Moreover, he took with him a pair of steel Donne pistols belonging to Phadrig Mhor, who somewhat witlessly had left them on the table.
This must have been about ten at night.
One hour before that, sixty of our musketeers under my command, with several officers as volunteers, marched in the same direction, and by the most retired roads, towards the head of a bay, the name of which I have forgotten; but it is formed by the promontory of Helnœs, on which stands the old castle, then occupied by the Merodeurs—that regiment of terrible memory!
CHAPTER XXXI.
HOW BERNHARD DELIVERED THE LETTER.
Gabrielle had now counted that eight-and-thirty hours had elapsed since she had seen the figure of Ian appear for a moment at that angle of rock, which was the first point whereon she hurried to gaze in the morning, and the last one at night. So far as she knew, no effort had yet been made to free her. Could his appearance, then, have been reality? Was it not one of those flitting shadows, those Doüblegangers, those dire forebodings of coming evil, of which she had heard so often in the wild stories of Germany? Or was it merely a conjuration of her own excited fancy, which clung to the image of Ian as one might cling to the memory of the dead; for though Ian, by many a kindness and by a thousand pretty attentions had (unconsciously) left nothing undone to make this young and simple girl love him, she had no hope of ever being loved in return; for, true as the needle to the pole, his heart ever turned to that provoking Highland love, which he had left behind him in the land of the rock and eagle.
Of late, Ian's image had recurred less frequently to the mind of Gabrielle, for in her excessive tribulation she wept for her father and sister, and thought of them alone; but now the sudden vision of that well-remembered form, so stately and so graceful, with the glittering accoutrements, the waving tartan, and the eagle's double pinions towering on his polished helmet, brought back all that secret hope to her heart, and those dear thoughts, as yet unuttered save to Ernestine. Again the old fascination stole over her senses, like a chaste and mellowed light along a waveless sea; for tumult, storms, and wrath, lay slumbering in its placid depths.
Evening had come again. Gabrielle was alone, and seated in one of the little arched windows of her room. All was silent in that old castle by the sea; not a breath of wind stirred the leaves of the green oaks or copper beeches; not a murmur floated along the waters of the narrow Belt.
The remembrance of the kind and loveable manner, the dark and somewhat severely handsome face of Ian Dhu, excited in her breast a new and unmitigated repugnance for her tormentor, Merodé; though the count was also a handsome man, and (save when an occasional gleam of misanthropy or hatred flashed in his eyes) had usually a merry and reckless aspect.
Gabrielle was enduring another evening of her mechanical existence, watching the daylight fade along the sea, and as the sun sank behind the gravel hills, the low, flat, naked shores of Juteland—the Jylland of the Danes—the foamy crests of the dancing billows sparkled in gold, and the long sandy shore was steeped in the same saffron light.