"HUSSEIN HELD KATARINA ON THE SADDLE."
"Are you here alone?" cried Hussein to the charcoal-burner, as he rode up to the door of his cottage at the head of his troop.
"No," replied Nikou Bratza, "my wife Ravecca has for many years lived here with me in these solitudes."
"We have lost our way," continued Hussein, "and can get no further. We want to stay here under your shed until this storm has passed. The room in your hut, I see, is scanty enough, but it is large enough to shelter one woman. The rain has wetted her to the skin. I wish her to dry her clothes and warm herself by the fire of your hearth."
"As you please, sir," said Nikou, and he called his wife to take charge of the girl, who was trembling in every limb.
Though Hussein seemed so careful for the comfort of Katarina, it was not in the least because he felt pity for the poor girl, it was the fear of Ibrahim Pasha which moved him. Katarina's violent fit of trembling, consequent on her excessive agitation, and the cold downpour of rain, had not been unnoticed by him. It made him feel exceedingly uneasy, for he was afraid that the girl might be attacked by some serious illness, and he dared not, for his life, present her to Ibrahim in her present condition.
The two horse-stealers also, old Joan Kumanitza and his son Petru, were full of anxiety. The brook which flowed behind Nikou's hut, and which the day before they had passed with perfect ease on horseback, was now swollen into an angry torrent which forbade all attempt at crossing.
"How long may it be," asked Hussein impatiently of the charcoal-burner, "before we may expect that confounded water to fall?"
"Who can tell?" replied Nikou. "It may abate towards midday to-morrow, or towards evening. It is impossible to say."