"I have heard Theodore mention him," replied Ildica. "Did he not aid in his escape? I would fain see him again, and speak with him. All who may assist or aid me are valuable to me, dear Neva."
Neva advanced, and drew back the curtains of the inner tent for a moment, saying, "Dost thou seek me, Zercon? What wouldst thou with me? Come hither, and speak with me," she added, ere the man could reply. Returning to the side of Ildica, she seated herself near her on the cushions; while the negro, Zercon, came forward, and drew the curtains of the tent behind him.
"I came to warn you," he said, "that there are orders gone forth for the whole host to move forward by dawn of day to-morrow, upon Verona itself. Be wary, be cautious, lady," he added, fixing his eyes upon Ildica; "all has gone well as yet; but the malice of enemies has but a light slumber."
"My friend," said Ildica, in a calm but sad tone, "I have to thank thee both for thine interest in myself and for the services thou hast rendered to one dearer to me than myself. This sweet lady near me, thy dead master's child, tells me that thou wilt befriend me, and will be faithful unto me even unto death."
"That were saying little, lady," replied the negro. "Death, to me, is not a thing to be feared. I will serve thee, if I can, through severer trials than that; though I think that all the skill of Attila himself will hardly discover a new torture or indignity which the body of man can suffer--without being separated from the spirit--that he has not already practised upon this wretched frame."
"I am sorry for thee, my friend, I am sorry for thee," replied Ildica. "Thy sufferings should teach us to bear our lesser evils with more patience and fortitude."
"Lady," said Zercon, "the difference between thy state and mine renders the computation of evils in our several cases very different also. Those evils, which to you are of the greatest magnitude, to me are less than the sting of a piping gnat; and it is not that we bear them differently, but that our states from infancy to this hour have rendered them really different. You have been nurtured in ease, in peace, and happiness. God made you beautiful as the day, and poured through your young veins a stream of lordly blood, drawn from a source of mighty conquerors. Philosophers and schoolmen taught you how to enjoy; and wise and good relations showed you, from your youth up, the path of virtue, and bade you prize honour as much, or more than life. Your heart and feelings, your mind and soul, even like your tender body itself, are subject to a thousand pangs, acute and dreadful, to which mine are all insensible. I, born on an arid soil, sprung from a despised race, gifted with deformity, nurtured in hardship, companion from my infancy with famine, thirst, disease, and pain, tutored but to bear, and bred up in the bitterest school of suffering--I look upon evils which to other men are great, as enjoyment--actual happiness! I may have heard the voice of philosophy, too; I may have listened to wise and learned men; but the only doctrine which has been preached to me is to suffer all things--the only lesson that I have learned through life has been endurance. The couch that feels hard to other men as a flinty rock, is a bed of down to me. Contumely and disgrace have lost their sting: my body is insensible to blows, and my heart to indignity. If I lie down to rest without the mutilating knife of tyranny lopping away my limbs, I mark the day with a white stone, and cry! 'Oh happy chance!' And though I have been too well tutored in bearing the worst ever to take refuge at the altar of death, where tyrants dare not follow, till fate shall lead me thither, yet, when the hour comes that opens that sanctuary to me, how glad will be its shelter, how heavenly its repose. Lady! oh, beautiful lady! if you can give me any service which can merit death, I will bless you as for an inestimable boon."
"Alas! my friend, I know not what may come," answered Ildica, with tears standing in her eyes. "The time may not be far distant when I, too, shall look to death as the only relief."
"I understand you, lady," answered Zercon, "and I know your danger; but it is one from which your own hand can righteously deliver you if ever it becomes imminent. Zercon--the poor, the despised Zercon--can give you a gift worth more than a talent of gold in the hour of peril. Look here!" and, approaching closer to Ildica, he drew from his bosom a small dagger, the blade of which might be somewhat more than a span in length. The haft was small, and formed of ivory; and the blade, when he took it from the sheath, though dull in colour and in polish, was evidently as sharp as a knife both at the point and edge.
"This steel," continued Zercon, "hard as a diamond and sharp as a graver's tool, would, if struck with a firm hand, pierce the strongest corslet that ever came from the armorer's anvil. In the hand of an infant, it would slay a giant; and I give it unto you, lady, against the hour when terror shall give place to resolution, and horror shall conquer fear."