I felt like one possessed. By what power did my tongue form that language?—what was it? All at once, while he waited for me to speak, I began to shiver and burst into tears. He tossed my hand away with a gesture of contempt.
“Bah! you are only a half-blood after all, the Caloe is poisoned on your tongue.”
I checked the tears that so offended him, and moved breathlessly forward, relieved by the gesture which had freed me from his hand.
When we reached the broad, stone platform that clasped the two staircases in one, he took hold of my hand again. That moment another flash of lightning leaped from the clouds, sheeting us, the building and all its neglected grounds in a glare of bluish light.
It blinded me for an instant, then I saw the man’s face clearly, bending over me as I cowered to the stones. The lightning had no effect upon me like the unearthly glow of those eyes. Since then I have seen birds fascinated by the undulating movements of a serpent, and they always brought back a shuddering remembrance of that hour.
“Up,” he said, grasping my arm, and lifting me to his side, “half the true blood is stagnant still. We will set it on fire.”
He placed one heavy foot against a leaf of the oaken door, and it fell open with a clang that resounded frightfully from the deep, empty hall. Again the lightning blazed upon the floor, tessellated with blocks of black and white marble, and suits of antique armor, with shields and firearms, that hung upon the wall.
“It is a fearful night,” I said, looking wildly at my companion.
“Gitanilla!” he said, turning upon me with folded arms, and a fierce gathering of the brow, “I have seen a morning when the sunlight lay rosy among the snow peaks—when the earth seemed covered with sifted pearls—when every breath poured health and vigor into the frame; I have seen such a morning more fearful a thousand times than this! Come with me!”
“What for?—where?” I demanded, thrilled and astonished by the glowing words, which I must ever fail to give in English.