“How, little one, how? I am old, they would wrest you from my arms. They treat me like an infant already.”
“Let us leave them and seek the mountains, you and I, grandame. They will not follow us up into the snow peaks!”
“To-night I have clambered up to the Alhambra. It is the first time in ten years; to-morrow my bones will be as stiff as rusted iron. How am I to drag myself up to the mountains? How am I, a count’s wife, to leave his people?”
“I am a count’s daughter, but they wish to kill me!” answered the poor girl, sadly. “You will not let them—say, grandame, that you will save me from the Valley of Stones!”
“They are many and strong—I an old woman, feeble with years!”
“They will stone me—oh, they will stone me! and I am innocent of all they think against me!” still pleaded the Gitanilla.
The old woman was evidently troubled. She shook her head, and cast wistful glances on her broken idol, as if interrogating the stone.
“Let me go by myself, then,” cried the girl, eagerly. “I am told that countries stretch far away beyond the mountains. There they will not know that I am an outcast, and my dancing will get bread enough to eat.”
The old woman did not heed her; she was still interrogating the Egyptian stone. Quick flashes of intelligence shot across her face; some project was evidently taking form in her brain.
“He will not believe me—Chaleco will be first among them with his story. I have no power to brave the laws, but I can baffle them. Leave old Papita alone for that.”