The fresh, love-compelling breeze in which they were bathed laid an imperious command upon him.
“Get down,” said he, “get down at once! This is a good place to rest.”
But she remembered the order she had given.
“We must go where we were going,” said she. “I will not get down until we are there. We must cross the Rhône, you say? Press on, press on!—Gallop! The gipsy loves the horse.”
She would have none of his caresses except at the place appointed. She would not submit to him until they should be where he was, by her agency, in danger of death or suffering. A kiss under other circumstances would be a triumph for him, and she gave herself to him for her own pleasure alone. She desired to feel, in the interchange of caresses, that the moisture of her lips was poison, that her bite would cause death or madness.
Firmly seated en croupe, still clinging fast to the drover—her victim—with her arm wound about him, her bare legs hanging in the folds of her skirt which the wind raised as they sped along, with her head thrown proudly back, she swayed gracefully with the rocking motion of the gallop; and her face, which had a sallow look in the moonlight against the neck of the man whom she was leading astray, albeit she seemed to be carried away by him—her face was wreathed in smiles.
When Herodias had obtained the head of John the Baptist, she lifted it by the hair from the gold charger, whereon it lay with a circle of blood around the neck, raised it to the level of her face, and after gazing upon it with deep interest, examining the closed eyelids and long lashes and the transparent pallor of the cheeks, she suddenly placed her mouth upon that lifeless mouth and sought to force her tongue between the lips to the cold teeth too tightly closed in death, esteeming that kiss, inflicted on her dead foe, more delicious than the incestuous caresses for which he had reproved her.
What was left of Renaud’s suspicions of Zinzara, while she was smiling in the darkness, and the warm breath from her lips was playing upon his neck? He had ceased to reflect; he rode on. He willingly postponed the longed-for hour, now that he was forced to go on. He thought no more of violence. His happiness was secure. He could wait. In the midst of the deserted plains, still warm from the sunlight though refreshed by the night air, love came without calling, but he enjoyed the anticipation more than anything he had known.—And then she might escape him even now. He must be careful not to startle her. When they reached the nest yonder, he would keep her there some time. And so he rode on, inhaling the saline air of the desert, which was his—with his stallion’s four shoeless feet trampling through the sand and water, which were his also—bound for the horizon, which would soon be his.
Once, however, in the midst of a swamp, where the water was above his horse’s knees, he stopped again.
“What is it?” said she.