Roused by his remarks, Zulmiera started forward, and in an agitated voice which she in vain tried to stifle, exclaimed, “Oh, no, your excellency, naught is there, save, as the Lady Bridget saith, the whispering wind or the fly-birds as they seek their leafy bower.” “Back, girl!” fiercely retorted the governor—“back to thy place; who taught thee to hazard thy remarks? Methinks thy cavalier masters might have made thee know thy station better.”
Again the blood rushed to the cheek and temples of Zulmiera—again the eye flashed fire—but again she mastered her emotions; exclaiming, however, as she did so, but in a voice too subdued to reach her companion’s ear, “Rest till to-morrow’s night, proud man, then wilt thou learn who governs here!”
At this moment, Bridget placed in her father’s hand the lately invented telescope,[[91]] when, raising it to his eye, he narrowly observed the whole breadth of the copse; the distant creek and the farther ocean; but nothing met his eye—nothing, save the wavy green, or the wing of a weary sea-fowl as it sought its nest. Slowly dropping the instrument, the governor once more gazed with his naked eye in that direction. The sun had set some minutes before, and as the last of his golden beams faded in the west, he turned upon his heel, and, followed by the females, was once more lost in the verdant shrubbery.
[[89]] Now called the Memora’s.
[[90]] Now called English Harbour.
[[91]] Telescopes were said to have been invented during the reign of James I., although some attribute the invention to Roger Bacon, 1292.
CHAPTER XXIV.
CONTINUATION OF THE LEGEND.
It was a calm, delicious, West Indian night. The moon shone in all her glory, bathing lawn and lea, upland and woodland, in her silvery light. The waters of the creek we have already noticed were rife with beauty; and the waves of the far-off ocean, as they dashed in measured cadence on the beach, broke musically upon the listener’s ear.