"'I thank thee, gentle knight,' said Ayesha, who all the time had been standing on the parapet of the old stone bridge. 'Thou hast avenged my lover's death; may Heaven reward thee for thy deed.'
"'Allah, bismillah!' cried out the chiefs.
"Thereupon Stoyan, bowing courteously, wheeled round his horse and, galloping away, was soon out of sight.
"'And now,' said Ayesha, 'I had sworn to Hussein, that flower of youth and beauty, to be his for ever. Now I shall keep my vow. May the Most Merciful unite me to my lover. God of my fathers, God of Mohamed, receive me amongst the blessed.'
"Thereupon, lifting a small dagger which she held in her hand, she plunged it into her heart, and before her father had time to rush up to her, she had fallen into the torrent underneath, dyeing its waters of a crimson hue, just as the last rays of the sinking sun seemed to tinge in blood the lofty tops of the Veli-Berdo.
"From that day the Bridge of the Two Torrents has ever been called the Bullin-Most, or the Bridge of the Turkish Maiden, and every evening, when the day is fine, the sun sheds a blood-red light on the highest peaks of the Dinara, and the wind that, at gloaming, blows down the dell and through the arches of the bridge, seems to waft back an echo of the last moan of the Aga's beautiful daughter."
CHAPTER VII
SEXAGESIMA
The days that followed the departure of the pobratim were sad ones indeed. The Zwillievics had gone back to Montenegro; then Milena, not having any excuse to remain longer a guest of the Bellacics, was obliged to go back with a sinking heart to her lonely, out-of-the-way cottage; a dreary house which had never been a home to her.
When the Christmas snow had melted away, a sudden strong gale of wind dried up the sods, so that the grass everywhere was withered and scorched; the very rocks themselves looked lean, pinched-up, bare and sharp. All nature had put on a wizened, wolfish, wintry appearance. The weather was not only cold, it was bleak and gloomy.