The hay might perhaps have spared a little stiffness, but it would not have ameliorated the chief annoyances—the closeness, the dirt, and the vermin. It was well that it was winter, or the first of these would have been far worse, and, fortunately for Estelle, she was one of those whom suffocating air rather lulls than rouses.
Eyoub’s hovel did not rejoice in the refinement of a partition, but his family, together with their animals, lay on the rocky floor as best they might; and Victorine’s fever came on again, so that she lay in great misery, greeted by a growl from a great white dog whenever she tried to relieve her restless aching limbs by the slightest movement, or to reach one of the gourds of water laid near the sleepers, like Saul’s cruse at his pillow.
Towards morning, however, Lanty, who had been sitting with his back against the wall, awoke from the sleep well earned by acting as a beast of burthen. The dog growled a little, but Lanty—though his leg still showed its teeth-marks—had made friends with it, and his hand on its head quieted it directly, so that he was able cautiously to hand a gourd to Victorine. The Arabs were heavy sleepers, and the two were able to talk under their breath; as, in reply to a kind word from Lanty, poor Victorine moaned her envy of the fate of Rosette and Babette; and he, with something of their little mistress’s spirit, declared that he had no doubt but that ‘one way or the other they should be out of it: either get safe home, or be blessed martyrs, without even a taste of purgatory.’
‘Ah! but there’s worse for me,’ sighed Victorine. ‘This demon brought another to stare in my face—I know he wants to make me his wife! Kill me first, Laurent.’
‘It is I that would rather espouse you, my jewel,’ returned a tender whisper.
‘How can you talk of such things at such a moment?’
‘’Tis a pity M. l’Abbé is not a priest,’ sighed Lanty. ‘But, you know, Victorine, who is the boy you always meant to take.’
‘You need not be so sure of that,’ she said, the coy coquetry not quite extinct.
‘Come, as you said, it is no time for fooling. Give me your word and troth to be my wife so soon as we have the good luck to come by a Christian priest by our Lady’s help, and I’ll outface them all—were it Mohammed the Prophet himself, that you are my espoused and betrothed, and woe to him that puts a finger on you.’
‘You would only get yourself killed.’