These men passed Turner without seeing him. He did not heed them, but still watched the persons who remained standing near the Egyptian idol.
The Sibyl stood directly before Lord Clare, who still half supported her grand-daughter. Now her manner was imposing, her energy sublime; the sorceress blood seemed to glow and burn in her veins as she spoke. It was to Lord Clare she addressed herself, not to the girl. The whispered words that had withered her cheek and lip, were all the farewell admonition she had to give her: but that which she said to Clare had the same effect. Aurora shook with terror as her relative uttered her last—it might almost be called malediction.
“Go,” she said—“go, and with you take the last drop of my blood that burns in a human heart. Take her—keep faith with her, nor dream that this marriage is less binding than if all the high priests of Spain and of your land, wherever it may be, had celebrated it in the great cathedral down yonder, with the high altar in a blaze of light, and the tomb of Queen Isabella giving sanctity to the spot. Look at your wife, how her eyes dwell upon you—how full of hope and trust they are—how wildly she wishes to be free from this dim vault, alone with you, and away from her last of kin. The blossoms that live half in sunshine, half in snow, on the Sierra Nevada, are not more stainless than this child. The hot sun that ripens the orange on the Guadalquivir is not more fervent than her passionate nature—more burning than her pride. Be just to the child, or beware of the woman. She is in your hands; make of her what you will, a gazelle or a tiger, the thing you call an angel, or the thing you fear as a fiend. That which you make her she will be, a blessing or a curse, which will cling to you for ever and ever. Free to act, free to marry, these were your words twelve hours ago. This you believed, and I, the old gipsy, mocked at your folly.
“In England, you say, and here with us, marriages are alike binding unto death—death, and nothing but death, can separate you from this child. You have sworn it before my god; she has sworn it before her god; and I have sworn by all the eternal powers that exist, high or low. Hope not to shake off Papita’s oath, or your own. Your laws—all the laws of this nation or yours are but shadows against the stern will of a woman whom nature has made strong, and treason has left desperate.
“I looked for the stars to-night. They were troubled, buried in clouds, pale and half extinguished in vapor, as the Darro flings them back when it is turbid and muddy. So it always is when I would read her fate and yours. That bespeaks”——
“Stay!” said the earl, sternly, “you are killing her—see how white she is—how she trembles. Why torture her in this way, it can do no good?”
“I declare to you again I feel it in my soul, and read it in the stars, nothing but death shall separate you from this, my grand-daughter. Swear it again!”
She spoke to Aurora, who either from weakness, or obeying the Sibyl’s gesture, laid her hand on the forehead of the Egyptian idol, and her white lips moved as if uttering some inward vow. Turner saw this, but Lord Clare mistook the sudden recoil as an evidence of exhaustion, and with a flushed cheek sought to protect her from further persecution.
“This has gone too far,” he said; “I will submit no longer. Make what preparations you will, but in haste, for the night is wearing on.”
“It is enough,” answered the Sibyl. “I have said my say, and the oath is sworn.”