“The Rhine, too, is a Nile. And the Rhône likewise. But thy mare prefers to drink in the river of Châl! The Nile alone can make thy hope neigh aloud, O Romichâl!”
With her eye, like a migratory bird’s, Zinzara had long before spied Livette perched up aloft between the crenelles of the church-roof, and, seeing Renaud riding toward her, she, in joyous mood as always, had begun to sing, from mere caprice and bravado, within the circle of the echo of the lofty walls.
Like the serpents at the sound of her flute, Renaud was fascinated. The gipsy suspected as much.
And when she had finished her song she showed herself.
“Surely thou hast killed thy foe, romi?” she said. “But how is it that I do not see his heart at the point of thy spear? Thy maiden whose blood is like snow will ask thee for it ere long. Ah! that was a kiss well avenged—for a Christian! For if thy foe still sat in his saddle, thou wouldst not be in thine, I suppose? Listen, then, my beauty—although it be, in very truth, a crime for us zingari women to deem a Christian fair to look upon, I must tell thee, none the less: On the honor of a queen, romi, thou art handsome as a son of my own race, brave as a highwayman, as fine a horseman as the best of us, proud as a free man! I regret neither my anger of the other day, nor my song of a moment ago, nor the compliment I pay thee now: for I never do aught save that which pleases me! and my very anger does me better service than reflection! Adieu, romi, may thy God guard thee, if He knows me!”
Livette had heard nothing but the sharp, incisive tone in which the gipsy spoke; she could not distinguish her words.
But as Zinzara went away, she took good care, before she disappeared at the corner of the square, to send a kiss to the drover with her finger-tips—a kiss which seemed to him, because he could see her smile, a bit of raillery, but which was in Livette’s eyes a token of requited love. Renaud thereupon admitted to himself that he had returned to Saintes-Maries in quest of nothing else than this compliment from the gipsy—something that drew him nearer to the seductive creature!
