It was long before he could, by all the efforts of his strong will, bring his thoughts under any degree of control. But he did not leave the place, for the first reasonable reflection aroused the keenest anxiety for the Gitanilla. Her fears of death were not all fancies then. He remembered the old Sibyl’s words; she had only claimed the right of vengeance as her own. The proof which he held in his own person, was enough to convince him that no laws could prevent crime in a people to whom most crimes are held as virtues. Had he not been plundered of property, and saved from death almost by a miracle, in spite of the Spanish laws?
His anxiety regarding the poor gipsy girl became tormenting. Where could he seek her? Not at the ravine; surely she would not go there, knowing the fiendish inhabitants so well, and fearing all that she feared. The storm of her passion had been so violent it could not last. The poor child to save her own life must come back again. He would wait.
He did wait, hour after hour, till the moon went down, and nothing but the bright, holy stars kept watch over the Alhambra. He traversed the saloons, explored the cloisters, and leaving all that was beautiful behind him, wandered off among those dark red towers that harmonized better with the gloomy fears that possessed him.
Still he continued the search, clambering up those broken walls, tramping his way over wild flowers and weeds alike—called to a distance, sometimes, by the rustle of a bird, and mocked every instant by shadows that proved unreal as his hopes. But he would not believe that Aurora had left the ruins. Besides, rest was impossible. Alone in the little fonda he must have gone mad with anxiety.
Twenty times that night did he pass hurriedly through the Gate of Justice, hoping to find her returning from the woods. He searched the whole uneven sweep of those walls, clambering up the declivities, and finding relief in the physical exertion which covered his forehead and saturated his hair with moisture.
When the first rosy light of morning quivered on the snows of Alpujarras, he returned to the little fonda so weary, so hopelessly dejected that he could hardly stand. His fate day had come round again.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE BROKEN IDOL.
Any person who had seen that old gipsy Sibyl tearing her way up the steep ascent of the Barranca that night, must have fancied some evil spirit had broken loose, and was searching for prey among the gaunt aloes and ragged prickly pears. The sharp hiss with which she rent her garments from the harrowing thorns—the fiendish energy with which she broke away from each fresh grasp, betrayed a state of tormenting wrath which Dante alone could describe. There was a force in this bitterness, a concentration of gall that imbued her withered frame through and through with frightful power. Her aged limbs quivered with new life—she walked upright, flung aside her stick, and, grasping the thorny plants firmly with her hands, drew herself up the hill. The sharp leaves cut her like a knife, tore her hands and drew long purple lines down her lean arms; but no blood followed. Her veins seemed withered up, or barely moistened by the gall that fed them with bitter vitality.
The ravine was choked up with darkness; the fires were all out, and the caves closed. Not a sparkle of the Darro could be seen through the black mist that lay below; and the soft winds that scattered fragrance from a wilderness of blossoms on the Sierra del Sol, whose palace was crowned by a few rays of light from the dusky moon, only served to stir the stifling dust, through which the fierce old Sibyl waded ankle deep.
With all her toil, the old woman held fast to her crimson skirt, which she gathered up in front and hugged to her bosom attempting thus to keep a firm grasp on a mass of freshly gathered herbs, which protruded from its folds, scattering a fragrant odor upon the dusty air, as she crushed them tighter and tighter in her ascent up the hill.