"What is it, child?" I asked, wondering what strange request he might be about to prefer.
"Let me sing and play a little. 'Twill do no harm, and--and--you know--the viol is here," and he touched lightly the valise strapped in front of his saddle.
"Sing, if you will," I said, yet casting a glance around and ahead of me to see if there were any about whose curiosity might be attracted by the music--though in sober truth it would not much have mattered had there been. In such a land as this--though I scarce knew it then!--for a traveller to pass along on his way singing for cheerfulness and for solace was no strange thing, but rather, instead, the custom. "Sing, if you wish--I shall be glad enough to hear a merry note or so. For audience, however, there will be no other."
"I want none," he replied, "if you are content." And by now, having got out the little viol d'amore, he struck a few notes upon it and began to sing.
At first his song was, as I understood and as he told me afterward, a love-ballad addressed by a youth to his mistress; the words--as he uttered them--soft and luscious as the trill of the nightingale on summer night. And his marvellous beauty added also to the effect it had on me, made me wonder how many dark, tropic beauties in the lands he came from had already lost their hearts to him. Nay, wondered so much that, as the last sweet tones of both his voice and viol died upon the crisp morning air, I asked him a question to that effect.
"Ho! Ho!" he laughed, yet softly as he had just now sung. "None! None! None! In the Indies I am nothing; all are as dark as I except when they are golden--fair--and--and--Mervan, mon ami, no woman has ever said a word of love to me."
"Humph!" I said, doubting. "Nor you, perhaps, a word of love to them."
"Nor I a word of love to them. Never, never. Le grand jamais!"
"Nor ever loved?" with a tone of doubt so strong in my voice now that he could not fail to understand it.
"Nor ever loved," he repeated. "Yes--yes--I love now. Now!" Then, impetuously, as he ever spoke--like a torrent let loose from mountain side--he went on: