“I thought you would be angry.”
“I! Angry with you?”
Nell raised her eyes and gazed at him with a very peculiar expression, an expression he had never seen before. Over Stasch’s face then passed a look of surprise, for from her words and looks he saw that she was terrified.
“She is afraid of me,” thought he.
And for a moment he even felt quite satisfied. Then he thought that after all he had accomplished even Nell—who did not think of him merely as a full-grown man, but also as a terrible warrior, who inspires every one with fear—should look up at him and caress him. But this feeling of elation did not last long, for his sad experience had taught him to observe closely, and so he noticed that the girl’s restless eyes denoted not only fear, but a certain repugnance because of what had occurred, in consequence of the blood that had been shed and the horrors that she had witnessed this very day.
He also immediately remembered that a moment ago she had withdrawn her hand so as to avoid stroking Saba, for he it was who had killed one of the Bedouins. Yes, that was the reason, and did not Stasch himself feel it pressing like a nightmare on his chest. It was one thing to read at Port Said about the American trappers who killed the red-skinned Indians by the dozens in the Wild West, and another thing to do likewise one’s self, and to see men who were alive a short time before expiring in their last bloody agony. “Yes, certainly Nell is very much terrified, and she will always continue to have that feeling of repugnance. I am sure that she will fear me,” thought Stasch; “but in her heart of hearts she will unconsciously never forget to think ill of what I have done—and that is to be my reward for all I have done for her.”
His heart was bowed down by these thoughts, because he knew very well that if it were not for Nell he would have been killed or have fled long ago. Therefore it was for her sake that he had suffered so much hunger and pain, which only resulted in her standing there frightened, changed, entirely different from the little sister she was before, and who now raised her eyes to his with the old confiding look gone, and in its stead an expression of intense fear. Stasch suddenly felt very unhappy. For the first time in his life he realized what it was to be moved; unconsciously the tears started to his eyes, and if it had not been for the fact that it was not at all the proper thing for a fierce warrior to weep, he would most likely have done so, but he controlled himself, turned to the girl, and asked:
“Nell, are you afraid?”
And she answered softly:
“It is really—so terrible!”