“I have thought of this before,” muttered Turner, uneasily, “it’s natural—it’s what I should have expected. What company are the Spanish woman and such a dry old chip as I am for a creature like this?”
His look of annoyance disturbed me. I could not bear to see his old face so wrinkled with anxiety.
“We should have to take a long journey to find the children, I suppose,” said I, hoping to relieve his perplexity; “but Jupiter here is so strong, and so swift, if you could but keep up with him now, we might search for them, you know.”
The old man still looked anxious, and bore down heavily on the neck of my beautiful steed with his arm.
“Don’t,” said I, “you will hurt Jupiter; see how his head droops.”
“Poor thing, I would not hurt him for the world, if it were only for her sake,” said the old man, smoothing the arched neck of Jupiter with his palm; “next to you, Zana, I think she loved this pretty animal.”
“Who—who was it that loved Jupiter so?” I inquired, with eager curiosity.
“Your mother,” replied the old man, and the words dropped like tears from his lips.
“My mother,” I repeated, looking upward, and solemnly expecting to see that sweet face gazing down upon me from the clouds. “Let us go home, dear Turner, I am growing cold; do not say that again, the sound drifts over me here like a snow-heap, it hurts me.”
Turner seemed to struggle with himself. Then lifting his eyes to my face, as if he had nerved his resolution to say something very painful, he answered,