“Should we not return to the Castle? the Marchesa may be waiting for us,” suggested Sir Percival.
“A thousand pardons,” cried the Marchese. “I fear I have fatigued you. You are thirsty.”
“Well, yes; I am somewhat thirsty,” laughed the visitor.
“How discourteous I have been! We shall have the refreshment of an orange before returning. There is a famous grove a short way toward the cliff.”
He strode onward, and then, suddenly turning down a narrow path made among the olives, Sir Percival gave a start, for he found himself by the side of the Marchese, at the one part of those grounds with which he was well acquainted. They stood among the orange-trees at the summit of the cliff which he had nightly climbed to meet Paolina.
“Here are our choicest fruits,” said the Marchese, plucking an orange and handing it to his visitor. “Break it open and you will see how exquisite the fruit is.”
Sir Percival broke the orange, but the moment he did so it fell from his fingers and he gave a cry of horror, for out of the fruit had come a red stream staining his hands.
The Marchese laughed loud and long.
“Your hands are embrued with blood,” he said. “Oh, a stranger might fancy for a moment that Sir Percival Cleave was a murderer. Ah! pray pardon my folly. That is only the refreshing juice of the orange. And yet you fancied that it was blood! Come, my friend, take courage; here is another. Eat it; you will find it delicious. I have heard that there are in the world such strange monsters as are refreshed by drinking blood—we have ourselves vampires in this neighbourhood. But you and I, sir, we prefer only the heart’s blood of a simple orange. You will eat one.”
“I could not touch one,” said Sir Percival. “Nay; to do me the favour? What! an Englishman and superstitious?”