Now the keeper was not used to so much loveliness in great distress, and he moved away; but she tried to follow him on her knees, crying: "Oh, as you hope mercy for yourself, take me home!" And beginning to doubt his strength, he affected harshness.
"It is useless praying to me. I could not take you out if your father rained gold on me for a month--I could not if I wished to.... Be sensible, and listen to me."
"Then you did not bring me here."
"Listen to me, I say.... You will get hungry and thirsty--there are bread, fruit, and water and wine--and when you are sleepy, yonder is the bed. Use your eyes, and you are certain to find in one room or the other everything you can need; and whatever you put hand on is yours. Only be sensible, and quit taking on so. Quit praying to me. Prayer is for the Madonna and the Blessed Saints. Hush and hear. No? Well, I am going now."
"Going?--and without telling me where I am? Or why I was brought here?
Or by whom? Oh, my G.o.d!"
She flung herself on the floor distracted; and he, apparently not minding, went on:
"I am going now, but will come back for your orders in the morning, and again in the evening. Do not be afraid; it is not intended to hurt you; and if you get tired of yourself, there are books; or if you do not read, maybe you sing--there are musical instruments, and you can choose amongst them. Now I grant you I am not a waiting-maid, having had no education in that line; still, if I may advise, wash your face, and dress your hair, and be beautiful as you can, for by and by he will come"--
"Who will come?" she asked, rising to her knees, and clasping her hands.
The sight was more than enough for him. He fled incontinently, saying: "I will be back in the morning." As he went he s.n.a.t.c.hed up the indispensable lamp; outside, he locked the door; then rowed away, repeating, "Oh, the blood of doves and the tears of women!"
Left thus alone, the unfortunate girl lay on the floor a long time, sobbing, and gradually finding the virtue there is in tears--especially tears of repentance. Afterwhile, with the return of reason--meaning power to think--the silence of the place became noticeable. Listening closely, she could detect no sign of life--nothing indicative of a street, or a house adjoining, or a neighbor, or that there was any outdoors about her at all. The noise of an insect, the note of a bird, a sough of wind, the gurgle of water, would have relieved her from the sense of having in some way fallen off the earth, and been caught by a far away uninhabited planet. That would certainly have been hard; but worse--the idea of being doomed to stay there took possession of her, and becoming intolerable, she walked from room to room, and even tried to take interest in the things around. Will it ever be that a woman can pa.s.s a mirror without being arrested by it? Before the tall copper plate she finally stopped. At first, the figure she saw startled her. The air of general discomfiture--hair loose, features tear-stained, eyes red and swollen, garments disarranged--made it look like a stranger. The notion exaggerated itself, and further on she found a positive comfort in the society of the image, which not only looked somebody else, but more and more somebody else who was lost like herself, and, being in the same miserable condition, would be happy to exchange sympathy for sympathy.
Now the spectacle of a person in distress is never pleasant; wherefore permission is begged to dismiss the pa.s.sage of that night in the cistern briefly as possible. From the couch to the mirror; fearing now, then despairing; one moment calling for help, listening next, her distracted fancy caught by an imaginary sound; too much fevered to care for refreshments; so overwhelmed by the awful sense of being hopelessly and forever lost, she could neither sleep nor control herself mentally. Thus tortured, there were no minutes or hours to her, only a time, that being a peculiarity of the strange planet her habitat. To be sure, she explored her prison intent upon escape, but was as often beaten back by walls without window, loophole or skylight--walls in which there was but one door, fastened outside.
The day following was to the captive in nothing different from the night--a time divisionless, and filled with fear, suspense, and horrible imaginings--a monotony unbroken by a sound. If she could have heard a bell, though ever so faint, or a voice, to whomsoever addressed, it would yet prove her in an inhabited world--nay, could she but have heard a cricket singing!
In the morning the keeper kept his appointment. He came alone and without business except to renew the oil in the lamps. After a careful survey of the palace, as he called it, probably in sarcasm, and as he was about to leave, he offered, if she wanted anything, to bring it upon his return. Was there ever prisoner not in want of liberty? The proposal did but reopen the scene of the evening previous; and he fled from it, repeating as before, "Oh, the blood of doves and the tears of women!"
In the evening he found her more tractable; so at least he thought; and she was in fact quieter from exhaustion. None the less he again fled to escape the entreaties with which she beset him.
She took to the couch the second night. The need of nature was too strong for both grief and fear, and she slept. Of course she knew not of the hunt going on, or of the difficulties in the way of finding her; and in this ignorance the sensation of being lost gradually yielded to the more poignant idea of desertion. Where was Sergius? Would there ever be a fitter opportunity for display of the superhuman intelligence with which, up to this time, she had invested her father, the Prince of India? The stars could tell him everything; so, if now they were silent respecting her, it could only be because he had not consulted them.
Situations such as she was in are right quarters of the moon for unreasonable fantasies; and she fell asleep oppressed by a conviction that all the friendly planets, even Jupiter, for whose appearance she had so often watched with the delight of a lover, were hastening to their Houses to tell him where she was, but for some reason he ignored them.
Still later, she fell into a defiant sullenness, one of the many aspects of despair.
In this mood, while lying on the couch, she heard the sound of oars, and almost immediately after felt the floor jar. She sat up, wondering what had brought the keeper back so soon. Steps then approached the door; but the lock there proving troublesome, suggested one unaccustomed to it; whereupon she remembered the rude advice to wash her face and dress her hair, for by and by somebody was coming.
"Now," she thought, "I shall learn who brought me here, and why."
A hope returned to her.
"Oh, it may be my father has at last found me!"
She arose--a volume of joy gathered in her heart ready to burst into expression--when the door was pushed open, and Demedes entered.
We know the figure he thus introduced to her. With averted face he reinserted the key in the lock. She saw the key, heavy enough in emergency for an aggressive weapon--she saw a gloved hand turn it, and heard the bolt plunge obediently into its socket--and the flicker of hope went out. She sunk upon the couch again, sullenly observant.
The visitor--at first unrecognized by her--behaved as if at home, and confident of an agreeable reception. Having made the door safe on the outside, he next secured it inside, by taking the key out. Still averting his face, he went to the mirror, shook the great cloak from his shoulders, and coolly surveyed himself, turning this way and that. He rearranged his cape, took off the cap, and, putting the plumes in better relation, restored it to his head--thrust his gloves on one side under a swordless belt, and the ponderous key under the same belt but on the other side, where it had for company a straight dagger of threatening proportions.
Lael kept watch on these movements, doubtful if the stranger were aware of her presence. Uncertainty on that score was presently removed.
Turning from the mirror, he advanced slowly toward her. When under the circlet, just at the point where the light was most favorable for an exhibition of himself, he stopped, doffed the cap, and said to her:
"The daughter of the Prince of India cannot have forgotten me."
Now if, from something said in this chronicle, the reader has been led to exalt the little Jewess into a Bradamante, it were just to undeceive him. She was a woman in promise, of fair intellect subordinate to a pure heart. Any great thing said or done by her would be certain to have its origin in her affections. The circ.u.mstances in which she would be other than simple and unaffected are inconceivable. In the beautiful armor, Demedes was handsome, particularly as there was no other man near to force a comparison of stature; yet she did not see any of his braveries--she saw his face alone, and with what feeling may be inferred from the fact that she now knew who brought her where she was, and the purpose of the bringing.
Instead of replying, she shrank visibly further and further from him, until she was an apt reminder of a hare cornered by a hound, or a dove at last overtaken by a hawk.
The suffering she had undergone was discernible in her appearance, for she had not taken the advice of the keeper; in a word, she was at the moment shockingly unlike the lissome, happy, radiant creature whom we saw set out for a promenade two days before. Her posture was crouching; the hair was falling all ways; both hands pressed hard upon her bosom; and the eyes were in fixed gaze, staring at him as at death. She was in the last extremity of fear, and he could not but see it.
"Do not be afraid," he said, hurriedly, and in a tone of pity. "You were never safer than you are here--I swear it, O Princess!"
Observing no change in her or indication of reply, he continued: "I see your fear, and it may be I am its object. Let me come and sit by you, and I will explain everything--where you are--why you were brought here--and by whom.... Or give me a place at your feet.... I will not speak for myself, except as I love you--nay, I will speak for love."
Still not a word from her--only a sullenness in which he fancied there was a threat.... A threat? What could she do? To him, nothing; he was in shirt of steel; but to herself much.... And he thought of suicide, and then of--madness.
"Tell me, O Princess, if you have received any disrespect since you entered this palace? There is but one person from whom it could have proceeded. I know him; and if, against his solemn oath, he has dared an unseemly look or word--if he has touched you profanely--you may choose the dog"s death he shall die, and I will give it him. For that I wear this dagger. See!"
In this he was sincere; yet he shall be a student very recently come to lessons in human nature who fails to perceive the reason of his sincerity; possibly she saw it; we speak with uncertainty, for she still kept silent. Again he cast about to make her speak. Reproach, abuse, rage, tears in torrents, fury in any form were preferable to that look, so like an animal"s conscious of its last moment.
"Must I talk to you from this distance? I can, as you see, but it is cruel; and if you fear me"--he smiled, as if the idea were amusing. "Oh!
if you still fear me, what is there to prevent my compelling the favors I beg?"
The menace was of no more effect than entreaty. Paralysis of spirit from fright was new to him; yet the resources of his wit were without end.
Going to the table, he looked it over carefully.
"What!" he cried, turning to her with well-dissembled astonishment.
"Hast thou eaten nothing? Two days, and not a crumb of bread in thy pretty throat?--not a drop of wine? This shall not go on--no, by all the goodness there is in Heaven!"
On a plate he then placed a biscuit and a goblet filled with red wine of the clearest sparkle, and taking them to her, knelt at her feet.
"I will tell you truly, Princess--I built this palace for you, and brought you here under urgency of love. G.o.d deny me forever, if I once dreamed of starving you! Eat and drink, if only to give me ease of conscience."
He offered the plate to her.
She arose, her face, if possible, whiter than before.
"Do not come near me--keep off!" Her voice was sharp and high. "Keep off!... Or take me to my father"s house. This palace is yours--you have the key. Oh, be merciful!"
Madness was very near her.
"I will obey you in all things but one," he said, and returned the plate to the table, content with having brought her to speech. "In all things but one," he repeated peremptorily, standing under the circlet. "I will not take you to your father"s house. I brought you here to teach you what I would never have a chance to teach you there--that you are the idol for whom I have dared every earthly risk, and imperilled my soul....
Sit down and rest yourself. I will not come near you to-night, nor ever without your consent.... Yes, that is well. And now you are seated, and have shown a little faith in my word--for which I thank you and kiss your hand--hear me further and be reasonable.... You shall love me."
Into this declaration he flung all the pa.s.sion of his nature.
"No, no! Draw not away believing yourself in peril. You shall love me, but not as a scourged victim. I am not a brute. I may be won too lightly, by a voice, by bright eyes, by graces of person, by faithfulness where faithfulness is owing, by a soul created for love and aglow with it as a star with light; but I am not of those who kill the beloved, and justify the deed, pleading coldness, scorn, preference for another. Be reasonable, I say, O Princess, and hear how I will conquer you.... Are not the better years of life ours? Why should I struggle or make haste, or be impatient? Are you not where I have chosen to put you?--where I can visit you day and night to a.s.sure myself of your health and spirits?--all in the world, yet out of its sight?... You may not know what a physician Time is. I do. He has a medicine for almost every ailment of the mind, every distemper of the soul. He may not set my lady"s broken finger, but he will knit it so, when sound again, the hurt shall be forgotten. He drops a month--in extreme cases, a year or years--on a grief, or a bereavement, and it becomes as if it had never been. So he lets the sun in on prejudices and hates, and they wither, and where they were, we go and gather the fruits and flowers of admiration, respect--ay, Princess, of love. Now, in this cause, I have chosen Time for my best friend; he and I will come together, and stay"--
The conclusion of the speech must be left to the reader, for with the last word some weighty solid crashed against the raft until it trembled throughout. Demedes stopped. Involuntarily his hand sought the dagger; and the action was a confession of surprise. An interval of quiet ensued; then came a trial of the lock--at first, gentle--another, with energy--a third one rattled the strong leaf in its frame.
"The villain! I will teach him--No, it cannot be--he would not dare--and besides I have the boat."