CHAPTER XX.
THE RING.
Noémi could not sleep that night. She sat in her rocky prison looking out over the valley of the Vézère at the distant landscape bathed in glorious moonlight. Opposite Le Peuch the rocks are not precipitous; there is a falling away of the plateau into soft undulations and stages, rounded in the wood and sombre in their mantle of trees.
The moon was full—so bright that it eclipsed every star save its attendant Venus; the whole sky was infused with light, the darkness of the deep blue turned to grey. The Vézère gleamed as a plate of molten silver below.
The river passed with a sigh rather than a murmur. How white, dazzling white, those cliffs must seem facing the moon, standing up like gigantic horse-teeth! The moon smote in at the window where sat Noémi. It bathed her face, her arm that was raised to sustain her chin.
How glorious was the world! how peaceful! how happy! Only man, with his lust of rapine, his love of violence, transformed it into a place of torment. What if there were no parties—one English, the other French—but all this fair land reposed under a single sceptre! And what if that one sceptre controlled evildoers, put down lawlessness, and, extended over the land, bid it rest! What if all evildoers were rooted out, and first among these Le Gros Guillem!
Below in Ste. Soure was the sound of a human voice, of a woman singing to her child that wept and would not sleep. Noémi could not hear the words, but she knew the air, and with her lips murmured—
B'aqui la luno Sé y'n abio dios, t'en dounarioy uno!
"Moon, moon! gloriously bright! If there were two I would give thee one! I would give thee one—thee! thee!"