And only we three know what that means. Fatia Negra would speak with us
and we are going to meet him in the Lucsia cavern."
"It cannot, cannot be--three days at home and never to come to me--to
_me_!"
"Who knows?" said the old man coolly, tightening his saddle girth, "a
whole month is a long while, long enough for the moon herself to change
four times. There are many pretty wenches on the other side of the
mountain."
"O no! such a one as I am he will not find there," said the girl
proudly, glancing into the tremulous water-mirror which threw back a
distorted likeness of her defiant face--"and besides he knows very well
that I should murder him were such a woman to mock me."
"Ah, ah!" mocked the old man, "so Fatia Negra is afraid of you,
eh?"--and with that he swung himself back into his saddle with
youth-like agility. "Black Face fears nobody, I tell you. He is not even
afraid of the commandant of Gyulafehervar, nor of the lord-lieutenant of
Krasna, and they have no end of soldiers and heydukes. Nay, he fears not
the devil himself."
And with that he urged on his horse which ambled forward meditatively,
whilst the girl's little nag whinnied in the rear.
"He may not fear the great gentlemen, he may not fear the devil, but I
tell you that he would be afraid of the girl he made to love him, if he
proved false to her."
"So you really think he loves you violently?" said the old man casting a
backward glance at her.
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