When he rose, he was again charged by Serpentine, and had barely time to regain his place of refuge beside the gitana; and the furious beast attacked the flooring of the wagon just at their feet with such a fierce blow of her powerfully armed head, that it was caught there for a moment by the horns, so that Renaud had to force them out by stamping upon them with the heel of his iron-shod boot.

Then the gipsy smiled, and, bending over toward the drover’s ear, whispered a word or two that made the handsome horse-breaker smile with her.

Livette—who was a long distance away, at the other end of the arena, but almost opposite them, and so placed that she could see them in the bright light—had not lost a single gesture, not a single glance.

What jealousy does not see, it divines, and that is not surprising, for it sees what does not exist.

XX

THE SNARE

At the moment when the relics take their departure, the spectacle becomes terrifying. What! all is over! what! they leave us in our misery, our woes sharpened by the disappointment! And it is all over! over, for a whole year! And yet the power that can heal is here, shut up in this box, so near us! among us! They rush at the shrines and cling to them!—Nails are broken and bleeding against the iron-bound corners!—And the inexorable capstan up above turns and turns, tearing from the writhing crowd at the bottom of the well the strange coffin, that goes up, up, at the end of the straining ropes. Standing on tiptoe, jostling, overturning, crushing one another without pity, the poor devils struggle for the last touch—the last, supreme touch that may, perhaps, because it is the last, secure the coveted grace.—And all in vain. Amid the sobbing prayers, the mysterious closed vessel goes up toward the lofty chapel, carrying the water of salvation of which so many feverish lips long to drink. And when the shrines pass out of sight, near the arch, behind the lowered shutters,—then veritable shrieks of agony go up from the frenzied crowd who cannot endure the death of hope.

Then the uproar becomes truly frightful; then selfishness breaks forth unbridled, each one uttering for his own behoof the bestial cry that should bring down on him alone the saints’ compassion; then the lamentation is wild, the supplication horrible to hear, the prayers are prayers of rage! And in this deep moat, whose walls tremble with the noise, there is a great uproar as of unclean beasts, thirsting for their God as for a physical blessing, as for a vainly awaited promised land! And, nailed against one of the bare walls of the fortress-church, a great crucifix, with open arms and upturned face, above all those distorted faces, all those raised and writhing arms, seems to mingle with the fierce lamentations of the human brutes its divine but no less fruitless and much more despairing cry!

And yet, it is almost always at the last moment, at the precise second when the shrines disappear, that the miracle takes place, and a paralytic walks or a blind girl sees. One cries out: “Miracle!”

Lucky girl! She is surrounded, almost suffocated.

“Can you see?”—“I did see.”—“Can you see now?”—“Wait—yes!”—“What?”—“A bright red lily! a flash! an angel!”—“Miracle! miracle!”

A man, a villager, immediately takes the child in his arms. Ah! he has seen miracles before! See how he hurries to take the child away on his shoulders, on the shield! He carries her thus so that all may see the miraculously-cured; so that no one shall forget that genuine miracles are done at Saintes-Maries, and come again! And the crowd follows, giving thanks. They hurry to the parsonage; the miracle is recorded in the presence of several assembled priests.

“Did you see?”—“Yes, I saw!”

And the procession moves on.

Ah! Christophore, the old pirate!—How he hurries along, with his lie on his shoulders!—He is a poor inhabitant of Saintes-Maries to whom the presence of so many strangers every year brings in something, as it does to all the rest, and he trots joyously off with his living decoy.

The next day, the child of the miracle is found alone at the foot of the Calvary, on the beach, left there for a moment by the woman or child who acts as her guide.

“Well, can you see?”—“No.”—“What about the miracle, then?”

Poor child! In her plaintive voice, she replies: “It has gone again!”—“But you did see, yesterday?”—“Yes.”—“If you could see, why did they carry you?”—“Oh! monsieur, I couldn’t see anything but flowers, bright red lilies; but as to walking—oh! no, I couldn’t see to do that! And now it is all dark. I can’t see anything at all any more; yes, the miracle—has gone away!”

As soon as the relics had disappeared, everybody left the church in procession, to go to bless the sea—the sea that bore the saints to Camargue—the sea whereon the brave fishermen risk their lives every day.

The curé walked at the head of the procession. He held a relic in his hand; it was the Silver Arm, a hollow object in which some relics of the saints can be seen through a little square of glass.

The crowd followed in order. There were hundreds, yes, thousands of them. Great numbers of pilgrims, sitting on the dunes, watched the procession winding its way along the sandy beach where a few flat-boats lay high and dry.

Behind Monsieur le curé, six men bore on their shoulders a carved and painted wooden image, of considerable size, representing the two saints in the boat. There was so much jostling, by so many of the crowd, to secure the honor of replacing the bearers, that the boat pitched and rolled on their shoulders as if it were at sea in a high wind.

Saint Sara, the black saint, came next, borne by dark-haired, swarthy-faced gipsies, with eyes that glistened like jet. Their little ones meanwhile glided through the crowd like rats, creeping between people’s legs and stealing handkerchiefs and purses.

And in the wake of the saints came young men and maidens, carrying lilies, sweet-smelling lilies, collected in sheaves every year for the procession of the faithful.

Others held tapers whose light could not be detected in the bright sunlight, but the lilies filled the air with perfume. These lilies were Livette’s delight.

Monsieur le curé reached the water’s edge. He held out the Silver Arm. Thereupon, the sea, for an instant, recoiled—only a little. The poor fishermen’s wives quickly crossed themselves.

And all those who were standing on the dunes, watching the procession pass, saw the bearers marching at the head loom taller and taller at every step by reason of the mirage. And the saints on the bearers’ shoulders gradually increased in size with them, and seemed to rise heavenward, of prodigious size, as in a vision.

“Protect us, great saints! May the sea be kind to us of Saintes-Maries this year!”

Poor people, poor souls! Wait till next year.

Every year it is the same thing. All this returns and will return, like the seasons.

On the day following that on which the relics returned to their retreat, the majority of the pilgrims left the village. All the camps were struck at almost the same hour.

The carriages of all sorts, the cabriolets, dog-carts, chars-à-bancs, jardinières, break-necks, the rich farmers’ breaks, and the peasants’ wagons, covered with canvas stretched over hoops, carried away seven, eight, ten thousand travellers of all ages, sick or well, and the long line crawled like a serpent over the flat road between two deserts. Here and there, at the left of the line, mounted men, many of whom carried a girl en croupe, rode back and forth, looking for one another, now waiting, now riding on at a gallop to take the lead of the caravan.

This departure of the pilgrims was another spectacle for the good people of Saintes-Maries, who stood around in noisy groups on the outskirts of the village, waving a last adieu to the guests whose presence they had taken advantage of to the utmost.

Those who had been compelled to give shelter to friends and had consequently been unable to put so high a price on their hospitality, good-humoredly repeated the amusing sentiment, that certainly smacks less of Arabia than do the horses of the district: Friends who come to visit us always afford us pleasure; if not when they arrive, at all events when they depart.

On the second day following that on which the gipsy had smiled upon the drover, when the party of zingari passed in their place at the tail of the procession, some mounted on sorry nags, others jolting about in their wretched wagons,—some of the women on foot, the better to beg, carrying their children slung bandoleer-wise over their backs,—it was observed that the queen’s wagon was not among them.

Zinzara had remained at Saintes-Maries.

She proposed to give herself the pleasure of administering a rebuff to the drover, with whom she had made an assignation for that very evening.

This is what had taken place.

During the branding, Renaud had whispered in Zinzara’s ear:

“Ah! now I have you, gipsy! what a pity that it is before all these people!”

“On my word, I have the same thought at this moment,” she replied, deeply touched by the grand presence of mind he had just shown in defending her.

“All right,” he said, “I’ll come and speak to you very soon. These are lovely nights.”

“No, to-morrow,” said she, “to-morrow, do you understand? after the wagons have gone.”

But at the close of the performance, when he saw Livette coming toward him with pale cheeks, so pale that she looked like a corpse, he was seized with poignant remorse.

“She saw me,” he said to himself, “and she is suffering from jealousy.”

And so great was his pity for the poor little girl that he felt capable of sacrificing to her, once for all, at the very moment when it had become more difficult than ever, his insane passion for the other. All the chaste affection he had felt for Livette from the very first, so different from passion and so pleasant to the senses, came back to him like the puff of fresh air that awakens one from a bad dream.

Furthermore, he was surprised, almost disconcerted, to find that the gipsy’s formal promise did not afford him the pleasure he had expected when he had dreamed of it in anticipation.

Livette left him to join her father, who was not to take her back to the château until the evening of the following day, two or three hours after the departure of the pilgrims, in order to remain until the end of the fête, and to avoid the thick dust and the enforced slowness of the long procession.

And that day—in the afternoon—Renaud fell in with Monsieur le curé.

“Good-day, drover. What is the matter, my boy? You seem preoccupied.”

“Oh! curé,” said Renaud, “sometimes it is difficult to do what is right!”

With that he was about to pass on, but the curé seized his arm and detained him.

“Eh! curé,” said Renaud, “you have still a powerful grasp!”

“Beware, Renaud,” said the curé very slowly, “lest you become a great sinner. I know what I know. Your betrothed wife is weeping. She is jealous. Already rumors are in circulation concerning you. And for whom, just God! would you betray that virtuous girl, who, wealthy as she is, gives herself to you, a poor orphan? You would ruin a whole family, poor you! and your honor and the repose of your heart, forever! The devil is crafty, you are right, and to do right is difficult, but those whom the devil inspires, when you follow their momentary caprice and your own fancy, lead you on to abysses deeper than the lorons of the paluns. You are walking at this moment on the moving crust! If it bursts, adieu, my man! You will be engulfed body and soul. As for yourself, that is a small matter! but by what right do you compel the little one to run the risk of your downfall? You are dealing with an accursed creature, a woman who does not know herself, who is submissive to nobody, and who cares nothing for the misfortunes of others. Whatever she does is for her own amusement. I have seen her and watched her. The saints have taught me many things. Beware! The little one is brave. Some day there may be innocent blood on your hands, if you keep on in the road I forbid you to follow, for the devil is in the affair, I tell you, and all sorts of monsters are awaiting you at the turning in the evil road. A betrothed lover’s infidelity, like a husband’s, lays an egg filled with ghastly creatures, which sometimes hatches. If you have a heart, show it, Renaud, take my advice, and go back to your horses and cattle in the solitude of your plains, where the malignant fever is less to be feared than the disease you are taking here!”

Renaud, the tall, strong, dashing blade, listened to these wise words, hanging his head, poor fellow, like a child scolded for not knowing his catechism.

“If you are a man, make up your mind at once, and give me your word as a true-hearted drover.”

“Take my hand, Monsieur le curé. I give you my word. I was in a fair way to go wrong. A spell was on me.”

The two men exchanged a grasp of the hand.

The curé walked away with an anxious heart. He knew that Renaud was sincere, but he knew the strength of man’s passion and his ingenuity in lying.

So the curé had been asking questions?—In that case, to consort with the gipsy was to risk a rupture with Livette.

Renaud was about to leave the village,—or, if you please, the town,—with his mind firmly made up to renounce the gitana. Yes, he would sacrifice her to Livette, to his earnest desire to have a peaceful, happy home and a family, he, the wandering cowherd, the orphan, the foundling of the desert. That was happiness;—a roof to shelter one, a roof whose smoke one can see from afar on the horizon, thinking: the wife and little ones are there.

He would renounce the gitana; yes, but he proposed to make known his resolution to her himself. At the thought of leaving Saintes-Maries without seeing her again, for the purpose of telling her that he would not see her again, a weary feeling came over him; it seemed to him that he was suddenly shut up in a narrow space, and left there without air, without horizon.—But he would see her again—he must. It would be better so. Must he not soothe her anger first of all? She would be angry enough in any event. Why exasperate her?—In very truth, if he did see her again, it was—he reached this conclusion after much thought—it was principally in order to protect poor Livette against her! Yes, yes, it was for her sake that he would see her again. See her again! At those words, which he repeated softly to himself, a joy in living, in moving, in breathing, took possession of him.

Meanwhile, Zinzara, for her part, was vowing inwardly that she would enjoy a hearty laugh at the drover when he should presently seek her out!

Why, in that case, had she answered yes to his amorous questions? Oh! because at the moment when he whispered them in her ear, if she had been able, upon the spot, to give herself to this savage, all aglow from his conflict with bulls and heifers, doubtless she would have done it. He had awakened desire in her, as heat awakens thirst, as a summer evening awakens longing for a bath.—And then it had given her pleasure to say to herself that, over at the other end of the arena, the woman to whom he had paid queenly honor by giving her the smoking, red-hot iron, like the sceptre of a magician or a wicked zingaro king,—that that woman was suffering torments.

But he came too late. The desire had passed away. And the acme of delight to her now lay in the thought of refusing the promised favor to the Christian she detested, while giving Livette to believe that he had been false to her.

Sitting upon a stone, alone, at some distance from her wagon, she awaited the drover. Her resolution to take vengeance by refusing was written upon her compressed lips, whose smile became more malicious than ever when she saw him riding toward her.

A few steps away he stopped. As he looked at her, he felt a sudden rushing of the blood in all his veins, a strange, delicious pressure at the pit of the stomach. He recognized the characteristic agitation of love; but he made an effort, and said, in a voice which he felt to be unsteady: “I expected to be free to-night, but I am not. The master has sent for me, and I must be far away from here by night-fall. So I must go at once. Adieu, gipsy!”

Zinzara understood instantly that he was running away from her, and why!—— She rose, like the serpent that rises on its tail and hisses with anger. All her harsh resolutions vanished in a twinkling; and, in a short, sharp, jerky voice, entirely different from her natural voice, she said: “I want you, do you hear? No one else shall give you orders when I have orders for you. What I want done is done. Are you going to act like a coward, pray—you, who have taken my fancy because, when you are on your horse, you resemble a zingaro who knows neither master nor God? Come, go on!”

Thus, the same motive of passionate hatred,—as pleasant to her taste as love,—that a moment before induced her determination not to go with Renaud, now threw her into his arms. And to him the love or hatred of such a woman, at the moment when she gave herself to him, was one and the same thing; were there not still her passion, her animated features, her gleaming eyes, her lips that, as they moved, disclosed two rows of pearly, sparkling teeth? Was there not her flexible, ballet-dancer’s body, significantly held out toward him to whom she laid claim?

A thrill of savage joy shook Renaud from head to foot; and, as his rider shuddered, as if he had been touched by a cramp-fish, the horse seemed to experience a similar sensation, and pawed the ground an instant, between the knees that involuntarily pressed closer to his sides.

What was he to do? Ah! blessed saints! His betrothal had kept him virtuous for a long while, you know; had held him aloof from the frail damsels with whom he formerly consorted, and his youth was speaking now. The sea-bull must have the wild heifer. Lions that have loved gazelles, so says the Arabian legend, have died of it. Living creatures, by the law of nature, crave paroxysms of passion; so long as they have them not, they seek them; and pay for them, if need be, with their own and others’ blood. Who of us will blame them for becoming delirious sometimes, if we remember that life longs to live, and that that longing overshadows the fear of death?

“Come, go on!”

The queen uttered love’s command. And with one bound she jumped to the saddle behind him. In a twinkling she had wound her right arm about the horseman’s waist: “Go on!” she said again; and then, in an undertone, in a voice that was no more than a warm, speaking breath upon the man’s neck, and made him shudder to the very roots of his hair, she added: “I want you, do you understand? I want you! So go on, go on! The man who goes on, arrives!”

He was caught, fast bound. The sorceress’s arm was about his loins. He felt it against him, living, trembling, stronger than aught else.

The stupefied Renaud tried to regain his self-control,—to shake off the spell. He sat there, dazed, unable to disentangle his thoughts, to determine what he should do, trying to collect his ideas of a moment before, the good curé’s advice, his word of honor, none of which could he remember or repeat to himself in his mind, intelligibly. It had all gone from him, out of reach of the effort of his memory. When an intense amorous passion guides our movements, it is as legitimate as physical force,—honor is not betrayed: it has ceased to exist!

Those few seconds of hesitation afforded Zinzara perfect comprehension of what was taking place within him. His desire was no longer ardent enough to satisfy her pride, since it was possible for him to waver ever so little!

“Where are we going?” said she, resuming her sharp, jerky tone, in which there was a suspicion of a hiss. “Where are we going? You must know of a hiding-place somewhere, some deserted cabin in the midst of your swamps here,—a perfectly safe place, all your own, where you have taken other women—what do I care? Pardi! I don’t suppose that you waited for me, to learn! I will go wherever you take me. Remember this—it must be somewhere where nobody can find me, for my race doesn’t mix with yours: the zingara who gives herself to a Christian is the only despised one among us, and if one of our people should see me, there would be knives in the air, you may be sure, for you and for me!”

He still hesitated, remembering that he had reasons for hesitation, but unable to remember what they were. Mechanically he held back his horse (it was Blanchet!), who was acting badly.

At last, in the hurly-burly of his thoughts, he seized, at random, upon one thing he had entirely forgotten, the tapers promised by Livette to the Saintes Maries. He was to have lighted them devoutly in the church, during the night before or that morning. Yesterday his fiancée had reminded him again of the promise. Doubtless, Livette had lighted them for him, but that was not the same thing. And so the devil had him, do what he would. He lost his head. He felt that he was sliding down an inclined plane, and finding his struggles of no avail, he abandoned himself to his fate and hastened his fall.

“I know where we will go,” he said; “to the Conscript’s Hut, in the swamp.”

It seemed to him that he was forced to reply, but he no longer felt any internal revolt against that obligation—far otherwise.

“Is it far?”

“Yes, in Crau, on the other side of the Rhône, near the Icard farm. The devil couldn’t find me there. Rampal might come there, no one else——”

“Wait,” said she at that name, with a sudden gleam in her cat-like eyes.

She whistled.

He said to himself that some one from Saintes-Maries would certainly see them, and that Livette would learn the whole story—that it would be better now to start at once.—Or perhaps—who knows?—the delay was a good thing! Livette might pass, herself, and all would be changed. He would hasten to her side. They would be saved. Who would be saved? and from what? from a vague, terrible thing that was before him. He could not have told what it was; but it was simply the renunciation of his own will.

The gitana’s clear, shrill whistle summoned a little zingaro of some ten years, a veritable wild cat, who came running to the horse’s side.

From the saddle she said a few words in the gipsy language to him, in a short, imperative tone of command. The gipsy language is composed of German, Coptic, Egyptian, and Sanscrit. Renaud listened without the slightest suspicion of the meaning of the words.

In a fit of amorous hatred, the swarthy queen said to the little fellow:

“You know Rampal, the drover? go and find him. He is in the village; I saw him not long ago. Go at once and tell him this: he will find me to-night, with his enemy, whom you see here, in the Conscript’s Hut, which he knows! And I will join you and the wagon to-morrow evening, in the town of Arles, by the old tombs.”

She thought of everything. The wild cat disappeared.

“What did you say to him?” Renaud inquired.

She began to laugh, an insolent laugh.

He felt that he abhorred her, that he would delight to see her conquered, under his heel, absolutely in his power, gipsy queen and sorceress that she was, like an ordinary woman.

Each desired the other in hatred.

She laughed as she thought that the man about whom her arms were thrown like a lover she was luring to his destruction. That very night—before or after the joys of love; what cared she for that?—there would be between him and that other a struggle as of wild beasts, which she longed to see; a witches’ carnival of love, to rejoice the souls of the dead; and she laughed.

“Queens,” said she, “cannot leave their kingdoms without issuing secret orders. Come, my beast!”

Was she speaking to the man or the horse?—To the man, doubtless, in whom she had awakened an animal like herself.

She pressed him tighter, and again she whispered:

“Come, come!”

He felt the vampire’s breath playing in the short hair on his neck and descending in hot flushes to his feet, which were nervously tapping his horse’s flanks. Renaud trembled. His passion had taken possession of him once more in all its intensity. It seemed as if a hurricane were raging in man and horse alike. They started off at full speed.

Renaud believed that he had a victim in his grasp, but he was himself the victim, and he rode away with the witch clinging fast to him—as the kite sometimes flies away with the serpent, thinking that he has mastered it, only to be strangled in its folds at last.

XXI

HERODIAS

One would run risks and be false to the traditions of her race for his sake. The other, if she should know, might die of the knowledge. And, although he loved her, the thought caused a thrill of savage joy, but he promptly repressed it. Luckily, however, she would know nothing of it. And he became intoxicated with the rapid movement and with pride, man and beast combined, fairly launched upon his mad career.

Magnificent was the sky, studded with more stars than the dunes have grains of sand and the desert waving flowers clinging to the twigs of the saladelles. The Milky-Way was as white as the pyramids of salt seen through the morning mist. One would have said that a vast bridal veil, torn in strips, was floating above the whole plain, alive with murmurs of love.

Innumerable little snails were perched, like blossoms, upon the stalks of the reeds, and swung to and fro.

A very gentle breeze was blowing and raising a slight, uncertain ripple along the edges of the marsh, with the sound of a furtive kiss among the flowering rushes. At times, a lark or a flamingo, asleep among the reeds or in the shallow water, would awaken ever so little and chirp to let his mate know that he was there, not far away.

June is no hotter. Sometimes the smell of roses filled their nostrils, coming in long puffs from far-off gardens. Yonder, in the park of the Château d’Avignon, the Syrian tree was sending forth its pollen.

Renaud, after skirting the sea for some distance, rode due northeast, beyond the pond of La Dame.

He was bound for Grand-Pâtis. The people at Sambuc had some boats that he knew of.

For a moment, they rode beside a drove. Bulls, standing in water up to their thighs, hardly noticed, were feeding on the flowering reeds. White mares fled at their approach, followed faithfully by stallions anxious not to lose sight of them. The sap of May was flowing in the reeds and rushes, in the sambucus and tamarisk. The very water exhaled a saline odor, stronger than usual, and more heavily laden with desires. The wild vine called to its mate, that came borne upon the heavy breath of the blooming desert.

Again Renaud stopped, seized with a mild, pleasurable vertigo.

The fresh, love-compelling breeze in which they were bathed laid an imperious command upon him.

“Get down,” said he, “get down at once! This is a good place to rest.”

But she remembered the order she had given.

“We must go where we were going,” said she. “I will not get down until we are there. We must cross the Rhône, you say? Press on, press on!—Gallop! The gipsy loves the horse.”

She would have none of his caresses except at the place appointed. She would not submit to him until they should be where he was, by her agency, in danger of death or suffering. A kiss under other circumstances would be a triumph for him, and she gave herself to him for her own pleasure alone. She desired to feel, in the interchange of caresses, that the moisture of her lips was poison, that her bite would cause death or madness.

Firmly seated en croupe, still clinging fast to the drover—her victim—with her arm wound about him, her bare legs hanging in the folds of her skirt which the wind raised as they sped along, with her head thrown proudly back, she swayed gracefully with the rocking motion of the gallop; and her face, which had a sallow look in the moonlight against the neck of the man whom she was leading astray, albeit she seemed to be carried away by him—her face was wreathed in smiles.

When Herodias had obtained the head of John the Baptist, she lifted it by the hair from the gold charger, whereon it lay with a circle of blood around the neck, raised it to the level of her face, and after gazing upon it with deep interest, examining the closed eyelids and long lashes and the transparent pallor of the cheeks, she suddenly placed her mouth upon that lifeless mouth and sought to force her tongue between the lips to the cold teeth too tightly closed in death, esteeming that kiss, inflicted on her dead foe, more delicious than the incestuous caresses for which he had reproved her.

What was left of Renaud’s suspicions of Zinzara, while she was smiling in the darkness, and the warm breath from her lips was playing upon his neck? He had ceased to reflect; he rode on. He willingly postponed the longed-for hour, now that he was forced to go on. He thought no more of violence. His happiness was secure. He could wait. In the midst of the deserted plains, still warm from the sunlight though refreshed by the night air, love came without calling, but he enjoyed the anticipation more than anything he had known.—And then she might escape him even now. He must be careful not to startle her. When they reached the nest yonder, he would keep her there some time. And so he rode on, inhaling the saline air of the desert, which was his—with his stallion’s four shoeless feet trampling through the sand and water, which were his also—bound for the horizon, which would soon be his.

Once, however, in the midst of a swamp, where the water was above his horse’s knees, he stopped again.

“What is it?” said she.

Renaud turned his head, and throwing himself back, called her with a smacking of his lips.

“When I am ready!” said Zinzara in a mocking tone.

As she spoke, Blanchet leaped forward, with all four feet in the air, and made a tremendous splashing in the water, which fell about their heads in a heavy shower.

And, unseen by Renaud, the gipsy smiled against his neck, as she replaced in her hair the long gold pin she had plunged into the beast’s flank.

Suddenly there was a shout of Qui vive? directly in front of them, so unexpected in the solitude, that Blanchet jumped again.

“Qui vive?” the voice repeated.

“The king!” Renaud replied gaily.

“Ah! is it you, Renaud?”

It was the revenue officers; but Renaud hurried by, at a safe distance, so that they might not recognize the gitana.

They were near the salt spring of Badon. The rectangular heaps of salt seemed like so many long, low houses, with sharp roofs. In its shroud-like whiteness the spot resembled a little town, geometrically laid out, asleep under dead snow.

They reached the shore of the main stream of the Rhône.

Zinzara was on the ground before Renaud had stopped his horse.

He alighted in his turn, and handed the rein to the gipsy. She held Blanchet while he was drinking in the river.

“Now for some oats!” said Renaud.

He took a small sack that was fastened across his saddle-bow, from holster to holster, and at Zinzara’s suggestion emptied it into her dress which she held up with both hands.

Poor, poor Blanchet! there was only a handful of grain.

“Wait for me; I’ll go to find the boat.”

Renaud disappeared in the darkness behind the reeds and willows that grew along the bank, drowned in the mist, floating like pallid spectres in the darkness.

Zinzara heard nothing save the plashing of the water, and the crunching of the oats between Blanchet’s teeth, as he swept them up with his long lip from the hollow of the dress.—Oh! if Livette could have seen that!

“Here I am, come!” said Renaud’s voice.

He approached, raising the oars. She walked to the water’s edge.

“Hold the reins fast. The horse will follow us.”

She stepped into the boat and stood in the stern. Blanchet followed, in the wake.

Renaud knew the current at that spot. He rowed diagonally across and reached the other shore more than a hundred yards farther down.

He tied the boat to the trunk of a willow and tightened the girths, and they were off again.

It was necessary to ascend the stream a long distance to find a place to ford the canal that runs from Arles to Port-le-Bouc. When they had crossed the canal, he said:

“We are almost there.”

They had ridden nearly five hours.

His desires were approaching fruition. He was seized with the impatience that comes with the last half-hour. He had a vision of what was to come.

“It is in the gargate,” he said. And he explained: “The gargate is like thickened water. It is about the same as mud. The cabin we are going to is in the midst of one of these patches of mud. Ah! we shall be well protected there, gitana, I promise you. A man once lived there for a long while; a conscript who wanted to evade the draft. And later, an escaped convict, a native of the neighborhood, who knew about the place. No one could dislodge him there. Others know the spot; but never fear, I have a way to fool them. Trust me, gitana, we shall be well guarded there, by death hidden in the water around us!”

They reached their destination.

Renaud tied his horse to a tree, and took Zinzara’s hand.

“Follow me,” he said.

The moon was rising. With the end of a stick, he pointed out to her, just above the surface of the water, the heads of the stakes, looming black among the stalks of thorn-broom and reeds and the broad, spreading leaves of the water-lily.

“Always step to the left of the stakes,” he said; “they mark the right-hand edge of the solid path just below the surface of the water.”

Renaud had taken off his shoes and stockings. She lifted her skirts and walked with bare legs, and he held her hand. They walked thus for some time. Her interest was aroused by her surroundings. The place pleased her.

The water was disturbed a little here and there. She stopped and watched.

“Turtles,” said he; and added: “Here is the cabin.”

The cabin stood in the midst of the bog, built on piles, as was the path leading to it. Reeds and a few tamarisks surrounded it, and made it invisible from almost every direction. On the gray, thatched roof, shaped like a hay-stack, the little cross gleamed in the moonlight, bent back as if the wind had tried to blow it down.

The back of the cabin was turned to the mistral. They entered. Renaud took a candle from his wallet and struck a match. The light danced upon the walls.

The low walls were of grayish mud, set in a rough frame-work. The floor was covered with a bed of reeds. A cotton cloth, to keep out the gnats, hung before the door. There was a stationary table against the wall at the right, near the head of the bed; it was a flat stone supported by four pieces of timber fastened to the floor.

Renaud set his candle down on the stone. The gitana, already seated on the rough bed, watched him with a savage look in her eyes. She began to feel that she was a little too much in his power, that it was a little too much like being under his roof.

The cabin was like all the cabins in the district. From the ceiling bunches of reed blossoms hung like waving silver plumes. The big cross-timbers of the ceiling were pinned together with wooden pegs, the large ends of which projected, and some few scraps of worn-out clothes were still hanging from them. There was a fire-place in one corner, made of large stones placed side by side, and in the roof, directly above it, was a hole for the smoke.

Renaud hung his wallet on one of the pegs.

“Now, wait for me,” he said, with a loud laugh, “I’m going out to attend to the horse.”

She was surprised, but after she had glanced at him, she could think of nothing but Rampal.

He went out to Blanchet, removed the saddle and laid it on the ground, then mounted him, bareback, and rode him to a pasture some distance away, where he hobbled him and left him.

A quarter of an hour later, Renaud returned, with his saddle across his shoulders, to the cabin where Zinzara was awaiting him. But, as he walked along the solid path, a black ribbon covered by a sheet of shallow water, he took up the stakes that marked one edge of the path, and moved them from the right side to the left;—so that, if that beggarly Rampal, the only man likely to follow him to that lair, chose to come there, he certainly would not go far, but would remain there, buried up to his neck at least!

When he had changed the position of the first twenty stakes, the only ones visible from the shore of the bog, Renaud stood up and walked swiftly toward the cabin. His heart at that moment was sad, and more filled with slime and noxious things than the waters of the swamp, which, though they glistened in the moonlight, were black beneath the surface.

XXII

IN THE NEST

He saw her thereupon take her tambourine, which she wore fastened to her belt by a small cord, under her dress; and she began to play upon it. She was sitting on the bed. She struck regular, monotonous blows upon the vibrating skin, and at every blow the charms depending from the tambourine jangled noisily.

Then she began to sing outlandish words, in slow measure, beating time with the tambourine. And this proceeding at length fascinated the drover, who gazed at her, as completely under the spell as the lizard listening to the locust in the sunshine on a summer’s day.

This lasted an hour. He watched her, enchanted, proud, thinking of nothing but her, and he felt his heart leap and quiver in his breast at every touch upon the tambourine.

But one would have said that she had drawn about herself a circle that he could not cross. He waited until the circle should be broken. He was like one of the great dogs trained to guard droves of bulls; that are so fearless of blows from the horns of their charges, but sit obediently by watching their master at his meals, waiting for the crumb he tosses them, slaves of the king, of their god, who is man.

She had now the effect upon him of a genuine queen, a queen in some fairy tale, with her studied attitudes accompanied by the monotonous music, which was accentuated by the ceaseless motion of the sequins of her crown of copper against her swarthy brow and the dead black of her hair.

Suddenly she laid her tambourine aside. He started toward her. She held him back with a stern glance, and snatching away the silk handkerchief that covered her shoulders, appeared before him in a rich waist of many colors; and he saw upon her breast necklaces of gold pieces—her fortune.

“Await my pleasure,” said she. “Leave me in peace a moment.”

She covered her head with the ample handkerchief she had taken off and remained hidden behind that veil for a moment. Renaud heard her muttering unfamiliar words—mormô, gorgô—words of sorcery, without doubt.

When she threw back her veil, she was laughing.

What vision had the sorceress evoked? what had the seer seen?

“It will be better than I hoped!” said she. “Now, look!”

She rose, and to the accompaniment of the jangling of the sequins in her diadem and the gold pieces of her necklace, set in motion by her slow dance, in the course of which she did not move from where she stood, she removed her garments, one by one.

By the flickering light of the candle, that waved back and forth as a breath of air came in through the door, Renaud watched the familiar vision reappear.

Zinzara swayed this way and that as she unfastened, one after another, her waist, her skirts—and took them off, bending gracefully forward and backward, raising her arms above her head or lowering them to her ankles. And now you would have said it was a bronze statue, glistening in the half-darkness. Renaud knew that figure well, from having seen it one day in the bright sunlight, and so many, many times since then, in his imagination.

The necklace tinkled upon her swelling breasts; several large rings were around her ankles, and upon her brow, the crown from which the trinkets hung.

She turned and twisted gracefully about, her dark skin gleaming like a mirror.

“You see,” said she, “Zinzara gives herself, no man takes her, romi. The wild girl belongs to no one but herself. And even now I could, if I chose, nail you where you stand, forever!”

As she spoke, she threw down upon her clothes a keen-edged stiletto that had gleamed for an instant in her hand.

“Come!” said she.

They lay, side by side, on the floor of that hovel, upon the crackling reeds.

At that moment, he looked into the depths of her eyes, and he saw there vague things by which he had already on several occasions been profoundly alarmed. The gitana’s hidden purpose, as to which she herself had no clear idea, flickered uncertainly in her glance, making its presence felt, but giving no hint by which it could be divined.

Her smile, which was ordinarily visible only at the corner of her mouth, had spread, more unfathomable than ever, over her whole face, which wore an expression of triumphant mockery. More mysterious she appeared and more desirable. If Renaud had been familiar with the carved stone animals that lie sleeping in the Egyptian desert, he would have recognized their expression, an expression that words cannot describe, upon the speaking face that gazed at him and called him.

And, lo! the hatred he had once before felt for that face, for that glance, returned swiftly, imperiously, to his mind; an irresistible desire to seize the woman by the neck and choke her with cruel, unyielding hands.

Even that feeling was love, for otherwise it would have occurred to him to part abruptly from the sorceress, to fly from her; that thought would have come to him, once at least, and it did not come. On the contrary, he felt that he could not really possess her except by some violence of that sort. Is it not true that mares look upon bites as caresses?—She saw the thought in his eyes, and began to laugh.

Again she recognized distinctly, and with delight, the brute like herself that she had aroused in him. And she did it to demonstrate her power to subdue the brute, with a look.

“Oh! you may!” she said, with a smile.

As she spoke, he caught a rapid glimpse of the part she was to play in his destiny: the pollution of his life, the loss of real happiness, of all repose, and the false love—the strongest of all passions.

Their glances, laden with amorous hate, met and struck fire like knife-blades.

He seized her around the neck and was very near choking her in good earnest; he thought that he would strangle her. “Come, come!” she said in a languishing voice; but, suddenly feeling the pressure of the hand that was really squeezing her throat, she leaped up at him, and, with a strangled laugh, hurled her mouth at his and bit his lips. They could hear their teeth clash. He uttered a cry which was at once stifled, for their angry lips had no sooner met than they were appeased.

She gazed at him for a long while, looking always into his eyes. She saw them more than once grow dim and sightless, and then, exulting in the thought of this wild bull’s weakness in her hands, she laughed silently; but no emotion dimmed the brightness of her eyes. Suddenly, when he had grown calmer, a profound sigh caused him to look with more attention at the savage creature he had conquered at last. A pallor as of the other world overspread her swarthy face; her features were distended. She was no longer smiling. The wrinkle that ordinarily raised one corner of her lips and gave her an air of mockery had vanished. The corners of her mouth, on the other hand, drooped a little, imparting a sad expression to her face. One would have said she was a different being. There was no trace of animation upon her features. She no longer belonged to herself. An attack of vertigo had taken away her power of thought. She was like a drowned woman drifting with the tide. Something as everlasting as death had proved stronger than she.

As if from the midst of one of those dreams which, in a second, open eternity to our gaze, she returned to herself with amazement.

The snake-charmer realized that she had been defeated in a way she was unaccustomed to; she experienced a curious sensation of shame, a sort of proud regret that she had forgotten herself as never before.—And was he, without even suspecting the trap she had set for him, tranquilly to carry off the gratification of his passion with which she had baited the trap? In that case she would have betrayed herself! She would be the victim of her detested lover! of Livette’s betrothed!—The mere thought was intolerable to her. And in a frenzy of rage and humiliation she put out her hand and felt among her clothes that lay in a pile near by, for the stiletto she had insolently thrown upon them just before.

Renaud understood only one thing; the beast was becoming ugly again! He seized her wrists and held her arms to the ground, crossed above her head, and then he began to laugh in his turn.

Her insane rage came to the surface; she writhed about and tried to bite, but could not. She felt that her power was gone, that she was in the hands of one stronger than herself. Without understanding her, he felt that she was dangerous and he mastered her. The Christian had her in his power! It was too much. She felt her eyes bursting with the tears that were ready to gush forth, but she forced them back. A little foam appeared at the corner of her mouth.

“Dog!” she exclaimed.

At that, the man whose face she saw above her own, bending over and rising again quickly, touched her lips with his. And he had the feeling that the hand that grasped the stiletto relaxed its hold.

At that moment, a wailing cry rent the air above the cabin, then ceased abruptly, before it had died away in the distance, as if the bird that uttered that signal of distress had lighted among the reeds near at hand, and had at once become mute.

Renaud took his eyes from the gitana’s face.

“What is that?” said he.

“A curlew flying over!” she replied, without moving.—“The curlew goes south in winter.”

Renaud was on his feet, pale as death.

“King,” said she, “do you love your queen? Then look at her!”

And, as she lay upon her back, she began to make her snake-like body undulate and gleam like a mirror, keeping time with her tambourine, which she held above her head.

The bursts of laughter with which she punctuated the outlandish music displayed her glistening teeth from end to end.

“Come back here,” she said, “are you afraid?”

He was ashamed, and, returning to the straw pallet, resumed his rôle of subjugated watch-dog in love with a she-wolf.

In that one night, the young man felt the whole power of his youth, learned more of life and realized more dreams than many real kings.

The pleasures of love are no greater to the prince than to the charcoal-burner.

The day was breaking. Bands of violet along the horizon changed to pink and then to yellow. An awakening breeze passed like a shiver over the desert of sand and water, entered the cabin, and blew out the flickering light on the stone table.

A cock in the distance welcomed the dawn.

Thereupon, Renaud started to go to find his horse. The wallet was empty, too.

“At the Icard farm,” said he, “I can get what I need.”

“Do you suppose,” said she, “that I intend to stay here all day like a captive goose?”

“Is it all over, then?” said he, “and are you going away, too?”

“To return may be a pleasure,” said she, “but to remain is always a bore.”

She hummed in the gipsy language: