“Oh, my beloved!” whispered the girl, and bent above him till the loosened sheaves of her hair swept his face. “My love! Only for you, where should I be now? With you, how could I be afraid? And yet--”
She turned at a sound from a narrow door opposite the larger one that gave upon the plaza, a door, like the other, closed by a heavy curtain platted of seaweed.
There, holding the curtain back, stood the blind patriarch. His hut, larger than most in the strange village, boasted two rooms. Now from the inner one, where he had been resting, he came to speak with Beatrice.
“Peace, daughter!” said the old man. “Peace be unto you. He sleeps?”
“Yes, father. He's much better now, I think. His constitution is simply marvelous.”
“Verily, he is strong. But far stronger are those terrible and wonderful weapons of yours! If our Folk only had such!”
“You're better off without them. But of course, if you want to understand them, he can explain them in due time. Those, and endless other things!”
“I believe that is truth.” The patriarch advanced into the room, and for a minute stood by the bedside with venerable dignity. “The traditions, I remember, tell of so many strange matters. I shall know them, every one. All in time, all in time!”
“Your simple medicines, down here, are wonderful,” said the girl admiringly. “What did you put into that draught I gave him to make him sleep this way?”
“Only the steeped root of our n'gahar plant, my daughter--a simple weed brought up from the bottom of this sea by our strong divers. It is nothing, nothing.”