bed,the chest of drawers and the dressing-table, before she got into bedagain, her feet icily cold. And yet again before settling down shelooked round, perplexed and inquiring. Placing the matches beside thecandlestick, she blew out the light. Then, half-turning on her side withher face to the wall, she composed herself to sleep.
Resolutely putting from her mind any sense of the supernatural, she shuther eyes with confidence of coming sleep. While she was, however, stillwithin the borders of wakefulness, and wholly conscious, she felt theThing jump from the floor upon her legs, and crouch there with thatdeadening pressure which was not weight. Now with a start of angershe raised herself, and shot out a determined hand to seize the Thing,whatever it was. Her hand grasped nothing, and again she distinctlyheard a soft thud as of something jumping on the floor. Exasperated, shedrew herself out of bed, lit the candle again, and began another search.Nothing was to be seen; but she had now the curious sense of an unseenpresence. She went to the door, opened it, and looked out into thenarrow hall. Nothing was to be seen there. Then she closed the dooragain, and stood looking at it meditatively for a moment. It had a lockand key; yet it had never been locked in the years they had lived on theSagalac. She did not know whether the key would turn in the lock. Aftera moment's hesitation, she shrugged her shoulders and turned the key.It rasped, proved stubborn, but at last came home with a click. Then sheturned to the window. It was open about three inches at the bottom. Sheclosed it tight, and fastened it, then stood for a moment in the middleof the room looking at both door and window.
She was conscious of a sense of suffocation. Never in her life had sheslept with door or window or tentflap entirely closed. Never before hadshe been shut in all night behind closed doors and sealed windows. Now,as the sense of imprisonment was felt, her body protested; her spiritresented the funereal embrace of security. It panted for the freedomwhich gives the challenge to danger and the courage to face it.
She went to the window and opened it slightly at the top, and thensought her bed again; but even as she lay down, something whispered toher mind that it was folly to lock the door and yet leave the windowopen, if it was but an inch. With an exclamation of self-reproach, anda vague indignation at something, she got up and closed the window oncemore.
Again she composed herself to sleep, lying now with her face turned tothe window and the door. She was still sure that she had been the victimof a hallucination which, emerging from her sleep, had invaded theborders of wakefulness, and then had reproduced itself in a wakingillusion--an imitation of its original existence.
Resolved to conquer any superstitious feeling, she invoked sleep, andwas on its borders once more when she was startled more violently thanbefore.
The Thing had sprung again upon her feet and was crouched there. Wideawake, she waited for a moment to make sure that she was not mad, orthat she was not asleep or in a half-dream. In the pause, she felt theThing draw up towards her knees, dragging its body along with tiger-likecloseness, and with that strange pressure which was not weight butpower.
With a cry which was no longer doubt, but agonized apprehension, shethrew the Thing from her with a motion of both hands and feet; and,as she did so, she felt a horrible cold air breathing from a bloodlessbody, chill her hand.
In another instant she was on her feet again. With shaking fingersshe lighted the candle yet once more, after which she lighted a lampstanding upon the chest of drawers. The room was almost brilliantlybright now. With a gesture of incredulity she looked round. The doorsand windows were sealed tight, and there was nothing to be seen; yet shewas more than ever conscious of a presence grown more manifest. Fora moment she stood staring straight before her at the place where itseemed to be. She realized its malice and its hatred, and an intenseanger and hatred took possession of her. She had always laughed at suchthings even when thrilled by wonder and manufactured terrors. But nowthere was a sense of conflict, of evil, of the indefinable things inwhich so many believed.
Suddenly she remembered an ancient Sage of her tribe, who, proficient inmysteries and secret rites gathered from nations as old as Phoeniciaand Egypt and as modern as Switzerland, held the Romanys of the world inawe, for his fame had travelled where he could not follow. To Fleda inher earliest days he had been like one inspired, and as she now stoodfacing the intangible Thing, she recalled an exorcism which the Sage hadrecited to her, when he had sufficiently startled her senses by tales ofthe Between World. This exorcism was, as he had told her, more powerfulthan that which the Christian exorcists used, and the symbol of exorcismwas not unlike the sign of the Cross, to which was added genuflection ofAssyrian origin.
At any other time Fleda would have laughed at the idea of using theexorcism; but all the ancient superstition of the Romany people latentin her now broke forth and held her captive. Standing with candle raisedabove her head, her eyes piercing the space befor
e her, she recalledevery word of the exorcism which had caught the drippings from thefountains of Chaldean, Phoenician, and Egyptian mystery.
Solemnly and slowly the exorcism came from her lips, and at the end herright hand made the cabalistic sign; then she stood like one transfixedwith her arm extended towards the Thing she could not see.
Presently there passed from her a sense of oppression. The air seemedto grow lighter, restored self-possession came; there was a gentlebreathing in the room like that of a sleeping child. It was a momentbefore she realized that the breathing was her own, and she looked roundher like one who had come out of a trance.
"It is gone," she said aloud. "It is gone." A great sigh came from her.
Mechanically she put down the candle, smoothed the pillows of her bed,adjusted the coverings, and prepared to lie down; but, with a suddenimpulse, she turned to the window and the door.
"It is gone," she said again. With a little laugh of hushed triumph, sheturned and made again the cabalistic sign at the bed, where the Thinghad first assaulted her, and then at that point in the room near thedoor where she had felt it crouching.
"Oh, Ewie Gal," she added, speaking to that Romany Sage long since laidto rest in the Roumelian country, "you did not talk to me for nothing.You were right--yes, you were right, old Ewie Gal. It was there,"--shelooked again at the place where the Thing had been--"and your cursedrove it away."
With confidence she went to the door and unlocked it. Going to thewindow she opened it also, but she compromised sufficiently to open itat the top instead of at the bottom. Presently she laid her head on herpillow with a sigh of content.
Once again she composed herself to sleep in the darkness. But now therecame other invasions, other disturbers of the night. In her imaginationa man came who had held her in his arms one day on the Sagalac River,who had looked into her eyes with a masterful but respectful tenderness.As she neared the confines of sleep, he was somehow mingled with visionsof things which her childhood had known--moonlit passes in the Bosnian,Roumelian, and Roumanian hills, green fields by the Danube, with peasantvoices drowsing in song before the lights went out; a gallop after dundeer far away up the Caspian mountains, over waste places, carpetedwith flowers after a benevolent rain; mornings in Egypt, when the camelsthudded and slid with melancholy ease through the sands of the desert,while the Arab drivers called shrilly for Allah to curse or bless; atender sunset in England seen from the top of a castle when all thewestern sky was lightly draped with saffron, gold and mauve and delicategreen and purple.
Now she slept again, with the murmur of the Sagalac in her ears, andthere was a smile at her lips. If one could have seen her through thedarkness, one would have said that she was like some wild creature ofa virgin world, whom sleep had captured and tamed; for, behind therefinement which education and the vigilant influence with which MadameBulteel had surrounded her, there was in her the spirit of primitivethings: of the open road and the wilderness, of the undisciplined andvagrant life, however marked by such luxury as the ruler of all theRomanys could buy and use in pilgrimage. There was that in her whichwould drag at her footsteps in this new life.
For a full hour or more she slept, then there crept through thefantasies of sleep something that did not belong to sleep--againsomething from the wakeful world, strange, alien, troubling. At firstit was only as though a wind stirred the air of dreams, then it was likethe sounds that gather behind the coming rage of a storm, and againit was as though a night-prowler plucked at the sleeve of a home-goer.Presently, with a stir of fright and a smothered cry, she waked to asound which was not of the supernatural or of the mind's illusions,but no less dreadful to her because of that. In some cryptic way itwas associated with the direful experience through which she had justpassed.
What she heard in the darkness was a voice which sang there by herwindow--at it or beneath it--the words of a Romany song.
It was a song of violence, which she had heard but a short time beforein the trees behind her father's house, when a Romany claimed her as hiswife:
"Time was I went to my true love, Time was she came to me--"
Only one man would sing that song at her window, or anywhere in thisWestern world. This was no illusion of her overwrought senses. There,outside her window, was Jethro Fawe.
She sat up and listened, leaning on one arm, and staring into thehalf-darkness beyond the window, the blind of which she had not drawndown. There was no moon, but the stars were shining brightly, relievingthe intensity of the dark. Through the whispering of the trees, andhushing the melancholy of a night-bird's song, came the wild low note ofthe Romany epic of vengeance. It had a thrill of exultation. Somethingin the voice, insistent, vibrating, personal, made every note a thrustof victory. In spite of her indignation at the insolent serenade,she thrilled; for the strain of the Past was in her, and it had beenfighting with her all night, breaking in upon the Present, tugging atthe cords of youth.
The man's daring roused her admiration, even as her anger mounted. Ifher father heard the singing, there could be no doubt that Jethro Fawe'sdoom would be sealed. Gabriel Druse would resent this insolence tothe daughter of the Ry of Rys. Word would be passed as silently as theelectric spark flies, and one day Jethro Fawe would be found dead, withno clue to his slayer, and maybe no sign of violence upon him; for whilethe Romany people had remedies as old as Buddha, they had poisons as oldas Sekhet.
Suddenly the song ceased, and for a moment there was silence save forthe whispering trees and the night-bird's song. Fleda rose from her bed,and was about to put on her dressing-gown, when she was startled by avoice loudly whispering her name at her window, as it seemed.
"Daughter of the Ry of Rys!" it called.
In anger she started forward to the window, then, realizing that she wasin her nightgown, caught up her red dressing-gown and put it on. As shedid so she understood why the voice had sounded so near. Not thirty feetfrom her window there was a solitary oak-tree among the pines, in whichwas a seat among the branches, and, looking out, she could see a figurethat blackened the starlit duskiness.
"Fleda--daughter of the Ry of Rys," the voice called again.
She gathered her dressing-gown tight about her, and, going to thewindow, raised it high and leaned out.
"What do you want?" she asked sharply.
"Wife of Jethro Fawe, I bring you news," the voice said, and she saw ahat waved with mock courtesy. In spite of herself, Fleda felt a shiverof premonition pass through her. The Thing which had threatened her inthe night seemed to her now like the soul of this dark spirit in thetrees.
Resentment seized her. "I have news for you, Jethro Fawe," she replied."I set you free, and I gave my word that no harm should come to you, ifyou went your ways and did not come again. You have come, and I shall donothing now to save you from the Ry's anger. Go at once, or I will wakehim."
"Will a wife betray her husband?" he asked in soft derision.
Stung by his insolence, "I would not throw a rope to you, if you weredrowning," she declared. "I am a Gorgio, and the thing that was done bythe Starzke River is nothing to me. Now, go."
"You have forgotten my news," he said: "It is bad news for the Gorgiodaughter of the Romany Ry." She was silent in apprehension. He waited,but she did not speak.
"The Gorgio of Gorgios of the Sagalac has had a fall," he said.
Her heart beat fast for an instant, and then the presentiment came toher that the man spoke the truth. In the presence of the accomplishedthing, she became calm.
"What has happened?" she asked quietly.
"He went prowling in Manitou, and in Barbazon's Tavern they struck himdown."
"Who struck him down?" she asked. It seemed to her that the night-birdsang so loud that she could scarcely hear her own voice.
"A drunken Gorgio," he replied. "The horseshoe is for luck all the worldover, and it brought its luck to Manitou to-night. It struck down ayoung Master Gorgio who in white beard and long grey hair went spying."
She knew in her heart that he spoke the truth. "He is dead?" she askedin a voice that had a strange quietness.
"Not yet," he answered. "There is time to wish him luck."
She heard the ribald laugh with a sense of horror and loathing. "Thehand that brought him down may have been the hand of a Gorgio, butbehind the hand was Jethro Fawe," she said in a voice grown passionateagain. "Where is he?" she added.
"At his own house. I watched them take him there. It is a nicehouse--good enough for a Gorgio house-dweller. I know it well. Lastnight I played his Sarasate fiddle for him there, and I told him allabout you and me, and what happened at Starzke, and then--"
"You told him I was a Romany, that I was married to you?" she asked in alow voice.
"I told him that, and asked him why he thought you had deceived him, hadheld from him the truth. He was angry and tried to kill me."
"That is a lie," she answered. "If he had tried to kill you he wouldhave done so."
Suddenly she realized the situation as it was--that she was standingat her window in the night, scantily robed, talking to a man in a treeopposite her window; and that the man had done a thing which belonged tothe wild places which she had left so far behind.
It flashed into her mind--what would Max Ingolby think of such a thing?She flushed. The new Gorgio self of her flushed, and yet the old Romanyself, the child of race and heredity had taken no exact account of thestrangeness of this situation. It had not seemed unnatural. Even if hehad been in her room itself, she would have felt no tithe of the shamethat she felt now in asking herself what the Master Gorgio would think,if he knew. It was not that she had less modesty, that any stir of sexwas in her veins where the Romany chal was concerned; but in the lifeshe had once lived less delicate cognizance was taken of such things,and something of it stayed.
"Listen," Jethro said with sudden lowering of the voice, and impartinginto his tones an emotion which was in part an actor's gift, but also inlarge degree a passion now eating at his heart, "you are my wife by allthe laws of our people. Nothing can change it. I have waited for you,and I will wait, but you shall be mine in the end. You see to-night--'MiDuvel', you see that fate is with me! The Gorgio has bewitched you. Hegoes down to-night in that tavern there by the hand of a Gorgio, and theRomany has his revenge. Fate is always with me, and I will be the giftof the gods to the woman that takes me. The luck is mine always. It willbe always with me. I am poor to-day, I shall be rich to-morrow. I wasrich, and I lost it all; and I was poor, and became rich again. Ah, yes,there are ways! Sometimes it is a Government, sometimes a prince thatwants to know, and Jethro Fawe, the Romany, finds it out, and moneyfills his pockets. I am here, poor, because last year when I lost all,I said, 'It is because my Romany lass is not with me. I have not broughther to my tan, but when she comes then the gold will be here as before,and more when it is wanted.' So, I came, and I hear the road calling,and all the camping places over all the world, and I see the patrins inevery lane, and my heart is lifted up. I am glad. I rejoice. My heartburns with love. I will forget everything, and be true to the queen ofmy soul. Men die, and Gabriel Druse, he will die one day, and when thetime comes, then it would be that you and I would beckon, and all theworld would come to us."
He stretched out a hand to her in the half-darkness. "I send the bloodof my heart to you," he continued. "I am a son of kings. Fleda, daughterof the Ry of Rys, come to me. I have been bad, but I can be good. I havekilled, but I will live at peace. I have cursed, but I will speak theword of blessing. I have trespassed, but I will keep to my own, if youwill come to me."
Suddenly he dropped to the ground, lighting on his feet like an animalwith a soft rebound. Stretching up his arms, he made soft murmuring ofendearment.
She had listened, fascinated in spite of herself by the fire and meaningof his words. She felt that in most part it was true, that it was meant;and, whatever he was, he was yet a man offering his heart and life,offering a love that she despised, and yet which was love and passion ofa kind. It was a passion natural to the people from whom she came, andto such as Jethro Fawe it was something more than sensual longing andthe aboriginal desire of possession. She realized it, and was not whollyrevolted by it, even while her mind was fleeing to where the MasterGorgio lay wounded, it might be unto death; even while she knew thatthis man before her, by some means, had laid Ingolby low. She was all atonce a human being torn by contending forces.
Jethro's drop to the ground broke the sudden trance into which his wordshad thrown her. She shook herself as with an effort of control. Thenleaning over the window-sill, and, looking down at him, now grown sodistinct that she could see his features, her eyes having become used tothe half-light of the approaching dawn, she said with something almostlike gentleness:
"Once more I say, you must go and come no more. You are too far offfrom me. You belong to that which is for the ignorant, or the low, thevicious and the bad. Behind the free life of the Romany is only thething that the beasts of the field have. I have done with it for ever.Find a Romany who will marry you. As for me, I would rather die thando so, and I should die before it could come to pass. If you stay herelonger I will call the Ry."
Presently the feeling that he had been responsible for the disasterto Ingolby came upon her with great force, and as suddenly as she hadsoftened towards this man she hardened again.
"Go, before there comes to you the death you deserve," she added, andturned away.
At that moment footsteps sounded near, and almost instantly thereemerged from a pathway which made a short cut to the house, the figureof old Gabriel Druse. They had not heard him till he was within a fewfeet of where Jethro Fawe stood. His walking had been muffled in thedust of the pathway.
The Ry started when he saw Jethro Fawe; then he made a motion as thoughhe would seize the intruder, who was too dumbfounded to flee; but herecovered himself, and gazed up at the open window.
"Fleda!" he called.
She came to the window again.
"Has this man come here against your will?" he asked, not as thoughseeking information, but confirmation of his own understanding.
"He is not here by my will," she answered. "He came to sing the Song ofHate under my window, to tell me that he had--"
"That I had brought the Master Gorgio to the ground," said Jethro, whonow stood with sullen passiveness looking at Gabriel Druse.
"From the Master Gorgio, as you call him, I have just come," returnedthe old man. "When I heard the news, I went to him. It was you whobetrayed him to the mob, and--"
"Wait, wait," Fleda cried in agitation. "Is--is he dead?"
"He is alive, but terribly hurt; and he may die," was the reply.
Then the old man turned to the Romany with a great anger anddetermination in his face. He stretched out an arm, making a sign ascabalistic as that which Fleda had used against her invisible foe in thebedroom.
"Go, Jethro Fawe of all the Fawes," he said. "Go, and may no patrinsmark your road!"
Jethro Fawe shrank back, and half raised his arm, as though to fendhimself from a blow.
The patrin is the clue which Gipsies leave behind them on the road theygo, that other Gipsies who travel in it may know they have gone before.It may be a piece of string, a thread of wool, a twig, or in the dustthe ancient cross of the Romany, which preceded the Christian cross andbelonged to the Assyrian or Phoenician world. The invocation that nopatrins shall mark the road of a Romany is to make him an outcast, andfor the Ry of Rys to utter the curse is sentence of death upon a Romany,for thenceforward every hand of his race is against him, free to do himharm.
It was that which made Jethro Fawe shrink and cower for a moment. Fledaraised her hand suddenly in protest to Gabriel Druse.
"No, no, not that," Fleda murmured brokenly to her father, with eyesthat looked the pain and horror she felt. Though she repudiated the bondby which the barbarian had dared to call her wife, she heard an innervoice that said to her: "What was done by the Starzke River was the sealof blood and race, and this man must
be nearer than the stranger, dearerthan the kinsman, forgiven of his crimes like a brother, saved fromshame, danger or death when she who was sealed to him can save him."
She shuddered as she heard the inner voice. She felt that this OtherSelf of her, the inner-seeing soul which had the secret of the farpaths, had spoken truly. Even as she begged her father to withdraw thesentence, it flashed into her mind that the grim Thing of the nightwas the dark spirit of hatred between Jethro Fawe and the Master Gorgioseeking embodiment, as though Jethro's evil soul detached itself fromhis body to persecute her.
At her appeal, Jethro raised his head. His courage came back, the oldinsolent self-possession took hold of him again. The sentence which theRy had passed was worse than death (and it meant death, too), for itmade him an outcast from his people, and to be outcast was to be throwninto the abyss. It was as though a man without race or countrywas banished into desolate space. In a vague way he felt its fullsignificance, and the shadow of it fell on him.
"No, no, no," Fleda repeated hoarsely, with that new sense ofresponsibility where Jethro was concerned.
Jethro's eyes were turned upon her now. In the starlit night, justyielding to the dawn, she could faintly see his burning look, couldfeel, as it were, his hands reach out to claim her; and she felt thatwhile he lived she was not wholly free. She realized that the hand ofnomad, disorderly barbarism was dragging her with a force which wasinhuman, or, maybe, superhuman.
Gabriel Druse could know nothing of the elements fighting in hisdaughter's soul; he only knew that her interest in the Master Gorgio wasone he had never seen before, and that she abhorred the Romany who hadbrought Ingolby low. He had shut his eyes to the man's unruliness andhis daughter's intervention to free him; but now he was without pity. Hehad come from Ingolby's bedside, and had been told a thing which shookhis rugged nature to its centre--a thing sad as death itself, which hemust tell his daughter.
To Fleda's appeal he turned a stony face. There was none of that ragein his words which had marked the scene when Jethro Fawe first came toclaim what he could not have. There was something in him now more deadlyand inevitable. It made him like some figure of mythology, implacable,fateful. His great height, his bushy beard and stormy forehead, the eyesover which shaggy eyebrows hung like the shrubs on a cliff-edge, hisface lined and set like a thing in bronze--all were signs of a powerwhich, in passion, would be like that of OEdipus: in the moment ofjustice or doom would, with unblinking eyes, slay and cast aside asdebris is tossed upon the dust-heap.
As he spoke now his voice was toneless. His mind was flint, and histongue was but the flash of the flint. He looked at his daughter for amoment with no light of fatherhood in his face, then turned from herto Jethro Fawe with slow decision and a gesture of authority. His eyesfastened on the face of the son of Lemuel Fawe, as though it was thatold enemy himself.
"I have said what I have said, and there is no more to be spoken. Therule of the Ry will be as water for ever after if these things may bedone to him and his. For generations have the Rys of all the Rys beenlike the trees that bend only to the whirlwind; and when they speakthere is no more to be said. When it ceases to be so, then the Rys willvanish from the world, and be as stubble of the field ready for theburning. I have spoken. Go! And no patrins shall lie upon your road."
A look of savage obedience and sullen acquiescence came into JethroFawe's face, and he took off his hat as one who stands in the presenceof his master. The strain of generations, the tradition of the racewithout a country was stronger than the revolt in his soul. He wasyoung, his blood was hot and brawling in his veins, he was all carnal,with the superior intelligence of the trained animal, but custom wasstronger than all. He knew now that whatever he might do, some time, notfar, his doom would fall upon him suddenly, as a wind shoots up a ravinefrom the desert, or a nightbird rises from the dark.
He set his feet stubbornly, and raised his sullen face and fanaticaleyes. The light of morning was creeping through the starshine, and hisfeatures showed plainly.
"I am your daughter's husband," he said. "Nothing can change that. Itwas done by the River Starzke, and it was the word of the Ry of Rys. Itstands for ever. There is no divorce except death for the Romany."
"The patrins cease to mark the way," returned the old man with a swiftgesture. "The divorce of death will come."
Jethro's face grew still paler, and he opened his lips to speak, butpaused, seeing Fleda, with a backward look of pity and of horror, drawback into the darkness of her room.
He made a motion of passion and despair. His voice was almost shrillwhen he spoke. "Till that divorce comes, the daughter of the Ry of Rysis mine!" he cried sharply. "I will not give my wife to a Gorgio thief.His hands shall not caress her, his eyes shall not feed upon her--"
"His eyes will not feed upon her," interrupted the old man, "So ceasethe prattle which can alter nothing. Begone."
For a moment Jethro Fawe stood like one who did not understand what wassaid to him, but suddenly a look of triumph and malice came into hisface, and his eyes lighted with a reckless fire. He threw back his head,and laughed with a strange, offensive softness. Then, waving a hand tothe window from which Fleda had gone, he swung his cap on his head andplunged into the trees.
A moment afterwards his voice came back exultingly, through the morningair:
"But a Gorgio sleeps 'neath the greenwood tree He'll broach my tan no more: And my love, she sleeps afar from me But near to the churchyard door."
As the old man turned heavily towards the house, and opened the outerdoor, Fleda met him.
"What did you mean when you said that Ingolby's eyes would not feed uponme?" she asked in a low tone of fear.
A look of compassion came into the old man's face. He took her hand.
"Come and I will tell you," he said.
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