"My dear child, don't take your brother home now, for your father is furious with the pair of you, and is coming after you straightway. That is why I have been singing so loudly, for I thought you had come hither and might hear; and let me tell you that it will be just as well for Thomar to hide himself for a time, for your father, when I left him, had shouldered his musket, and he swore in his wrath that he would hunt his runaway son with the dogs, and shoot him down wherever he found him."
"Let him shoot me down!" cried the lad, defiantly. He had heard the whole of the whisper.
The good-hearted merchant shook his head reprovingly.
"Keep your temper, my son; anger is mischievous. It would be much better if you left these parts for a little while, and Milieva can go back in the mean time and pacify her father. I should mention, however, that Kasi Mollah is preparing a rope in salt-water, with which he intends to beat her."
"What!" cried Thomar, with flashing eyes. "He would whip her again, and with a rope?"
He could say no more. The two children fell upon each other's necks and wept bitterly.
"Poor children! orphans worthy of compassion!" cried the sympathetic Leonidas, stroking their pretty heads. "It is plain that they have no mother. Willingly would I shed my blood for you. But it is vain to speak to that savage madman. The last thing he said was that your mother had been faithless to him, and that was why he was so furious against you."
"Then he shall never see us again," said the lad, tenderly embracing his sister. "I will go away, and I will take you with me."
"Where?" said his sister, trembling.
"The world is wide," said the lad. "I have often seen from the summits of the mountains how far it stretches away. I will go away as far as ever I can."