A low, moaning noise came from the mouth of the mute, as he seemed impatient of the delay.
“I have no time to trifle in idle converse,” exclaimed the Jew. “Come on, fair sir, the morning breaks, and I must be on my way.”
He took the page by the shoulder, and gently pulled him through the doorway, leaving the sentinels to their surprise at the strange silence of the mirthful Guiseppo, while the unfortunate mute slowly followed in the footsteps of the Jew, his right hand trembling with a scarce perceptible motion, as he buried it within the folds of his doublet.
With a hurried step, the Jew and his companion passed over the drawbridge, and in a moment standing upon the summit of the hill upon whose rocks and caverns the castle was founded, they viewed the winding road beneath.
The page turned his head—still concealed by his slouched hat—he turned his head for a moment toward the castle, and a slight tremor pervaded his frame.
Then his hand was extended, grasping the hand of the Arab mute, who returned the grasp with a firm pressure upon the white fingers of the dainty page.
“Let us onward! Let us onward!” whispered the Jew. “A long journey have we before us. Onward, I pray ye!”
They hurriedly wended down the hill, and ere an hundred could be told, their forms were lost to sight in the shades of the forest.
All bright and glorious came on the rising day, lighting up the cloudless azure with its kindly beams, shimmering over the waves of the broad, deep river, filling the wild-wood glade with glimpses of golden light; while the far-off mountains towered into the heavens, the white clouds crowning their rugged peaks, radiant with the changing hues of the morning sun.
And while the day wore slowly on, the paths leading through the valley toward the castle, the winding ways that passed through the recesses of the wild wood, and the great highway sweeping on toward Florence the Fair, were all alive with crowds of peasants, in their holiday attire, wrinkled age and red-lipped youth, mature manhood and careless boyhood, all hastening onward toward the castle of Albarone, anxious to behold the marriage of the Duke and the Ladye Annabel.