She was never tired of telling her beads, and if she awoke in the night when the wind was high, she trembled as she thought of the traditional vampire—a body which the Serbs supposed to be possessed by an evil spirit, which comes forth from the tomb of death to suck the blood of the living, till traced, taken, and burned to ashes. She believed in the existence of old Servian witches, who could steal away men's hearts, and close the wounds through which they had drawn them.
'I fear there are young witches in Servia who steal away men's hearts and leave the wound an open one,' said Cecil, who, but for the presence of Margarita, would soon have become intensely bored at Palenka, as the chief, if not only, visitor there was the pope or priest of the nearest village, a blue-eyed and long-bearded old man, who could only speak Serb, and whose demigod was the Archbishop of Belgrade.
Accustomed for months past to the misery and wretchedness of the Servian camp, to Cecil, the dinner-table with shining white cloth, plate, crystal and ivory knives, under a flood of light from a rose-coloured chandelier, seemed the luxury of Sybaris; and for several days he had his food cut for him by old Theodore, or by the pretty hands of the girl Ottilie.
Both mother and daughter were intensely loyal in the cause of Milano and Servia, and hated the Turks as bitterly as ever the old heyduc himself could have done.
'It was my brother Michail who recaptured the cross at Belina last year, as no doubt you know?' said Margarita.
'I was not in Servia then—what was the episode?' asked Cecil.
'It was in the famous battle of July. When the Turks ravaged Belina in Servia, they carried off a great cross from the altar of the church, and came on to the assault of our Servian troops, bearing it in front, and shouting, "You cannot fire on your God—you dare not fire upon your Prophet!"'
'And our poor Servians, rather than commit sacrilege, dared not fire, and stood perishing in their ranks!' said the countess.
'Till our Michail, at the head of a chosen band, burst, sword in hand, among the dense mass of red fezzes, recaptured the cross, and brought it into the lines of Milano, over heaps of dead and dying; and then—but not till then—did the Servians pour in a dreadful fire of shot, shell and rockets, beneath which the columns of the infidels melted away.'
When Margarita spoke, even with energy, as she often did, there was always something sweet and innocent about her, with a certain quiet dignity, and a touch of softness in her expression, which, when taken with the bright and lofty character of her beauty, rendered her wonderfully attractive.