Soft, soft as spun silk, the notes of the flute arose, very soft and prolonged, like threads extending from the instrument and winding about the necks of the little snakes; and the little snakes followed the notes of the flute, which drew them on and on. Zinzara walked backward. The little snakes followed her as if they were held fast by the notes of the flute as by silken threads. The gipsy stopped, and the notes _grew shorter_, so to speak, like the threads one winds about a bobbin. Then the snakes approached the sorceress, and as Zinzara stooped slowly over them, and put down her hands, still holding the flute, upon which she did not cease to play, the snakes twined themselves about her bare arms. Thence one of them climbed up and wound about her neck, letting his little head, with its wide open mouth and quivering tongue, hang down upon her swelling breast. And when she stood erect again, two others were seen at her ankles, above the rings she wore on her legs. Then she laid aside her flute and began to laugh. Her laugh disclosed her regular, white teeth.
"Now," said she, "if any one will give me his hand, I will tell his fortune!"
But no hand was put forward to meet hers because of the little snakes.
Zinzara laughed aloud, and her laugh, in very truth, recalled certain notes of her double flute.
At that moment, Livette started to walk away.
"Come, you!" said the gipsy quickly,--"you refused to listen to me once, but to-day you must be very anxious to find out where your lover is, my beauty! Give me your hand without fear, if you are worthy to become the wife of a brave horseman."
Livette blushed vividly. Her two young friends arrived just then and heard what was said. "Don"t you do it!" said one of them in an undertone, pulling Livette"s skirt from behind; but, Livette, annoyed by the gipsy"s expression, in which she fancied that she could detect a touch of mockery, put out her hand, not without a mental prayer for protection to the sainted Marys. The gipsy took the proffered hand in her own. The snakes put out their forked tongues. Livette was somewhat pale.
They were both very small, the fortune-teller"s hand and the maiden"s.
Renaud looked on from above with all his eyes, greatly surprised and a little disturbed in mind.
The gipsy held Livette"s hand in her own a moment, exulting to feel the palpitations of the bird she was fascinating. She had hoped to intimidate Livette, and the courage the girl displayed annoyed her.
"Your future husband isn"t far away, my beauty," said she, "but he is not here on your account, never fear! On whose, then? That is for you to guess!"
Livette, already somewhat pale, became as white as a ghost.
"That alone, I fancy, is of interest to you, my pretty sweetheart!
Then I"ll say no more to you except this: Beware; the serpent on my left wrist just whispered something to me. Look well to your love!"
A shudder ran through the spectators like a ripple over the surface of a swamp. One of the snakes was, in fact, hissing gently.
The gipsy released Livette"s hand; as the girl turned to go away, she came face to face with Rampal. He had been wandering about the village since early morning, and had just joined the group, unseen by any one, even by Renaud.
Livette recoiled instinctively and in such a marked way that Rampal might well have taken it for an affront. Unfortunately, having left the front row, she was hemmed in by the crowd on all sides of her.
"Oho! young lady," said Rampal, "so we don"t recognize our friends!"
"Good-day, good-day, Rampal," replied Livette, repeating the salutation as the custom is in the province; "but let me pa.s.s! Make room for me, I say!"
"_Sur le pont d"Avignon_," sang the gipsy, with a laugh, "_tout le monde paye pa.s.sage!_"[2]
Renaud, still behind his window, had at last recognized Rampal. Fuming with rage, but naturally wary, he considered whether he should rush down at once and attack him or wait until Livette had gone.
Rampal did not always need a pretext to kiss a pretty girl,--but here was one ready-made for him!
"Do you hear, demoiselle?" said he. "You must pay the tollman of your own accord, or else he will pay himself!"
He threw both arms about the poor child"s waist. She bent back, holding her body and her head as far away from him as possible, but the rascal, hot of breath, holding her firmly and forcing her a little closer, kissed her twice full upon the lips.
A fierce oath was uttered behind them in the air. Everybody turned, and, looking up, discovered Renaud shaking the old-fashioned window, which was reluctant to be opened. Two more wrenches and the window yielded, flew suddenly open with a great noise of breaking gla.s.s, and Renaud, standing on the sill, leaped to the ground.
"Ah! the beggar! the beggar! where is the vile cur?"
But Rampal had already leaped upon his horse that was. .h.i.tched near by to the bars of a low window, and was off at a gallop.
He rode as if he were riding a race, half-standing in his stirrups, his body bent forward, and plying incessantly and very rapidly a thong that was made fast to his wrist, and that drove his horse wild by the way it whistled about his ears.
"Coward! coward!" one of the young men present could not refrain from shouting after him.
"Coward? oh! no!" said Renaud--"simply a thief! for if he weren"t riding a horse he never intends to return, the fellow wouldn"t run away--I know him!"
He turned to poor, frightened Livette.
"Never fear, demoiselle," said he, "he shall not carry our horse to paradise with him."
Was it Renaud"s purpose, in saying this, to make the gipsy think that he was bent upon taking vengeance for the theft of his horse rather than for the insult put upon his fiancee? Perhaps so; but the devil is so cunning that Renaud himself had no idea that he was capable of such craft.
As to the gipsy, she said to herself that Renaud, by jumping out of the window, instead of coming quietly down the stairs, had compromised his prospects of revenge for the satisfaction of exhibiting his gipsy-like agility to her. He did, in truth, jump like a wild cat, and rebound as if he were equipped with elastic paws! He was as agile as a true _zingaro_! He was as handsome and bold as a highwayman! They are gipsies, to all intents, these wandering guardians of mares and heifers!
Renaud, who had disappeared long enough to buckle his horse"s girth, rode by in a few moments upon Prince; the witnesses of the scene just enacted were still discussing it.
"Catch him! catch him! eat him, King!" cried twenty young men"s voices in chorus.
"With the King and the Prince arrayed against him, Rampal is a dead man," some one remarked, with a laugh.
Renaud was already at a distance. He had not looked at the gipsy, but he felt that her eyes were upon him, and he felt now that they were following him from afar; and the feeling caused a pleasurable thrill, of which he was conscious, and for which he reproved himself vaguely on Livette"s account, but without seeking to repress it. Yes, as he galloped along in his wrath, he galloped in a particular way in order that his wrath might show to good advantage, so that he might appear a handsome and graceful horseman, as he was in fact. He was conscious of every movement that he made--he fancied that he could see himself, and was desirous to make a good appearance, he, the King!
The peac.o.c.k, in the mating season, has more gorgeous plumage, and makes the greatest possible display of it. The nightingale and the redbreast have sweeter voices. All alike take pleasure in so arraying themselves as to give pleasure.
"Where are you going, Livette?" her two friends asked her.
"I am going to see monsieur le cure. I must have a talk with him, poor me! for it was a great sin to listen to that sorceress, you know!"
XIV
JOUSTING
Both Renaud and Rampal had spears.
As he rode by the Neuf farm, half a league from Saintes-Maries, Rampal, who owned nothing in the world but his saddle, and had no spear, being at that time simply a drover out of a job, had spied one leaning against a fig-tree, and had appropriated it without dismounting, had "borrowed it without a word," thinking that he should probably need it to defend himself.
Now he was galloping across the fields, leaning forward on his horse"s neck, with his thong in his boot and the spear resting in the stirrup.
Renaud had mistaken the road in his hot pursuit. Perhaps the gipsy was the cause of it, for, in spite of himself, in order to remain within her range of vision, Renaud had ridden straight toward the Vaccares, while Rampal had just taken the road to Arles, avoiding stratagem in order to mislead his pursuer more effectually, for he said to himself that Renaud would surely argue that he had made for the middle of the island to take refuge in some deserted _ja.s.s_.
Renaud divined Rampal"s plan.
"He will keep to the road," he suddenly thought, and feeling certain that he was right, he turned to the left and rode due west. Rampal, having the start of him by a full league, drew rein in the vicinity of Grandes-Cabanes, and having planted his spear-head in the ground, rested both hands upon it, then placed his feet, one after the other, on the hind-quarters of his horse, and stood there for some moments, scanning the plain behind him. Between two clumps of tamarisks he caught a glimpse of a horseman, like a flash of light, or like a rabbit scuttling between two wild thyme bushes--Renaud, beyond question! Rampal saw that Renaud, if it were he, was about to take to the road, and he himself thereupon left it and rode in the opposite direction on a line parallel to that his enemy was following in the distance. When Renaud reached the road and turned into it, Rampal had the Vaccares in front of him, and there he turned to the left and followed the sh.o.r.e. His plan was to cross the main stream of the Rhone, and reach the Conscript"s Hut, in the middle of the _gargate_, the spot where he was confident of finding safe shelter in times of serious danger. Unluckily for him, he had been seen--when he was standing on his horse watching his man--by a fisherman who was crouching on the edge of the ca.n.a.l, fishing for eels with a reed and a short line, at the end of which was a bunch of worms, strung and twisted together.