But all this is commonplace. It was not the form and fashion of Mariaritza’s eyes which made them so singular—it was their extraordinary and contradictory expression—I have seen them soft and liquid as those of infancy; and, an instant afterwards, almost fierce in their blinding brightness.
As I reached her side she looked up, and the flash of blended ire and bitterness was in those dark wild eyes, as she exclaimed, without changing her position: “Ha! Is it indeed you who are cheating yourself into a belief that you can love the silent night better than the laughter and the flatteries of yonder empty-hearted fools?” and she jerked her veiled head impatiently in the direction of the Palace: “You, the courted, and the caressed; whom they idolise and worship because you can record them and their’s, and make them subject for song and story in your own far-off land? Go, go—The night air may chill you—It is not for such as you to be abroad when the dew is on the earth.”
I saw that the dark mood was on her. I had known her thus more than once; and I only answered by drawing a part of her long veil over my own head, and sitting down on the earth beside her.
“Nay, if you will really forsake them awhile for my companionship,” she murmured, while the moonlight that streamed upon her face was not more soft than the gaze which met mine as I looked up at her: “let us free ourselves for a while from all risk of intrusion—I have been in the lime-avenue, but I had well nigh intruded on a love-tale; and when I would fain have taken refuge in the ruined temple, and found it tenanted by a Saraf and his pipe-bearer——”
“And I”—and as I spoke I raised her hand playfully to my lips; “I am to chace you hence?”
“You shall, if you so will it;” said Mariaritza: “and if you will trust yourself with me for a couple of hours——”
“Any where—everywhere——”
The young Greek answered only by rising, and moving hastily towards the house. In a moment I heard the clapping of her small hands; and in five minutes more her caïque awaited us at the terrace-gate which opened on the channel.
“The sternmost caïquejhe is deaf;” whispered Mariaritza; as we established ourselves on the yielding cushions at the bottom of the arrow-like boat, and wrapped the furred pelisses with which it was profusely supplied carefully about us—“we have but to converse in a low voice, and we shall be safe, even although we should whisper treason of Mahmoud himself!”
I answered with a similar jest; and we darted out into the centre of the channel, and on until we glided beneath the Asian shore. No! I shall never forget that night—and could I impart to my readers the tale to which I listened from that passionate Greek girl, in a flood of moonlight, and to the music of the myriad nightingales, as we crept along under the shadows of the mighty hills, I might spare the asseveration. That night I heard all her secret; and from that hour I loved her!