As she surmised the scene before her fancy, for a moment her proud spirit shrank, quailed, and cowed within her, and her form of bold, noble development shook like a fragile reed.
Up the steep, with springy step, climbed the young Creole, lightly as a bird upon the wing, unconscious that she was observed, and, of all others, by the rival she had most reason to dread.
After completing the numerous windings of the path, she at length arrived within some twenty paces of the rock—where the road turned round to the rear. She knew the way; and, without pausing, kept on till she stood within the embouchure of the sloping ravine.
Up to this point the Jewess had marked her every movement, watching her along the way. Not without some surprise had she perceived her intention to climb the Jumbé Rock—which by the direction she had taken was now evident.
The surprise soon passed, however, with a quick reflection. The summit of the rock—that place already hallowed by a love scene—was the spot chosen for the meeting!
On discovering Kate’s determination to ascend the rock, which she had now divined by seeing her pass round to the rear, the Jewess stayed no longer upon the platform. That would have necessarily led to an encounter between the two. Not that Judith would have shunned it, however awkward, however contra-tiempo.
It was not from any feeling of delicacy that she determined on leaving the place; on the contrary, the action that followed betrayed a motive of a very opposite character.
Just where the ravine debouched upward on the platform, a lateral cleft opened to one side. Its bottom was but a few feet below the summit level; covered with a thick growth of evergreen bushes, whose tops, rising to an equal height with the table above, completely filled the hollow with their dense frondage.
The quick eye of Judith Jessuron at once detected the convenience of this covert. There concealed, she could see without being seen. From under the grim shadow of those dark evergreens, she could behold what was like enough to wring her heart: though she was now reckless of the result.