After a time there came upon de Sancerre the impression that piercing black eyes watched him as he strode up and down in front of the silent, shadow-haunted hut in which the strange chances of life had imprisoned the only woman who had ever aroused in his mocking soul the precious passion of romantic love. He cut the darkness with his eager glance, but suspicion was not replaced by certainty. Nevertheless, the feeling grew strong within him that the night wind toyed with white robes not far away, and that stealthy footsteps reached his ears on either hand.
By a strong effort of will, de Sancerre routed the sensation of mingled consternation and impotence which the chill gloom and the presence of prying spies had begotten, and, drawing close to the doorway of Doña Julia’s cabin, hummed an ancient love-ballad born of the troubadours. The song had died in the damp embrace of the roving wind when the silence was broken by a voice which reached de Sancerre’s grateful ears from the entrance to the hut.
“Speak not in Spanish and in whispers only, Mademoiselle de Aquilar!” exclaimed the Frenchman in a low voice, not changing his attitude of a swordsman doing duty as a sentinel. “There are listening ears upon all sides of me. If we converse in French, they’ll think we use the tongue of sun or moon.”
“I heard your voice, monsieur. Is there great danger if we talk a while?”
“I hardly know,” answered de Sancerre, striving again to read the secrets of the night. “But listen, for when the chance may come to me to speak to you again I do not know. Be ready at any moment, at a word from me, to leave this hut. I’ll use old Noco for my messenger, when I have made my plans. I dare not flee with you to-night, for, as I speak, I see the ghostly menace of a skulking temple priest. There’d be no safety for us beyond the town. Alas, we must abide our time!”
“But, oh, my heart is light, monsieur,” whispered the girl, from whose Spanish tongue the French words made rich music as they fell. “If this be not a dream, it cannot be that you have come in vain. One night I heard my father’s voice in Paradise. He spoke to me of you, and when old Noco told me that by the river there were white-faced men, I heard his voice again—and wrote my name upon the bark. It is a miracle, monsieur!”
“A miracle, indeed!” exclaimed de Sancerre, chafing under the tyranny of his grim surroundings and distrustful of an overpowering inclination to bend down and clasp the girl’s hand in his. “But the devil and the sun-priests, mademoiselle, are in league against us. Pray to the saints that we may foil them both! Ma foi, a half-done miracle is worse than none! But this I promise you, that whether you and I be playthings of a heartless Fate, or the favored wards of Mother Mary and her Son, I’ll plot and scheme and fight until I save you from captivity, or pay the price of death. And so, good-night! I dare not let you linger longer where you are, for already these white-robed spies are growing restless at our talk, and I hear them muttering in the darkness there, as if in resentment of my converse with their deity.”
A suppressed sob told de Sancerre how much his presence meant to the lonely girl.
“Can we not leave this awful place at once?” she moaned. “Forgive me, monsieur, but it has been so long since I have seen a ray of hope in this black hole that every moment since I knew that you were here has seemed a year. May Mother Mary guard you through the night! ’Tis well I love my prayers, monsieur! I will not sleep.”
“Nay, mademoiselle, ’tis well to pray, but not to lose your sleep. You’ll need the saints, anon—but also strength. Sleep, Doña Julia, for the love of—God! And so, good-night! I’ll watch beside your door until these slinking scoundrels have gone to feed their sacred fire.”