“Coward! coward!” one of the young men present could not refrain from shouting after him.
“Coward? oh! no!” said Renaud—“simply a thief! for if he weren’t riding a horse he never intends to return, the fellow wouldn’t run away—I know him!”
He turned to poor, frightened Livette.
“Never fear, demoiselle,” said he, “he shall not carry our horse to paradise with him.”
Was it Renaud’s purpose, in saying this, to make the gipsy think that he was bent upon taking vengeance for the theft of his horse rather than for the insult put upon his fiancée? Perhaps so; but the devil is so cunning that Renaud himself had no idea that he was capable of such craft.
As to the gipsy, she said to herself that Renaud, by jumping out of the window, instead of coming quietly down the stairs, had compromised his prospects of revenge for the satisfaction of exhibiting his gipsy-like agility to her. He did, in truth, jump like a wild cat, and rebound as if he were equipped with elastic paws! He was as agile as a true zingaro! He was as handsome and bold as a highwayman! They are gipsies, to all intents, these wandering guardians of mares and heifers!
Renaud, who had disappeared long enough to buckle his horse’s girth, rode by in a few moments upon Prince; the witnesses of the scene just enacted were still discussing it.
“Catch him! catch him! eat him, King!” cried twenty young men’s voices in chorus.
“With the King and the Prince arrayed against him, Rampal is a dead man,” some one remarked, with a laugh.
Renaud was already at a distance. He had not looked at the gipsy, but he felt that her eyes were upon him, and he felt now that they were following him from afar; and the feeling caused a pleasurable thrill, of which he was conscious, and for which he reproved himself vaguely on Livette’s account, but without seeking to repress it. Yes, as he galloped along in his wrath, he galloped in a particular way in order that his wrath might show to good advantage, so that he might appear a handsome and graceful horseman, as he was in fact. He was conscious of every movement that he made—he fancied that he could see himself, and was desirous to make a good appearance, he, the King!