"Yes, sir!" said the child, who had so far shown no sign of apprehension, fear, or anxiety.
"Hm!" said the baron, "here I have an adopted child without asking for it!"
He had become very serious of a sudden. He stroked Czika's bluish-black curls and her fine brow, and looked at her steadily.
"How beautiful the child is," he murmured, "how very beautiful! And how it has grown!--Come with me, little Czika, you shall be happy at my house, very happy; I will love you more than your mother, who has left you so basely, has ever loved you."
"Mother has not left Czika," said the child, quietly looking up at the baron; "mother is where Czika is; mother is everywhere."
Turning away from the two gentlemen, she put her little hands to her mouth, and sent a cry into the silent forest exactly like the call of a hungry young falcon.
The child inclined her head on one side and listened; the baron and Oswald instinctively held their breath.
There came from the forest, but evidently from a great distance, the answer; the clear, wild cry of the old falcon when he has spied out his quarry far down below him.
"You see, sir," said the child, "mother does not leave Czika; if you wish to take Czika with you, Czika will go with you."
"Well, then, come, young falcon," said the baron, taking the child by the hand. "Come, doctor! I believe Charles has mended the strap which broke just around the corner. There he is. All right again, Charles?"