"Gold, gold!" she went on, after a shuddering pause, "what a devil it is to tempt one! I never harmed human being before, but the yellow glitter was so beautiful to my sight that it betrayed me. Strange, that when it had made me do her will, it should have grown hateful to my sight, and burned my hands, till I came here and cast every golden piece of my blood-bought treasure into the sea."
She drew nearer to the waves, peeping into them as if perchance the treasure she had cast into their bosom might yet be visible.
"There was a man named Judas," she muttered; "I have heard them tell of him somewhere—he sold a man's life for some pieces of silver—but when it was done he went and cast the treasure back to those who had bought his soul. He must have felt as I do. What is it that I feel—remorse, repentance, or a horror of that dreadful leap I shall soon be taking into the dark?"
Walking wildly up and down she did not see two figures coming towards her through the mist of the rain—two female figures shrouded in long water-proof cloaks and thick veils.
"Miss Bonnibel," said one to the other, "'tis the wicked old witch—the fortune-teller—Wild Madge. Sure the old thing must be crazy, tramping out in such wild weather!"
Bonnibel shuddered as she looked at the weird old creature.
"Cannot we avoid her notice?" she inquired, shrinking from contact with the sibyl.
At that moment Wild Madge turned and saw them. Directly she came up to them with her fortune-teller's whine:
"Cross my palm with silver and I will tell your fortune, bonny ladies."
"No, no, Wild Madge, we haven't got time to hear our fortunes told," said Lucy Moore. "Don't try to detain us. We are on a mission of life and death."