Kophetua the Thirteenth

by Julian Stafford Corbett

"Nay, my pretty lump of foulness, do not avoid me," he heard Turbo's mocking voice say; "I have found you alone this time, and you must come perforce."

"Stand back! stand back!" gasped a woman's voice; "I will cry out and alarm them."

"You dare not, foul sweetheart," said Turbo; "you know too well the penalty when one of you is found with one of us. Nay, do not struggle so. There's no escape to-night."

There was a low choking cry of horror, and Kophetua burst open the door. At first he saw no one. He found himself in a little court behind a dilapidated house. Across the end where he stood ran a verandah in deep shadow. The noise of his entrance had hushed every sound. He could see nothing nor hear anything but his beating heart, when suddenly he was aware that a dark shadow had glided out of the verandah and had slipped by him through the door. Then in the far end he heard a low moan, and saw as he approached what seemed a heap of dirty rags lying in a corner, but he knew directly it was the lifeless form of a woman.

She did not move when he touched her, so he carried her out and laid her down in the bright moonlight to see what ailed her. Very tenderly he rested her head on his knee and bent over the motionless form to feel for life in it.

It was not without disgust that he did so, for it was only a beggar-girl he could see now, and she was no cleaner than her kind. Her face and hands were covered with dirt, her thick dark hair was matted and unkempt, and the rags that covered her were filthy beyond description. Yet her face looked so pale and careworn and delicate that he forgot all her foulness in his pity, and tried his best to revive her.

At last she sighed deeply, and opened her eyes. They were large and dark and trustful, and they looked straight up into his with a strange wonder; so long and earnestly did she gaze at him with her far-off look, that he felt a sort of fascination coming over him, and began to think how every one said the beggars were half of them witches. It was a great relief to see a dreamy smile lighting up her wan face. She stretched up her hands to him, and then dropped them as though she was too weak or too happy for anything but to lie as she was.

"Are you the great God?" she whispered, "or only an angel?"

"Lie still, child, a little," he said tenderly; "I am only human like yourself."

"Only a man!" she whispered with increasing wonder in her great dark eyes. "I thought I was dead and lay in God's lap. They say I shall, some day when my misery is done; but if you are a man, He will be too beautiful for me. Let me lie here a little where I am and dream again."