"Two children, each of spell-bound mother, Shall meet, and one shall love the other; But mother young, and mother old, Each the blessing shall withhold. When by parent's tooth is child's flesh riven, When by child's hand, parent hurl'd from heaven, Then shall the serfs with joy be tipsy, For then shall the robber espouse the gipsy."
The mysterious Fidgita disappeared. Clotilde pondered o'er the prediction. She was, indeed, a natural daughter of a wealthy baron, by some beauteous wanderer. The lawless but exemplary idol of her heart had rescued herself and nurse from these Tartar hordes, and restored her to her father, in whose halls she had been received by the Hebrew Duchess Ketura Boaz, and wooed, somewhat against the will of that mature enchantress, by the Danish Lord Wooden Murkenhole, whose cause Fidgita had warmly espoused. Clotilde still stood, clammily clasping her clay-cold hands, as her sportive Grace tripped into the corridor.
"Is the Lady Gunterzwartz turned puritan?" she asked with her wonted wit.
"Not at all," was the dignified reply; for the high patrician blood which had descended from the old Romans to our fair papist ill brooked the familiarity of the Israelitish dame.
"Lady Clotilde," resumed the Duchess Ketura, playing with the handle of the dagger which marked her caste, and which, like other creoles of that region and period, she wore stuck in her plaid bonnet, "I must tell your ladyship——"
"Nothing about that Wooden Murkenhole!" interrupted Clotilde. "Were he a sable pagan Esquimaux bowing to the abominations of Isis, I could not regard him with more repugnance."
"Ha!" laughed her Grace of Boaz, "'tis only when Guzman sails his gondola beneath the spreading cocoa-trees, and strikes his ganjam to the praise of thy charms, that thou art pleased, flirting Tory! Truly, friend Clotilde, I little dreamed, an' please you, when, flying from the invading Normans, I left the luxurious woods of Dover, and the contingent mountains of Cheshire, that I should find thee, my own—no matter! so unlike in taste to thy hapless—hush!"
"Oh, Albion!" sighed Clotilde, "decidedly thou must be the queen of cities. Thy gallant outlaws and highwaymen will with joy the bride of Guzman greet; for, rather than wive the Rosicrucian Murkenhole, I will throw myself off Mount Damthopovit, or into the monastery of St. Kussanblastre."
"My lovely pupil," said Ketura, "had far better accompany me to the munchen-hall, where the kooken-vrow is already serving up the duntarags."
Clotilde followed her friend. What, then, was her amaze at finding the phorontrom filled with armed men, headed by the rejected and vindictive Wooden! To seize his victim; to place her in the fatal trot-joggeur; to drive across the extensive crags of Smashaltobitz; to consign her to the dungeons of Glumanough,—was the work of a moment. It was not long, however, ere Fidgita apprised the Chevalier Guzman of his lady's peril: that nobleman, we may well imagine, lost no time in attempting to succour.