XIII.
At every step Periphas took the darkness increased, and the lamplight in the inner room was but a feeble substitute for the dawning day. Yet he instantly distinguished the light figure which lay extended on the black skin.
Byssa slept resting on her side, with her face half averted. Instead of lying on the couch wholly undressed, with her garments loosely thrown over her, she had, probably from fear of some nocturnal visitor, retained her white kirtle and spread the goat-skin bodice over her breast.
Holding his breath, Periphas stole to the couch with a throbbing heart.
Byssa’s head rested on her round arm and her long black hair flowed down in two streams, one behind her shoulders, the other over her neck, where it was lost in the swelling outlines of the bust, only the upper portion of which could be seen above the shaggy edge of the bodice. The troubled expression of her features had given place to a sweet repose, which harmonized perfectly with the unconstrained grace of her recumbent attitude. Her cheeks were still somewhat paler than usual, but her half-parted lips were ruddy with the freshness of youth. In her slumber she had drawn her limbs under her in a peculiarly feminine way, and from the sea of white folds formed by her garments appeared a naked foot as smooth and plump as a child’s.
Periphas bent softly over the sleeper and listened to her calm, regular breathing. He felt like a thief who dreads being caught, and thought with terror that she might open her eyes. But when his glance fell upon the white foot that peeped from under the garments, he mentally compared Byssa to the Pelasgian women who, according to ancient custom, climbed the mountains to bring the shepherds food, and with their brown skins and muscular figures closely resembled beasts of burden. He could not avert his gaze from the bare foot. It seemed to him a perfect marvel and, even at the risk of waking Byssa, he could not refrain from touching it. Slowly and cautiously extending his huge hand, he took hold of it as gently as if it had been a little bird.
Byssa started and sat erect on the couch. Half-stupefied by sleep, she pushed her long hair back from her eyes with both hands, but scarcely had she recognized the Pelasgian when with a loud shriek she thrust him away.
“Wretch!” she exclaimed as she sprang up almost frantic with terror and fled.
At the entrance of the cave she felt herself seized and stopped. She turned.
Periphas was a terrible spectacle; his brown cheeks were deeply flushed and his eyes flashed like a wildcat’s.
“Woman!” he gasped breathlessly, in a voice tremulous with passion. “You are in my power ... you shall obey me.”
But Byssa bent backward over his arm to get as far away from him as possible. At that instant, she remembered her father’s parting charge: “Do not abandon Zeus Hypsistos, that Zeus Hypsistos may not abandon you.”
She called loudly upon the god’s name.
Periphas laughed.
“Zeus is far away,” he said.
Byssa gazed wildly around the cave, expecting to see Lyrcus appear with spear and shield. But no living creature was visible far or near—naught save clouds and mountains.
Again Periphas laughed.
“No one is coming,” he murmured. “If you want to be saved, help yourself.”
The words darted into Byssa’s brain like a flash of lightning.
Yes!—it was “a voice of fate,” a sign sent by the gods, an answer to her appeal placed in Periphas’ mouth, without his suspecting it, by Zeus himself.
A thrill of emotion ran through her frame and with all the strength that animates a person who believes himself acting in the name of a god, she snatched the knife from the Pelasgian’s belt and with the speed of light drove it up to the hilt in his bare breast.
Periphas staggered back a step. He felt no special pain, he lost very little blood, yet he perceived that a change was taking place which could mean nothing but death.
Turning frightfully pale, he tottered and covered his eyes with both hands as though to escape a sight full of awe and horror.
“The soothsayer!” he exclaimed. “I see him ... in the midst of the darkness.... He is stretching out his arms to clutch me.”
Then, with failing voice, he murmured:
“That was the prediction ... that vile ... death by a woman’s hand.”
As he spoke, without an effort to save himself, he fell prostrate on the ground behind the boulder at the entrance of the cave, clouds of dust whirling upward around him.
Byssa, so brave a few moments before, trembled from head to foot. Her knees could no longer support her, and she sank down on a rock at the other side of the entrance.
Her eyes, as if by some magic spell, were fixed upon the figure behind the boulder. She saw the last convulsions shake the Pelasgian’s shoulders; she saw his hand clench in a spasmodic tremor; she saw the waxen hue of a corpse spread over his body—and could not avert her gaze.