She shook her head. The pearly line of her white profile, as she turned her face from him, seemed the subtlest thing he had ever looked on. Her plume of herons’ feathers gleamed black-blue against the night of her coiled and knotted hair. The little delicate shell-like ear had a ruby hanging from it, like a blood-drop. She said, in that voice of exquisite, sighing cadences, looking at a shabby caïque containing a single passenger, that was being paddled from the steamer-quay of Tophaneh across to the landing-place of Scutari,—and half-consciously noting the struggles of the little craft as it battled against the stiff rush of the current that sweeps past the promontory where transformed Io landed....
“No, Milord. This man had black eyes. When they looked at you.... Ayme!... Madre de Dios, misericordia! C’est lui!—c’est lui!”
The final words were unheard; they had exhaled in a sigh from lips suddenly bleached pale as poplar-leaves. As her head fell forwards on her breast, and the tall, rounded, supple figure swayed as though about to fall, Cardillon threw his strong unwounded arm about her; knowing by the dead weight that the swoon was unfeigned—wondering what had brought it about?
Nothing had happened to alarm her. Only the toiling rower had pulled up-stream diagonally, as though making for the point above the landing-place of Scutari, and had then let the head of the frail craft swing round. And the pasenger, a white-haired, black-eyed man, in worn gray traveling dress, had thus been brought plainly into view of those on the steam-yacht’s after-deck.
The man had never glanced at the two people who leaned upon the rail, talking. His eyes were for the green slope and the great quadrangle of yellow stone masonry reared by Sultan Suleiman....
Madame de Roux recovered almost instantly. The caïque had shot out of sight past the bend of the promontory. The traveler had landed and passed on about his business—an accidental likeness had deceived her, that was all. She lifted her head, smiled with lips still white, and declared herself well again. And the Brigadier, whose keen light eyes had the instant before seen a European lady—seated in a caïque with others—start back and hide her face in horror, as something grim and shapeless rose up at the boat’s side, said:
“Do not explain! I can guess what happened. You were looking at the water.... One of those dead men!...”
She said, with a shadowy, troubled glance at the deep, rushing tide that swept downwards round the promontory of Scutari:
“I do not fear the dead. The living can be more terrible sometimes!”
“Still,” he said, with an effort of unselfishness, “if certain sights affect you so painfully, it would be well not to wait to see the arrival of the Hospital-ships.”