Zabra hastened to the quarter deck, where he sat himself down in a retired corner, apparently in the most intense agony of mind. His dark features were impressed with the workings of a violent passion; his lustrous eyes shone with a brilliancy that was vivid and piercing to an extraordinary degree; and his breast heaved with that full and rapid pulsation of the heart which is the usual effect of great excitement. Covering his face with his hands, he continued in that position for several minutes. “That it should come to this!” he muttered in a voice tremulous with emotion. “That it should come to this! What a reward for all I have done and suffered! Oh agony insupportable!—Oh misery scarcely to be endured! Where will the devoted heart meet with fidelity? Where will the loving one, who feels and thinks and acts with no other desire than for the happiness of the loved, meet with a like regard? The dream is over—the delusion is passed—the hope which has led me on seems utterly extinguished. But perhaps it may not be—I may be deceived in my suspicions. It would look like injustice to condemn him without a more perfect knowledge. I will observe them. But he said how much he admired her; he said it to me!—Ah! it must be true.”
Zabra was impatiently starting from his seat when he beheld Lilya standing before him with every appearance of deep concern in her countenance; he suddenly snatched her by the arm, drew her towards him, and gazed in her face with a fierce and searching look.
“Why do you gaze on me thus?” inquired Lilya, shrinking from the stern scrutiny to which she was being subjected. “Why is your look so dark? He whom I used to call my father never looked thus on me, and you never so regarded me before. Have I done any thing wrong, by which I could offend you? How sorry I shall be if I have! Or are you ill? Let me endeavour to make you better: I know where grow the healing herbs and the balmy plants that are good for many different maladies. Let me gather them and make you a drink such as may restore you to health; or shall I run down the young leveret or snare the tender woodpigeon to procure you delicate eating? Ah me! I forgot that I am not where either herbs or plants, or leveret or woodpigeon are to be found, but on the wide waste of sea, where neither green moss nor twining ivy, nor flowers, nor trees, nor any leafy thing exists. But what can I do to make you better?”
“Can I believe you?” asked her companion, relaxing in some degree in the severity of his gaze.
“You can if you like, Zabra,” replied the simple girl; “and I do not see why anyone should not believe me, because I always speak the truth; and why you should not believe me seems so very strange. I always believe you. I am sure you would not say any thing that was not true, and I could not think of saying a word with an intention of deceiving you.”
“You do not seem like one inclined to be treacherous;” observed the youth.
“I never saw any one inclined to be treacherous, therefore I cannot say whether I do or do not look in that way,” said the girl; “but I am not so inclined, that I am positive of, for I have nothing in the world to be treacherous about, and it is impossible that I should ever be treacherous to you. Now, Zabra, you look more like the good and kind being I have known you to be. Ah! what a pleasure it is to listen to you when you sing your delightful songs, or speak to me so persuasively of virtue, and wisdom, and excellence, and all such admirable things. It makes me forget how much I loved to watch the birds at their nests, and the young kids at play; and hear the lark’s song in the morning, and the nightingale’s at night. It makes me forget all my favourite haunts where the choicest flowers used to grow. It makes me to forget all I once found so pleasant to remember.”
“You have noticed Oriel Porphyry, have you not?” inquired Zabra, fixing on his companion a searching glance.
“Oh yes,” replied Lilya eagerly; “he that is so noble looking. His eyes are so bright, and his hair curls over his forehead so beautifully, and he looks so kindly at me when I see him and talks to me so kindly, that I like him very much.”
“No doubt you do!” exclaimed the youth, with considerable bitterness.