“Child,” he said, “thou hast been weeping.”
“Who could listen to his telling of that old woman’s escape from the bull and the precipice without tears?” she replied. “But tell me, what is this terrible disease that has smitten the prince?”
“It is one well known and much dreaded in the East—called leprosy.”
Here the Hebrew went into a painfully graphic account of the disease; the frightful disfigurement it caused, and its almost, if not quite, certain termination in death.
“And have the queen and Hudibras actually let him go away to die alone?” she exclaimed.
“Not so, my child. Before you interrupted us he told me that he had left home by stealth on purpose. But, Branwen,” continued the old man with some severity, “how could you run such a risk of being discovered?”
“I ran no risk,” she replied, with a laugh.
“Besides, it was not fair to pretend to be deaf and thus obtain all his secrets.”
“I don’t care whether it was fair or not,” replied the girl with a wilful shake of her head. “And was it fair of you to back me up as you did?”
“Your rebuke is just, yet it savours of ingratitude. I should not have done so, but I was completely taken aback. Do you know that your face is dirty?”