A ringing cheer was heard, and the goblets were drained to the very dregs.
"Who goes there?"
"A friend."
"The word."
"Mathias."
"Advance, friend, and give the countersign."
This challenge was replied to, and a woman appeared at the narrow entrance to the mountain pa.s.s.
Slowly she walked through, her head drooping and her eyes fixed upon the ground.
They recognised her now.
It was the wife of their chieftain, the bold Mathias.
"I scarcely knew you," said the sentry, apologetically.
She looked up and smiled in a strangely vacant manner.
The other said nothing.
Her manner impressed them with ugly feelings.
Instinctively they felt that some fresh calamity had happened to them.
In fear and trembling they antic.i.p.ated the evil tidings which she brought, although, of course, they could not guess at its exact nature.
"Did you succeed!" demanded the old man.
She nodded gravely.
"You saw Mathias?"
"Yes."
Her answer was given in the same vacant manner, and staring fixedly into the very midst of them, she appeared to see nothing.
"Did you tell our brave captain how eagerly we look forward to his release--how anxiously we long for the moment when he shall be again here amongst us--at our head?"
It was the old brigand who spoke.
She gave him a strange look, from which they could gather absolutely nothing, and her eyes dropped again to the ground.
The heavy, unpleasant feeling deepened.
Scarcely one of them had the courage to address her again.
An oppressive silence fell upon them all.
They looked at each other in silent, awkward expectation, all, bold desperadoes as they were, cowed into silence by her manner.
"You succeeded in seeing him?" said Hunston.
"Yes," she said, quietly.
"And you bade him be of good heart?--you told him that we were making a plan in his behalf--a plan which could not fail of success? You said--"
The woman looked up.
"Nothing!"
"What!"
"Nothing," she slowly repeated, "nothing. I saw him, but it was too late to speak those words of comfort."
"Too late?" iterated Hunston, eagerly, "too late?"
"Ah, too late for words of comfort, for menaces, or for any thing."
"Surely you do not mean--"
He could not complete the sentence, but she helped him out--
"I do," she said, in a hollow voice, and nodding her head gravely, "I do mean that he, Mathias, the brigand chief is dead!"
The brigands, one and all, leaped to their feet, s.n.a.t.c.hing up their carbines, while from their throats issued a deep cry of revenge.
Dead! The word thrilled them one and all with horror.
The bold Mathias dead!
Prepared as they had been by her manner for some dire Calamity, it came upon them like a thunderclap. The awful calm manner of the chieftain"s widow impressed them more than if she had thrown up her hands in wild despair and given way to the noisiest demonstrations of woe.
After some few minutes, one ventured to break the awesome silence.
"How did he die?"
The brigand"s wife turned from her questioner with a shudder.
"Ask me nothing yet. I am not able to speak of that at present; give me time to conquer this weakness."
"If I ask, it is that I may seek vengeance upon his destroyer," said Tomaso, the speaker.
Her eyes sparkled, and the colour rushed into her pale cheek at the word. "Vengeance--aye, vengeance. Well spoken, my bold Tomaso; vengeance is something to live for, after all; vengeance we"ll have too. We"ll glut ourselves with it; a feast of vengeance we"ll have."