My spirits rose. If I could not understand this girl, neither could
she understand me. She only felt defeat, and it puzzled and angered
her.
"You have no complaint to make?" she asked, hesitating in spite of
herself as she turned to go.
I laughed, having discovered that my laugh perplexed her.
"None whatever, Princess. Am I not your hostage?"
When they were gone I laughed again, with a glance at Nat who lay
with closed eyes and white still face where Marc'antonio and Stephanu
had made a couch of fern and some heather for him under the chestnut
boughs. The sight of the heather gave me an idea, and I walked back
to where, at the end of the chestnut wood, a noble clump of it grew,
under a scarp of rock where the pines broke off. With my knife I cut
an armful of it and returned to the hut, pausing on my way to gather
some strings of a creeper which looked to be a clematis and
sufficiently tough for my purpose. My next step was to choose and
cut a tolerably straight staff of ilex, about five feet in length and
close upon two inches thick. While I trimmed it, a blackbird began
to sing in the undergrowth behind the hut, and, listening, my ears
seemed to catch in the pauses of his song a sound of running water,
less loud but nearer and more distinct than the murmur of the many
rock-streams that tinkled into the valley.
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