So deep, so powerful was the agony that he suffered, that, without a word, without a movement, he stood upon the spot to which his captors thrust him forward, his dark eyes bent upon the ground, his pinioned hands clasped together, as if they had been riveted with iron, his limbs as motionless as if they had been stone. The people round gazed at him, but he saw them not; they taunted and they sneered, but his ear was dull. He felt not at that moment the insolent gaze, the brutal jest, the loss of liberty, the very hands that wrung his muscles. He felt alone that he was betrayed, that his love and his confidence had been cheated and dispised. All the rest was nothing. That, that was the iron that entered into his soul! Ere he had been there a minute, the keeper Harvey, who had not been among those that took him, pushed through the gaping crowd, to assure himself that the report which had reached him was true. But there was something in the gipsy that the man felt and feared, with feelings full of hate, indeed, but nearly akin to awe; and when he saw him stand there like a statue, in the stern bitterness of utter despair, a faint conception of his sensations thrilled even through the coarse mind of the keeper; and after a hasty glance, without proffering a word, he made the rest retire, and following them himself, locked and barred the door.
At about three o'clock in the morning, those who watched in the gipsy encampment were roused by a hasty step, and in a moment after the boy William, all panting and wild, stood by the fire. "What news? what news?" cried one of the men, eagerly; "where is Pharold?"
"Bad news!" answered the youth, gazing round him with a look of bewildered consciousness: "they have caught Pharold as he was helping me out of the prison."
"Brown," cried one of the men, approaching a neighbouring tent--"Brown, here is bad news; they have caught Pharold, and here is Will come back."
Brown instantly started from the hut and came out to the fire: but he was not the only one; for Lena's sleepless ear had caught the tidings, and she too rushed out, with many others that the noise had awakened. Wild apprehension and distress were in her eyes; but she spoke not, while Brown proceeded rapidly to question the lad on what had occurred. The trembling tone in which he answered might proceed from fatigue and agitation at his escape, the varying colour on his cheek might be the flash of the newly stirred up blaze; but there was a rambling and inconsistent character about the story that he told concerning his own escape and the capture of Pharold that raised doubt in many. "You rushed past the people," said Brown, after many other questions, "and got out even after they had taken Pharold. Did no one try to stop you?"
"Yes," answered the lad; "one man did; but I got away from him, too, and ran as hard as I could. But why do you look at me so, Lena?" he added, unable to bear any longer the keen, fierce glance which she had never withdrawn from his face for one moment from the time she had first come forth.
"Why do I look at you so?" said the girl, stepping forward boldly towards him, and casting back the jetty hair from her forehead while she spoke, with a burning cheek and flashing eye, and almost frantic vehemence of tone--"why do I look at you so? Because, base traitor, you have betrayed him that came to save you--and you know it well!--because you have cheated me into persuading him to go;--and oh, if such a foolish thing as love for me had any hand in what you have done--and I say boldly before them all that I believe it had--may that love stay by you to curse you to your latest day! For think not you will prosper in your villany--I hate you! I abhor you! I spit upon you! and I call God and the heavens to witness, that if there were not another man in all the earth I would die sooner than be your wife! Cast him out from among us, Brown, cast him out! Dickon was but a child in villany to him; Dickon was wilful and violent, but he was not base and false; Dickon might be a rebel, but he was never a traitor. Cast him out, Brown, cast him out; for the blood of my husband is upon him; and I will not dwell in the same tents with him. He cannot deny it; his face speaks it; his tale is not even like truth. Oh, my heart misgave me when he used so many vows and protestations last night that he would not have Pharold put in danger for the world. Truth is more simple; and he is a traitor, and the seller of his friend's blood!"
She spoke with all the energy of passion and indignation: her eyes flashed, her arms waved, her very form seemed to increase in size with the wild vehemence of her feelings; and the unhappy youth in the meantime stood before her, with bent head and averted glance, like a convicted criminal before his judge.
"You are guilty, William," said Brown, gazing on him with pity, mingling a drop or two of milder feeling with the sternness of his abhorrence for a crime almost unknown among them,--"you are guilty."
The youth made no answer; and after a pause the other went on:--"You must go out from among us, for we cannot shelter a traitor. And yet I grieve for you, William, that anything should have tempted you to commit such a crime. But still you must go out from among us; for if we be not all faithful to each other, in whom can we trust? Yet I would not cast you alone upon the world, so that one fault might bring on a hundred; and therefore I will send you down to the north country, where, on the side of Cheviot, you will find more of our people, among whom I have a brother: seek him out, and tell him I sent you to him."