They paused when several paces distant, and she rose up suddenly, extending both arms, apparently to warn them from a nearer approach. Her skinny lips, rapidly moving to and fro, and her dark withered, bony, and cadaverous features, gave her more the appearance of a living mummy or a resurrection from the charnel-house than aught instinct with the common attributes of humanity.
Buckley was for a moment daunted. The form was so unlike anything he had ever seen. He was almost persuaded of the possibility that it might be some animated corpse doomed to wander forth either for punishment or expiation. Her lips still moved. A wild glassy eye was fixed upon them, and as she yet stood with extended arms, Gervase, almost wrought to desperation, cried out—
"Who art thou? Thy business here?"
A hollow sound, hardly like the tones of a human voice, answered in a slow and solemn adjuration—
"Beware, rash fools! None approach the Red Woman but to their undoing."
"I know no hindrance to my free course in this domain. By whose authority am I forbidden?" said he, taking courage.
"Away—mine errand is not to thee unless provoked."
"Unto whom is thy message?"
"To thy leman—thy ladye-love, whom thou wilt cherish to thine hurt. Leave her, ay, though both hearts break in the separation."
"I will not."