The page started as if stung to death, at thus hearing an address in the feminine form of the name, instead of in the masculine. His face at first blanched with sudden terror, and then flooded with rosy red. He made a confused attempt at correction.
"You mean Lisaldo."
"Lisalda, and Lisalda, and Lisalda."
The sailor persisted—this apparent error seemed to water in his mouth—then remembering himself he became sheepish as a chidden child, and sank presently on to his knees. The page eyed him guiltily, then the sailor took courage in his hands and made sensible his inmost heart.
"I love you, Lisalda, and love has keener sight than many that call it blind. I felt your sex from the first hour you stepped aboard. I kindled to it with an instinct that strangled reason. It possessed every fibre of me through all our days becalmed on Sargasso seas that to me seemed flower shotten meads. I clenched my teeth on it our tropic nights when hand in hand you walked my watch with me, and learnt from me the blazonry of heaven. Months ago I should have given throat to the heart that hungered within me. But in my surly sailor fashion I only tightened my belt around it. I am no saint, Lisalda, I have served apprentice to buccaneers on Carribean seas—men that never set a hand to honest tool save when they planted chests of gold in the earth, I have swam o' days in blood and o' nights in wine. But the hand that scattered the brains of Don and Dutchman was an aspen held in yours. Terror tremendously overruled me, when I would fain have slipped the cable of my desire, and it is a marvel to me now that I kneel at your feet, though I know full well that my revealment is wrung from me by the parting asunder of our ways. Here must I speak or ever after hold my peace, here you may infuse yourself with a heart no less honest than rough, that has beat for naught nor will beat for aught save you; or here you may rule me unworthy of more that has already enjoyed overmuch. It bodes me ill I fear, Lisalda, that you never read a heart so confounded with your own; but, whatever you say will be for me the voice of oracle that is worshipped whether good or ill."
"The oracle is dumb to-night, Ataurresagasti, though you have taught me that I knew your love from the first. I cannot decide at once whether I have done you irreparable wrong, or added to your fulness of life. To-morrow, friend (if that title does not jar upon you) shall learn you all your heart's desire. And (whatever that morrow's disillusion) to-night at any rate, your image will disturb my no longer virgin sleep."
"Your sleep, Lisalda, there's the rub that galls my jealous loin. To-night that I have a share in you (though it be but for to-night) I shudder at the thought of your retiring to the ante-room of the bed-chamber of that other man. Throughout the voyage every lip before the mast has shriven him with curses (not loud, but deep) for the wayward winds his Jonah presence fetched athwart our course. The bated breath of the forecastle credited him with the wearing of a familiar spirit imprisoned in the setting of that ring upon his hand. How did such as you come to foregather with one so unkindly, and withal so far from this your birthplace? And what is his need of you that one so powerful should claim you close at heel?"
"Ataurresagasti, it were too long to tell you how I came to be orphaned, and at buffet with the world. Too long again to recount the chances that transferred me from here to the Indies. Enough that I must have been in desperate straits when I donned the disguise I still wear, and entered the vacant service of my present lord and master. That he lived in evil odour had come to my ears, and that he never kept his servants long, but that they either went mad or died was more than gossip to me that first attended my master to the funeral of my predecessor. I was situated so sorely that I would have worn Satan's livery to earn me bed and board. Now the secret of the wants of my master and the wastage amongst his servants is this: his nerves are completely shattered by terrible experiments, the nature of which I never dare to know. He sees through the veil that round us wraps impenetrably. He is haunted day and night by hosts of beings incorporately awful. Over these, indeed, some sway of his extends (else were he long since torn to shreds), but only by the continual strain of every resource of his science. The demon that is familiar of the ring you speak of—the loathsome creepiness that writhes within a crystal cell and impotently spits at such as dare to see—is on the one hand the crowning glory of his labours, and the envy of the wizard world—and on the other hand an anxious horror that makes cheap the mere routine of Hell. Day it turns to night, night to nightmare, and still the worst of all remains—the hour between midnight and cockcrow when the heavenly patrols are relieving guard and the nether gates swing open and all the rout of Hell are free to seek their own devilish devices. Now you can guess, can you not, Ataurresagasti, why the cabalist never remains alone in the dark?"
"By the God I never praised till I met you, Lisalda, this passes the worst I had imagined. But do you still think so ill of me (after the centuries of mingled life we have crushed into so curt an orbit), do you still so little value my self esteem as to believe me capable (now I know what your service is) of allowing you to continue it for even yet one grain of the hour glass? To the devil with this enemy and friend of his, and let the poor prisoner of the ring have his day! I, too, am a prisoner and feel for all in bonds."
"You are the best of men, Ataurresagasti, and fittest to be free. But for this night at any rate (however your reasons may touch me) I must fulfil my contract, as of use and wont. Whatever new combination to-morrow's sun may bring, it is too late to-night, at any rate, to find a substitute to comrade the broken slumbers of the cabalist."