"Are you satisfied, brother?" the hunter asked him.
"Who could be strong enough to galvanise this people?" the count muttered with a mournful shrug of his shoulders, and rather answering his own thoughts than the question his friend had addressed to him. The two men went to fetch their zarapés. They found their escort where they had left it, and retired slowly through the crowd, who saluted them as they passed with shouts of "Vivan los Franceses!"
"If I come to be shot some day," the count said bitterly, "they will only have to alter one word."
Valentine sighed, but made no reply.
[CHAPTER XVI.]
FATHER SERAPHIN.
Doña Angela had just awakened: a sportive sunbeam, passing indiscreetly over her charming face, had made her open her eyes. She was lying half extended in her hammock, with her head supported on her right arm, and was pensively looking at the swan's-down slipper which she was idly balancing on her dainty little foot. Violanta, seated at her foot on a stool, was busily arranging the various articles of her mistress's toilette. At length Doña Angela shook off her careless languor, and a smile played on her coral lips.
"Today," she said, as she raised her head coquettishly.
This one word contained the maiden's thoughts, her joy, love, happiness—her whole life, in fact. She fell back in a reverie, yielding herself up unconsciously to the delicate and busy services of her waiting-maid. The sound of a footstep was heard outside, and Doña Angela raised her head quickly.