"Certes, your Ladyship sets them an example!" murmured the audacious fellow. "Though, pardi!—one not easy to imitate!"
She threw back her head, proudly, imperiously; the brown eyes gleamed, and certain sharp words of reproof were about to spring from her lips, when abruptly, above the sound of the music, a trumpet call, afar, rang out. My lady—not sorry perhaps of the pretext—at once stopped.
"I thank your Ladyship," said the man and bowed low.
But the Governor's daughter seemed, or affected, not to hear, regarding the other dancers, who likewise had come to a standstill—the two musicians looking up from instruments now silent. A moment yet the young fisherman lingered; seemed about once more to voice his acknowledgments, but, catching the dull eye of a peasant, stepped back instead.
"Sapristi! They might, at least, have waited until the end of the dance!" he muttered, and, with a final look over his shoulder and a low laugh, disappeared in the crowd.
"Where are the enemy?" It was the Marquis who spoke—in accents he strove to make light and thereby conceal, perhaps, possible annoyance. Coming forward, he looked around toward the point whence the sound had proceeded. "If I mistake not," a note of inquiry in his tone, "it means—a call to arms!"
My lady bit her lips; her eyes still gleamed with the bright cold light of a topaz. "Why—a call to arms?" she asked somewhat petulantly, raising her hand to her hair, a little disarranged in the dance.
"Perhaps, as a part of the military discipline?" murmured the Marquis dubiously. "See!" With sudden interest, he indicated a part of the Mount that had been black against the star-spangled sky, now showing sickly points of light. "It does mean something! They are coming down!"
And even as the Marquis spoke, a clatter of hoofs on the stone pavement leading from the Mount to the sand ushered a horseman into view. He was followed by another and yet another, until in somewhat desultory fashion, owing to the tortuous difficulties of the narrow way that had separated them above, an array of mounted men was gathered at the base of the rock. But only for a moment; a few words from one of their number, evidently in command, and they dispersed; some to ride around the Mount to the left, others to the right.
"Perhaps Elise will enlighten us?" Of one accord her guests now crowded around the girl.