The lad's countenance fell in a moment. He was young, and the better spirit was the first to act. "No, no," he cried; "I hate Pharold, but I will not betray him."
"Then you must die," said the peer, sternly.
The better spirit was still predominant: no image presented itself to the youth's mind but that of betraying the chief of his tribe. He thought not for the moment of the loveliness of life, he thought not of the horrors of death, he remembered not either love or hate, in the strong impression of a duty which had been fixed in his heart from childhood; and he answered in a low sad tone, "Then die I will."
"But think," said the peer, who had anticipated the first effect of his proposal, and reserved every stronger inducement, every palliating argument, to tempt and to excuse the unhappy youth, when the immediate impression was over--"think what it is you choose--imprisonment in a close room by yourself for several days; then trial and condemnation, and then death upon a gibbet, with nobody to comfort you, nobody to speak to you; but you must go through the horror, and the agony, and the shame all alone and unsupported." The boy shuddered, and the peer proceeded, changing the picture, however:--"This is what you choose. Now what is it you cast away?--life, and happiness, and more wealth than ever you knew, and most probably the possession of the girl you love best upon the earth."
The peer was experienced in temptations; for he had undergone and yielded to them himself, and he knew, by the dark histories of his own heart, all the wiles and artifices by which the fiend lures on successfully even the firm and the determined to acts at which they have shuddered in their days of innocence.
The young gipsy listened, and hesitated, and felt all his resolutions give way; but so fearful was the struggle in his bosom, that his limbs trembled and his teeth chattered as if he had been shaken by an ague. The keen eye that was upon him, however, did not fail to mark and understand his emotion; and Lord Dewry proceeded, "Well may Lena think you love her but little, when you scruple, by a few words, to break the hateful bonds that tie her to this murderer Pharold, and when you have the power to make her your own, yet refuse to use it."
"But I tell you," cried the boy, vehemently, "that Lena would never consent; that even if she were to know that I had done such a thing she would hate me and curse me; that I should be driven forth from my people, and never see her more."
"But neither she nor any one else," replied the peer, "need ever know one circumstance about it. If you will undertake to do what I wish, I will tell you a plan by which it may be accomplished, without any being on the earth knowing it but you and I."
"But if Pharold should be innocent," said the youth, "the guiltless blood would be upon my hand, and it would curse me."
"But if Pharold be innocent, his blood shall not be shed," replied the peer: "let him prove his innocence, and he shall go as free as you; but he cannot prove his innocence, for he is guilty; and you, in delivering him up, do but what is right and good; you do but avenge the innocent blood he has shed, though at the same time you gain for yourself life, and liberty, and happiness, and the girl that you love."