A curse is but a few idle words; still, since that time, not a decent seaman had ever sailed with him.
He could not bear the oppressive darkness any longer; peopled as it was with shadows, it weighed upon him. He went into the inner room, lit a match, looked at his watch.
It was not yet nine o'clock. Time that evening was creeping on at a sluggish pace.
"Surely," he soliloquised, "if Vranic is coming he cannot delay much longer." After a few seconds he put out the light and returned to the front room.
Soon afterwards, he heard a bell strike slowly nine o'clock in the distance; then all was silence. The house was perfectly still and quiet, and yet, every now and then, in the room in which he was sitting, he could hear slight, unexplainable noises, like the soft trailing of garments, or the shuffling of naked feet upon the stone floor; stools sometimes would creak, just as if someone had sat upon them; then small objects seemed stealthily handled by invisible fingers.
He tried to think of his business, always an engrossing subject, not to be overcome by his superstitious fears. He had been a shrewd man, he had mortgaged his house for its full value to Vranic himself to buy the mythical cargo. Now that all his wealth was in bank-notes, or in bright and big Maria Theresa dollars, he was free to go whithersoever he chose.
Still, it was vexing to think that if he killed that viper of a Vranic, as he was in duty bound to do, he would have to flee from his native town, and escape to the mountains, at least till affairs were settled. It was a pity, for now the insurance society would make a rich man of him, so he might have remained comfortably smoking his pipe at home, and enjoying the fruits of many years' hard labour.
A quarter-past nine!
He began to wonder whether Milena—not seeing him come to fetch her —would return home. Surely more than one young man would offer to see her to her house. This thought made him gnash his teeth with rage.
When once the venom of jealousy has found its way within the heart of man, it rankles there, and, little by little, poisons his whole blood.