CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE DEAD MAN'S EYES--THE DEAD MAN'S HANDS.
Was Juana dying, I asked myself that night--dying of misery and of all that she had gone through? God, He only knew--soon I should know, too.
Ere I had carried her to the fonda, Morales had disappeared, his afflicted follower with him--ere we reached the miserable room, in which she had passed the two nights that had elapsed since she had come here with him who had bartered for the sacrifice of her honour against her father's safety, I heard the trample of horses' hoofs, I saw from the inn window both those men ride swiftly away, their road being that which led on into Portugal.
It was not possible that I should follow him and exact vengeance for all that he had done or attempted to do against her, force him once more to an encounter, disarm him again--and, when he was thus disarmed, spare him no further. Not possible, because, henceforth, my place was by her side. I must never leave her again in life--leave her who had come to this through her love of me, her determination to follow me through danger after danger, reckless of what might befall.
She lay now upon her bed, feverish and sometimes incoherent, yet, at others, sane and in her right mind, and it was at one of such moments as these that I, sitting by her side, heard her whisper:
"Mervan, where is that man--Morales?"
"He is gone, dear heart; he will trouble you no more. And--and--remember we are free. As soon as you are restored we can leave here--there is nothing to stop us now. My journey through Spain and France can never be recommenced--we must make for England by sea somehow. Then, when I have placed you in safety, I must find my way across to Flanders."
For a while she lay silent after I had said this; lay there, her lustrous eyes open, and with the fever heightening and intensifying, if such were possible, her marvellous beauty. For now the carmine of her cheeks and lips was--although fever's ensign!--even more strikingly lovely than before; this woman on whom I gazed so fondly was beyond all compare the most beautiful creature on which my eyes had ever rested. As I had thought at first, so, doubly, I thought now.
Presently she moaned a little, not from bodily pain, but agony of mind, as I learnt shortly--then she said: