“Go, go, my girl, and hurry. I must confer with the captain about a little cruise he can undertake even to-day with his polacre. We must warn the consuls to arm some fishing-boats immediately, with sure and determined men. We must give the alarm all along the shore, arm the entrance into the gulf, which is defended only by the cannon of Maison-Forte, and be prepared for any surprise, for these brigands rush on the coast like a hurricane. So Luquin must come on the instant Do you hear, Stephanette? The safety of the city depends on it.”
“Be easy, Master Peyrou, although it breaks my heart to know that my poor Luquin is going to run such danger. I love him too much to advise him to be a coward.”
During this rapid conversation between the watchman and her servant, Reine, lost in deep reverie, had descended a few steps of the path which conducted to the platform upon which stood the sentry-box.
This path, which was very steep, wound around the outside of the promontory, and formed at this spot a sort of comice, whose projection reached considerably over the base of this immense wall of rocks, more than three hundred feet above the level of the sea.
A young girl less habituated to walks and to mountain climbing would have feared to venture on this narrow passage. From the side of the sea, its only parapet was a few asperities of rock, more or less pronounced. Reine, accustomed to brave these perils from her infancy, thought nothing of danger. The emotion that agitated her since her interview with the watchman absorbed her entirely.
Her gait, sometimes slow, sometimes hurried, seemed to share the nature of her tumultuous emotions.
Stephanette soon joined her. Surprised at the pallor of her mistress, she was about to ask the cause of it, when Reine said to her, in an altered voice, with a gesture which did not admit of a reply, “Walk in front of me, Stephanette, do not concern yourself whether I follow you or not.”
Stephanette preceded her mistress at once, directing her steps in all haste toward Maison-Forte.
The agitation of Reine des Anbiez was extreme. The relations which seemed to exist between the Bohemian and the unknown were too evident for her not to have the most painful suspicions of this young man whom the vagabond called the emir.
Many circumstances, which had not impressed her at the time, now made Reine believe that the Bohemian was an emissary of the unknown. No doubt it was the vagabond who had placed in her chamber the various objects which had caused her so much surprise. Adopting this hypothesis, there was, however, one objection which presented itself to her mind,—she had found the crystal vase and the miniature on vellum before the arrival of the vagabond.