"That would be the devil," cried Francis; and looked about with an air of defiance, as if seeking for his adversary.--"But I have no objection: to my mind the best of a feast is wanting if there is not something of a row to wind it up."
"So much for the future," said the gipsy, releasing his hand. "The past you will be contented to leave alone."
"By no means," exclaimed Francis. "Of the future you can lie as much as you please, because no one can peep behind the curtain; but in the past your art is put to the proof of fire, and if it does not come well out of it, I shall mock you soundly."
Again the gipsy took his hand, examined it; but shuddered and retreated, saying, "For the last time I warn you."
"That, by my troth, sounds like earnest," cried Francis, mockingly.--"But go on, at my peril."
"You have murder on your soul!" said a voice hollowly from beneath the mask.
Francis drew back, shuddering, but in the next moment he collected himself, as he replied, "In the Turkish war I helped more than one infidel to hell; but I pride myself upon it, and do not reckon it for a murder."
"I speak of that which happened four years since, and of which you were acquitted at the royal tribune of Prague."
Francis uttered a cry of terror, and would have started up, but the gipsy grasped his hand firmly, and he sank back upon his seat as if paralysed.
"Properly speaking," continued the gipsy, "you have two souls to answer for above. An honest old man was sacrificed for your safety. You deceived him by an oath to marry his daughter, whom you had seduced: justice gave way before the son of the all-powerful patrician, and, to save vice, innocence went out to die."