Tried for Her Life Part 10

The long-protracted feast came to an end at last.

The robber captain was not an impetuous brute like the giant Moloch. He was a refined and cultivated being, who could bide his time, and enjoy his happiness by antic.i.p.ation.

So at the end of the supper, seeing that his guest was very weary, he signed to the girl to rise. And then he took the lady's hand, pressed it most respectfully to his lips, and placed it in that of the girl, saying:

"See your queen to her apartments, and serve her royally."

Poor Sybil! In her infatuation she smiled upon the brigand, with a look that deprived him of the last remnant of reason, and then she followed her conductor from the room.

The girl led the lady to the same cavern chamber where she had before slept, and then said:

"Listen to me. Satan is not himself to-night. Satan is in love. That is a more fatal intoxication than any produced by wine; and when the devil is drunk with love or wine, he is very dangerous. You must stay with me to-night."

"Your eyes are wide open, and as bright as stars! You are not sleepy at all," said the girl gazing upon Sybil's excited face.

"How can I be, when I slept so long to-day, and when I have so much to occupy my thoughts besides?" sighed Sybil.

"Do you wish to sleep?"

"Indeed I do; to sleep and forget."

"Here then," said the girl taking a full bag from a corner and drawing over it a clean pillow-case. "Here is a sack of dried hop-leaves. It is as soft as down, and soporific as opium. Put this under your head and you will find it to be a magic cus.h.i.+on that will convey you at once to the land of Nod."

Sybil took her advice and soon grew calm, and soon after lost all consciousness of her troubles in a deep repose, which lasted until morning.

The glinting of the sun's rays through the crevices in the cave, and the sparkling of the stalact.i.tes on the walls, first awakened Sybil. She saw that her hostess was already up and dressed; but had not left the cave.

She was in truth setting the place in order after her own toilet, and, laying out fresh towels for that of her guest.

Sybil watched her in silence some time, and then spoke:

"I have been with you twenty-four hours, and yet do not know your name.

Will you never tell it to me?"

"Yes, my name is Gentiliska; but you may call me Iska."

"Iska? Gentiliska? Where have I heard that singular name before?"

inquired Sybil of herself; for in fact so many startling incidents had happened to her lately, that her mind was rather confused. She reflected a moment before she could recall the idea of the Gipsy girl, in the legend of the "Haunted Chapel." She turned and gazed at her hostess with renewed interest. A superst.i.tious thrill ran through her frame. Yes; here were all the points of resemblance between this strange being and the spectral girl of the story! Here were the Gipsy features, the long black elf-locks, the jet black eyes, and arch eye-brows depressed towards the nose and lifted towards the temple, the elfish expression, the manner, the dress, the very name itself!

"Why do you look at me so strangely?" inquired the girl.

"Gentiliska!" repeated Sybil, as in a dream.

"Yes, that's it! Most of the girls of my race have borne it; but my great-grandmother was the last before me."

"Your great-grandmother?" echoed Sybil still as in a dream.

"Yes; she had no daughter or granddaughter, else they also would have been Gentiliska's. She had only a son and a grandson, and her grandson had only me," calmly replied the girl.

Sybil gasped for breath; and when she recovered her voice she exclaimed:

"But you have another name--a family name!"

"Oh, to be sure; most people have."

"Would you--would you tell it me?" inquired Sybil, hesitatingly.

The girl looked at her quizzingly.

"Believe me, I do not ask from idle curiosity," added Sybil.

"Oh, no; to be sure not. We are not a bit curious--we!"

"You needn't tell me," said Sybil.

"Oh, but I will. My family name? It is not a very n.o.ble one. It is indeed a very humble one--Dewberry."

"DUBARRY!" exclaimed Sybil, catching her breath.

"Oh bother, no. I wish it was. That was the name of the great family who once owned all this great manor, which went to wreck and ruin for want of an heir!--oh, no; my name is Dewberry--the little fruit vine, you know, that runs along the ground, and takes its name from its cool berries being always found deep in the dew. Besides, I am English, and descended through my great-grandmother Gentiliska from the English gipsies. _She_ was a gipsy queen."

"Gentiliska," said Sybil, "Tell me something about your great-grandmother. I feel interested in all that concerns gipsies."

"Well, but get up and dress for breakfast. I can talk while you are making your toilet."

"Certainly," said Sybil, immediately following the advice of her hostess, who with nimble hands began to help her to dress.

"My ancestress Gentiliska was the daughter of a long line of gipsy kings. On the death of her father, she became queen of the tribe."

"Her father had no sons?"

"Oh, yes, he had. But his daughter was made queen, I don't know why. She was very beautiful, and she sang and danced as charmingly as that beautiful Jewish princess, who danced off the head of holy 'John the Baptist.' She was an astute reader of human nature, and therefore a successful fortune teller. She always promised love to youth, money to the mature, and long life to the aged. One day at the races she told the fortune of a rich young man, in return for which he made hers."

"How?"

"He married her."

"He _did_ really marry her? You are sure?"

The girl flared up. "He took her abroad with him; and _of course_ he married her."

"Of course he should have done so," sighed Sybil, as the fairy castle she had built for the girl fell like a house of cards.

"I tell you he not only _should_ have done so, but he _did_ so. My ancestress was no fool. She was married by special license. I have the license in a silver casket. It was the only heirloom she left her descendants, and they have kept it in the family ever since. They had a notion, I think, that there was wealth or honor hung on to it," laughed the girl.

"Honor certainly, wealth possibly."

"Ha! ha! ha! I don't see how. Little good for one or the other, it ever did us. My father was a tramp; my grandfather a tinker."