Judith made no reply: though her silence could not conceal a certain degree of chagrin, from which she was evidently suffering. Perhaps she had even more reason than the “rabbi” to suspect there was something amiss?
Certainly, something disagreeable—a misunderstanding at least, had arisen between her and Herbert on the preceding day. Her speech had already given some slight hint of it; but much more her manner, which, on the night before, and now unmistakably in the morning, betrayed a mixture of melancholy and suppressed indignation.
It did not add to the equanimity of her temper, when the house wench—who was unslinging the hammock in which Herbert had slept—announced it to contain two articles scarce to be expected in such a place—a cocoa-nut and a tobacco-pipe!
The pipe could not have belonged to Herbert Vaughan: he never smoked a pipe; and as for the cocoa-nut, it had evidently been plucked from the tree standing near. The trunk of the palm exhibited scratches as if some one had climbed up it, and above could be seen the freshly-torn peduncle, where the fruit had been wrenched from its stalk!
What should Herbert Vaughan have been doing up the palm-tree, flinging cocoa-nuts into his own couch?
His unaccountable absence was becoming surrounded by circumstances still more mysterious. One of the cattle-herds, who had been sent in search of him, now coming in, announced a new fact, of further significance. In the patch of muddy soil, outside the garden wall, the herd had discovered the book-keepers track, going up towards the hills; and near it, on the same path, the footprint of another man, who must have gone over the ground twice, returning as he had come!
This cattle-herd, though of sable skin, was a skilled tracker. His word might be trusted.
It was trusted, and produced an unpleasant impression both on Jessuron and Judith—an impression more unpleasant as time passed, and the book-keeper was still unreturned.
The father fumed and fretted; he did more—he threatened. The young Englishman was his debtor, not only for a profuse hospitality, but for money advanced. Was he going to prove ungrateful? A defaulter?
Ah! little had that pecuniary obligation to do with the chagrin that was vexing the Jew Jessuron—far less with those emotions, like the waves of a stormy sea, that had begun to agitate the breast of his daughter; and which every slight circumstance, like a strong wind, was lashing into fury and foam.