“‘Fools and hypocrites,’ cried I, ‘who would drain the oil from the wounds of him that fell among thieves; even as you did unto the little one so will I do to you. Begone! or I will lay my staff upon your backs!’
“They ran at my words, signor, but still cried for alms in the Name of God; and when no alms were given to them, they cursed me until the woods echoed with their voices. Nevertheless, I turned a deaf ear to them; and going my way I came at length to the creek of the sea, and to the hut where I had found Christine again. It was my expectation that she would be up and looking for my coming; but I heard no voice when I called out to her from the garden, and when I would have knocked upon her door I saw that it was open, and that the cottage was empty. My first thought was that she had gone out to the sea to fish, for I saw that her boat no longer lay at anchor in the creek; but when I had looked a second time, and had observed the disorder which had fallen upon the place, the truth was not to be hidden from me. Everything in the cottage bore the stamp of her flight. The drawers were opened and rifled. There was an empty coffee-pot upon the rough wooden table, and two cups by it. The bed was stripped of its blankets and sheets; the crucifix was gone; the gilt mirror was cracked, as if broken in the haste of her leaving. No need of words to tell me the story. She had surrendered at last, I said, to the will of the man, and had fled—God knew to what home or to what fate.
“I said this, excellency, moved at the first to remember all my abiding love for her; the memory of her childhood and that which she had been to me then. But anon, and as I stood looking out upon the sea and the empty creek, a great anger against the man came upon it, and I vowed that wheresoever he had gone, there would I follow him, until the truth should be known and right should be done. For that she had gone away with Ugo, the son of the woodlander, I never doubted. Or had I done so, the lie would not have deceived me long. Scarce, indeed, had I turned my face again towards the house of the priest, when a hag burst out from the shelter of the woods and gave me the news.
“‘Ho, ho, Father Andrea, seekest thou thy little one? Nay, but thou shalt find her with the woodcutter. Thou wilt not forget that I have told thee. The Mother of God bless thee! She left with him at daybreak. I saw them sail. Thou wilt remember me—oh! there was jade’s blood in her veins—jade’s blood! What! do you not hear me?—I spit upon your face in hell!’
“I left her croaking; but the news was then round the island, and those who before had begged of me now came out from their holes to whine upon my misfortunes. Even the priest, who in his own way had wished well to her, could not help me. Christine’s flight was in some way a vindication of himself, a justification of that which he had done. It remained only for him to raise his hands in condemnation—to cry that the fault was none of his.
“‘Certainly,’ said he, ‘one who travels upon the devil’s road must come at last to the devil’s house. Did she not cross the yule-log at the feast of the Nativity? What else was to be expected, friend? She was a hussy from her birth up. Santa Maria! the words I have wasted upon her!’”
He spoke thus; but I was in no mood to war with him.
“‘Friend,’ said I, ‘there is a Gospel which teaches us that we love our neighbours as we love ourselves. If you believe in that, how great must your love of Christine be! Waste yet a few more words upon her, I beseech you, and tell me what you know of the woodlander who has carried her to the city?’
“‘That will I do,’ exclaimed he, ‘though little there is of good in the telling. The man is the son of Alvise, the steward of Jajce. His father would have made a priest of him and sent him to help the Catholics of the mountain towns. But he fled from the seminary, and has lived where he could, though chiefly upon a neighbouring island. A man of hot blood and temper, friend, neither Christian nor infidel—a savage, and yet not a savage, since he can read from the book and hold a pen in his hands. Per Baccho! the devil hath paired them finely!’
“‘Is he not, then,’ I asked, ‘such a one as might win a woman’s love?’