Heaven! the magnificence of her fancy! She had taken from her shoulders her scapular, together with a little heart of chalcedonyx that hung therefrom. This latter she detached and handed to me.
“Loop it to his ear, if thou darest,” said she.
I went quite gravely to do her bidding. What a farceur of circumstance was I become! But my breast overflowed with deference as I approached the great pig. He had rolled from his victim and stood a little apart, evilly humouring with his chaps a certain recollection. He eyed me with wickedness as I advanced, and his obsequious following, something subsided from their hysteria, seemed awaiting their cue. I would not allow myself a second’s indecision. I walked straight up to him—“Monsieur,” I said, “avec l’égard le plus profond”—and flung the string over his ear.
Alas! the ingrate! As I retreated he threw down his head, dislodged the trinket, smelt at and swallowed it.
The eyes in Carinne’s yet shocked face looked a pale inquiry when I returned to her.
“Mademoiselle,” I said, “the honour would appear entirely to his taste.”
She nodded seriously.
“It is well,” she whispered; “and I hope none will rob him.”
“He shall be turned inside out first,” I said stoutly; and at that she nodded again, and bade me to a hurried retreat.
We may have walked a mile, or even two, in a solemn silence, before my comrade was fain to stop, in the heart of a woodland glen, and throw herself exhausted on a bank. Then she looked up at me, her fatigued eyes struggling yet with defiance.