It seemed to him that he was forced to reply, but he no longer felt any internal revolt against that obligation—far otherwise.
“Is it far?”
“Yes, in Crau, on the other side of the Rhône, near the Icard farm. The devil couldn’t find me there. Rampal might come there, no one else——”
“Wait,” said she at that name, with a sudden gleam in her cat-like eyes.
She whistled.
He said to himself that some one from Saintes-Maries would certainly see them, and that Livette would learn the whole story—that it would be better now to start at once.—Or perhaps—who knows?—the delay was a good thing! Livette might pass, herself, and all would be changed. He would hasten to her side. They would be saved. Who would be saved? and from what? from a vague, terrible thing that was before him. He could not have told what it was; but it was simply the renunciation of his own will.
The gitana’s clear, shrill whistle summoned a little zingaro of some ten years, a veritable wild cat, who came running to the horse’s side.
From the saddle she said a few words in the gipsy language to him, in a short, imperative tone of command. The gipsy language is composed of German, Coptic, Egyptian, and Sanscrit. Renaud listened without the slightest suspicion of the meaning of the words.
In a fit of amorous hatred, the swarthy queen said to the little fellow:
“You know Rampal, the drover? go and find him. He is in the village; I saw him not long ago. Go at once and tell him this: he will find me to-night, with his enemy, whom you see here, in the Conscript’s Hut, which he knows! And I will join you and the wagon to-morrow evening, in the town of Arles, by the old tombs.”