"And you will wear it on your heart as I told you?" asked Mila, looking him through and through with courageous but anxious eyes. "Remember," she added, vehemently, "that it is the pledge of a patron saint; that the woman whom you love, whoever she may be, cannot deserve that you should sacrifice it to her, and that it would be far better to throw it into the sea than to profane it by an act of ingratitude!"
Magnani was dazzled by the flame that flashed from Mila's great black eyes. Did she guess the truth? Perhaps! but if she simply relied upon Magnani's gratitude for the woman who had saved his mother, she was no less noble and generous in seeking to procure for him the pleasure of believing in that good fairy's friendship. He began to feel infected by the chaste and deep-rooted ardor which she carried concealed in her heart, and that proud and passionate heart revealed itself against its will, amid its efforts to subdue itself or to keep quiet.
An impulsive outburst of gratitude and tenderness brought Magnani to his knees at the girl's feet.
"Mila," he said, "I know that Princess Agatha is a saint, and I do not know whether my heart is worthy to receive a relic from her. But I do know that there is but a single other heart in the world to which I would be willing to entrust it; so never fear; no woman, except you, will ever seem to me pure enough to wear this ring. Put it on your finger now, in order to give it back to the princess or to keep it for me."
Mila, when she had returned to her room, had a moment's dizziness, as if she were going to faint. Her heart throbbed wildly with mingled feelings of consternation and delirious joy. At last she heard her father, who was impatient for his breakfast, crying:
"Well, little one, we are hungry, and thirsty above all! for it's hot already and the paints make your throat dry."
Mila hastened to wait upon them; but when she placed her jug on the table at which they were breakfasting, she noticed that it was empty. Michel offered to go and refill it, after making fun of her absent-mindedness. Sensitive to the reproof, and making it a point of honor to be her old father's only servant, Mila snatched the jug from him and ran lightly to the fountain.
This fountain was a beautifully clear spring which gushed from the very heart of the lava, in a soft of cliff behind the house. It not infrequently happens in those regions overrun by lava, that springs become choked up by volcanic matter and disappear, to appear again after the lapse of several years. The people dig in search of the former bed. They find that the water has broken out a passage under the cold fires of the volcano, and, as soon as it is given an opportunity, it rushes to the surface, as pure and healthful as before. The one which bathed the base of Pier-Angelo's house bubbled up at the bottom of a deep excavation that had been made in the rock, to which a picturesque staircase led. It formed a little basin for the laundresses, and a quantity of white linen, hung upon all the walls of the grotto, kept it constantly dark and cool there. Pretty Mila, as she tripped up and down that steep staircase ten times a day, with her jug upon her head, was a most perfect model for those classical figures which the painters of the last century inevitably placed in all their Italian landscapes; and in truth what more natural accessory, what more charming local color could one give to those pictures than the faces and costumes, the
XXXIV
AT THE FOUNTAIN
When Mila descended the staircase cut in the rock, she saw a man sitting on the edge of the spring, but was not alarmed. Her heart was all full of love and hope, and the recollection of the dangers that threatened her was powerless to affect her. Even when she reached the brink of the spring, this man, whose back was turned to her, and whose head and body were enveloped in the long hooded cape which the common people wear,[8] did not arouse her suspicions; but when he turned and asked her in a soft voice if she would permit him to drink from her jug, she started; for it seemed to her that she recognized the voice, and she noticed that there was no one in sight, either above or below the fountain; that not a child was playing on the staircase as usual, in fact, that she was alone with this stranger, whose voice terrified her.