“There is but one way—only one in the world, I have come to say this. You alone can save her from the fury of our tribe!”
“How can I save her? Point out the way, and if it is to purchase her life with my own, speak, and I will do it.”
“You must leave Granada to-night, and take my grandchild with you!”
The young man’s eyes fell, and the rich color burned, like fire, in his cheeks; but he remembered the scene that had passed that night in the Alhambra, and shook his head.
“She will not go! I could not persuade her to be saved on these terms,” he said.
“No, not on the terms you are thinking of. I would see her torn limb from limb before my eyes; yea, help to rend her to death, rather than see her live the shame of her people; but there is another way. Sometimes the rich men of our people have married among the Gentiles. If men take that privilege, it belongs to our women also. Make Aurora your wife according to the marriage rites of the tribe; go with her privately to your own country—leave the old woman gold enough to keep her from starving, and she will be content.”
“But would this appease your tribe? Would they again receive Aurora?” questioned the young man.
“No; they believe her a castaway; marriage would be no atonement. I know that she is not the thing they suspect; but it would be of no use attempting to convince them. Do what I wish, and they will believe her dead. They cannot take from me the right of a count’s widow to punish those of her own blood with her own hands, privately or not as she wills. They will think that I have given her of the drao, and that she lies in the bottom of the Darro.”
The young man was greatly agitated. He paced the room to and fro; then he sat down, veiling his eyes with his hand, and fell into labored thought. At length he lifted his eyes to the old woman, who had been regarding him all the time in anxious and vigilant silence.
“Will Aurora consent to this?”