The Gypsy Queen's Vow

It was a woman of some five-and-thirty years of age, of middle size, and dressed in a solid and frayed black satin dress. Her face had evidently once been very handsome; for it still bore traces of former beauty; but now it was thin, sallow, and faded – looking still more faded in contrast with the unnaturally large, lustrous black eyes by which it was lit up. Her hair, thick and black, hung disordered and uncombed far over her shoulders, while jewels flashed from the pendants in her ears, and sparkled on the small, beautiful hands. Something in that face moved Pet as nothing had ever done before – there was such a look of proud, sullen despair in the wild, black eyes; a sort of fierce haughtiness in the dark, weird face; a look of passionate impatience, hidden anguish, undying woe, in the slumbering depths of those gloomy, haunting eyes, that Pet wondered who she could be, or what great sorrow she had ever endured. There was an air of refinement about her, too – a lofty, commanding hauteur that showed she was queen and mistress here, and as far above the brutal men surrounding her as heaven is above the earth.

“This is the girl, Madame Marguerite,” said Garnet, respectfully, “I entrust her to your care until the captain comes.”

“She shall be cared for. That will do,” said the woman, waving her hand until all its burning rubies and blazing diamonds seemed to encircle it with sparks of fire.

Garnet bowed low, cast a triumphant glance on Pet as he passed, and hissed softly in her ear: “Mine own – mine own, at last.” And then he raised the screen and disappeared.

The cold, proud, black eyes were fixed piercingly on Pet; but that young lady bore it as she had done many another stare, without flinching.

“Sit down,” said the woman, with her strong foreign intonation, pointing to a seat.

Pet obeyed, saying, as she did so:

“I may as well, I suppose. Am I expected to stay here all night?”

“Yes,” said the woman, curtly, “and many more nights after that. You can occupy my bed; I will sleep on one of these lounges while you remain.”

“Well,” said Pet, “I would like to know what I am brought here for anyway. Some of Rozzel Garnet’s capers, I suppose. He had better look out; for when I get free, if the gallows don’t get their due it won’t be my fault.”

“Rozzel Garnet had nothing to do with it; he was but acting for another in bringing you here.”

“For another?” said Pet, with the utmost surprise; “who the mischief is it?”

“That you are not to know at present. When the proper time comes, that, what many other things, will be revealed.”

“So I’m like a bundle of goods, ‘left till called for,’” said Pet; “now, who could have put themselves to so much unnecessary trouble to have me carried off, I want to know? I thought I hadn’t an enemy in the world, but his excellency, the right worshipful Rozzel Garnet. It can’t be Orlando Toosypegs, surely – hum-m-m. I do wonder who can it be,” said Pet, musingly.

While Pet was holding converse with herself, the woman, Marguerite, had gone out. Pet waited for her return until, in spite of her strange situation, her eyes began to drop heavily. A little clock on a shelf struck the hour of midnight, and still she came not. Pet was sleepy, awfully sleepy; and, rubbing her eyes and yawning, she got up, and holding her eyes open with her fingers, knelt down and said her usual night-prayers, and then jumped into bed, and fell into a sound sleep, in which Rozzel Garnet, and Marguerite, and the under-ground cave, and her previous night’s adventure, were one and all forgotten.

When Pet awoke she found herself alone, and the apartment lit up by a swinging-lamp, exactly as it had been the night before. She glanced at the clock and saw the hands pointed to half-past ten. A little round stand had been placed close to her bed, on which all the paraphernalia of a breakfast for one was placed. On a chair at the foot of the bed was a basin and ewer, with water, combs, brushes, and a small looking-glass.

Pet, with an appetite not at all diminished, sprung out of bed, hastily washed her face and hands, brushed out her silken curls, said her morning-prayers, and then, sitting down at the table, fell to with a zest and eagerness that would have horrified Miss Priscilla Toosypegs. The coffee was excellent, the rolls incomparable, the eggs cooked to a turn, and Miss Pet did ample justice to all.

As she completed her meal, the screen was pushed aside, and the woman Marguerite entered.

“Good-morning,” said Pet.

The woman bent her head in a slight acknowledgment.

“I suppose it’s daylight outside by this time?” said Pet.

“Yes, it was daylight five hours ago,” was the reply.

“Well, it’s pleasant to know even that. What am I to do for the rest of the day, I want to know?”

“Whatever you please.”

“A wide margin; the only thing I would please to do, if I could, would be to go out and walk home. That, I suppose, is against the rules?”

“Yes; but there are books and drawing materials; you can amuse yourself with them.”

“Thankee; poor amusement, but better than none, I expect Who is commander here, the captain I heard them speak of?”

“My husband,” said the woman, proudly.

“And where is he now? I should like to have a talk with him, and have things straightened out a little if possible.”

“He is absent, and will not be back for some days.”

“Hum! this is, then, the hiding-place of the smugglers they make such a fuss about – eh?” said Pet.

“Yes, they are smugglers – worse, perhaps,” said the woman, sullenly.

“There! I knew I’d find it; I always said so!” exclaimed Pet, exultantly. “Oh, if I could only get out! See here, I wish you would let me escape!”

The woman looked at her with her wild, black eyes for a moment, and then went on with her occupation of cleaning off the table, as if she had not heard her.

“Because,” persisted Pet, “I’m of no use to any one here, and they’ll be anxious about me up home. They don’t know I’m out, you know.”

The woman went calmly on with her work without replying, and Pet, seeing it was all a waste of breath, pleading, got up and went over to the shelf where the books were, in search of something to read. A number of pencil-drawings lay scattered about. Pet took them, and little as she knew of art, she saw they had been sketched by a master-hand.

“Oh, how pretty!” she exclaimed; “was it you drew these?”

“No; my husband,” answered the woman. “They are all fancy sketches, he says.”

There was a sort of bitterness in the last words, unnoticed by Pet, who was eagerly and admiringly examining the drawings. One, in particular, struck her; it represented a large, shadowy church, buried in mingled lights and shades, that gave a gloomy, spectral, weird appearance to the scene. At the upper end, near the grand altar, stood a youth and a maiden, while near a white-robed clergyman, book in hand. A dying bird seemed fluttering over their heads, and ready to drop at their feet. The face of the youth could not be seen, but the lovely, childlike face of the girl was the chief attraction of the drawing. Its look of unutterable love, mingled with a strange, nameless terror; its rare loveliness, and the passionate worship in the eyes upturned to him who stood beside her, sent a strange thrill to the very heart of Pet. A vague idea that she had seen a face bearing a shadowy resemblance to the beautiful one in the picture somewhere before, struck her. The face was familiar, just as those we see in dreams are; but whether she had dreamed of one like this, or had really seen it, she could not tell. She gazed and gazed; and the longer she gazed, the surer she was that she had really and certainly seen, if not that face, some one very like it, before.

“Can you tell me if this is a fancy sketch?” said Pet, holding it up.

“My husband says so. Why?” asked the woman, fixing her eyes, with a keen, suspicious glance, on Pet.

“Oh, nothing; only it seems to me as if I had seen that face before. It is very strange; I cannot recollect when or where; but I know I have seen it.”

“You only imagine so.”

“No, I don’t. I never imagine anything. Oh, here’s another; what a pretty child! why – why, she looks like you!”

It represented a beautiful, dark little girl, a mere infant, but resplendently beautiful.

“She was my child,” said the woman, in a low, hard, despairing voice, as she looked straight before her.

“And where is she?” asked Pet, softly.

“I don’t know – dead, I expect,” said the woman, in that same tone of deep, steady despair, far sadder than any tears or wild sobs could have been.

Pet’s eyes softened with deep sympathy; and coming over, she said, earnestly: “I am so sorry for you. How long is it since she died?”

“It is seven years since we lost her; she was two years old then. I do not know whether she is living or dead. Oh, Rita! Rita!” cried the woman, passionately, while her whole frame shook with the violence of emotion.

No tear fell, no sob shook her breast, but words can never describe the utter agony of that despairing cry.

There were tears in Pet’s eyes now – in those flashing, mocking, defying eyes; and in silent sympathy she took the woman’s hand in her own little brown fingers, and softly began caressing it.

“It was in London we lost her – in the great, vast city of London. I was out with her, one day, and seeing a vast crowd at the corner of the street, I went over, holding my little Marguerite by the hand, to see what was the matter. The crowd increased; we were wedged in, and could not extricate ourselves. Suddenly some one gave her a pull; her little hand relaxed its hold; I heard her cry out; and shrieking madly, I burst from the crowd in search of her; but she was gone. I rushed shrieking through the streets until they arrested me as a lunatic, and carried me off. For a long, long time after, I remember nothing. My husband found me out, and took charge of me; but we never heard of our child after that. I nearly went mad. I was mad for a time; but it has passed. Since that day, we never heard of Rita. I heard them say she was stolen for her extraordinary beauty; but, living or dead, I feel she is forever lost to me – forever lost – forever lost!”

She struck her bosom with her hand, and rocked back and forward, while her wild, black eyes gazed steadily before her with that same rigid look of changeless despair.

“I loved her better than anything in earth or heaven, except her father – my heart was wrapped up in hers – she was the dearest part of myself; and, since I lost her, life has been a mockery – worse than a mockery to me. Girl!” she said, looking up suddenly and fiercely, “never love! Try to escape woman’s doom of loving and losing, and of living on, when death is the greatest blessing God can send you. Never love! Tear your heart out and throw it in the flames sooner than love and live to know your golden idol is an image of worthless clay. Girl, remember!” and she sprung to her feet, her eyes blazing with a maniac light, and grasped Pet so fiercely by the arm that she was forced to stifle a cry of pain, “never love – never love! Take a dagger and send your soul to eternity sooner!”

She flung Pet from her with a violence that sent her reeling against the wall, and darted from the room.

CHAPTER XXXII.

THE OUTLAW

“He knew himself a villain, but he deemedThe rest no better than the thing he seemed;And scorned the best as hypocrites, who hid,Those deeds the bolder spirit plainly did.He knew himself detested, but he knewThe hearts that loathed him crouched and dreaded, too.Lone, wild and strange he stood, alike exemptFrom all affection and from all contempt.”– Byron.

That first day of her imprisonment seemed endless to Pet. She yawned over her books, and dozed over the drawings, and fell asleep, wondering what they were doing at home, and when they would come in search of her; and dreamed she was creeping through some hole in the wall, making her escape, and awoke to find herself crawling on all fours between the legs of the table. It was the longest, dreariest day Pet had ever known. The woman Marguerite did not make her appearance again, and Pet’s meals were served by a bright, bold-eyed lad, whom she plied with some fifty questions or so in a breath; but as the boy was a Spaniard, and did not speak nor understand a word of English, Miss Lawless did not gain much by this. As there was no means of telling day from night, Pet would have thought a week had elapsed but for the little clock that so slowly and provokingly pointed out the lagging hours.

“This being taken captive and carried off to a romantic dungeon by a lot of bearded outlaws is not what it’s cracked up to be, after all,” said Pet, gaping fit to strain her jaws. “It’s all very nice to read about in story books, and see at the theater; but in real life, come to look at it, it’s the most horridly-slow affair ever was. Now, when I used to read about the lovely princess being carried off by the fiery dragon (by the way, I’d like to see a fiery dragon – I never did see one yet), I used to wish I had been in her place; but I know better now. She must have had a horrid stupid time of it in that enchanted castle, until that nice young man, the prince, came, and carried her off. Heigho! What a pity I have no prince to come for me! Wonder if Ray Germaine’s gone yet – but, there! I don’t care whether he is or not. He does not care two pins whether he ever sees me again or not. Nobody cares about me, and I’m nothing but a poor, abused, diabolical little wretch. Oh, yaw-w-w! Lor’! how sleepy I am! I do wish somebody would come and talk to me, even Rozzel Garnet, or that man with all the black whiskers, who was impolite enough to call me names, or that wild, odd-looking outlaw queen – anybody would be better than none. I’ll blue-mould – I’ll run to seed – I’ll turn to dust and ashes, if I’m kept here much longer; I know I will!”

And, yawning repeatedly, Pet pitched her book impatiently across the room, and, stretching herself on a lounge, in five minutes was sound asleep.

The clock, striking ten, awoke her. She rubbed her eyes and looked drowsily up, and the first object on which her eyes rested was the motionless form of Rozzel Garnet, as he stood near, with folded arms, gazing down upon her, with his usual sinister smile.

“Oh! you’re here – are you?” said Pet, composedly, after her first prolonged stare. “I must say, it shows a great deal of delicacy and politeness on your part to enter a young lady’s sleeping-apartment after this fashion. What new mischief has your patron saint with the cloven foot put you up to now?”

“Saucy as ever, little wasp! You should be careful how you talk now, knowing you are in my power.”

“Should I, indeed? Don’t you think you see me afraid of you, Mr. Garnet? Just fancy me, with my finger in my mouth and my eyes cast down, trembling before any man, much less you! Ha, ha, ha! don’t you hope you may live to see it?”

“It is in my power to make you afraid of me! You are here a captive, beyond all hope of escape – mind, beyond the power of heaven and earth to free you. Say, then, beautiful dragon-fly, radiant little fay, how are you to defy me? Your hour of triumph has passed, though you seem not to know it. You have queened it right royally long enough. My turn has come at last. I have conquered the conqueress, caged the eaglet, tamed the wild queen of the kelpies, won the most beautiful, enchanting, intoxicating fairy that ever inflamed the heart or set on fire the brain of man.”

“Yes – boast!” said Pet, getting up and composedly beginning to twine her curls over her fingers. “But self-praise is no recommendation. If by all those names you mean me, let me tell you not to be too sure even yet. It’s not right to cheer until you are out of the woods, you know, Mr. Garnet; and, really, you’re not such a lady-killer, after all, as you think yourself. You can’t hold fire without burning your fingers, Mr. Garnet, as you’ll find, if you attempt any nonsense with me. So, your honor’s worship, the best thing you can do is, to go off to your boon companions, and mind your own business for the future, and leave me to finish my nap.”

“Sorry to refuse your polite request, Miss Lawless,” he said, with a sneer; “but, really, I cannot leave you to solitude and loneliness, this way. As I have a number of things to talk over with you, and as you have forgotten to ask me to sit down, I think I will just avail myself of a friend’s privilege, and take a seat myself.”

And very nonchalantly the gentleman seated himself beside her on the lounge. Pet sprung up with a rebound, as if she were a ball of India-rubber, or had steel springs in her feet, and confronted him with blazing cheeks and flashing eyes.

“You hateful, disagreeable, yellow old ogre,” she burst out with; “keep the seat to yourself, then, if you want it, but don’t dare to come near me again! Don’t dare, I say!” And she stamped her foot, passionately, like the little tempest that she was. “It’s dangerous work playing with chain-lightning, Mr. Rozzel Garnet; so be warned in time. I vow to Sam! if I had a broomstick handy, I’d let you know what it is to put a respectable young woman in a rage. You sit beside me, indeed! Faugh! there is pollution in the very air you breathe!”

He turned for an instant, livid with anger; but to lose his temper was not his rôle now, and so gulping down the little draught of her irritating words as best he might, he said:

“Ay! rave, and storm, and flash fire, my little tornado; but it will avail you nothing. You but beat the air with your breath, though, really, I do not know as it is useless, either, for you look so dazzlingly beautiful in your roused wrath, my dear inflammation of the heart, that you make me love you twice as much as ever.”

“You love me indeed!” said Pet, contemptuously; “I don’t see what awful crime any of my forefathers have ever done, that I’m compelled to stand up here, like patience on a monument, and listen to such stuff as that. I won’t listen to it! I’ll go and call that woman, I declare I will, and make her pack you off with a flea in your ear.”

“Not so fast, my pretty one,” said Garnet, with his usual cold smile, as he put out his long arms and caught hold of Pet; “Madame Marguerite has gone away, and may not be back to-night. The men have all gone, too, but one, and he is lying under the table out there, dead drunk. How now, my little flame of fire? Does this damp your courage any?”

For the first time, the conviction that she was completely in his power thrilled through the heart of Pet, making her, for one moment, almost dizzy with nameless apprehension. But the mocking, exulting eyes of his everywhere bent tauntingly upon her, and the high spirit of the brave girl flashed indignantly up; and, fixing her flashing black eyes full on his face, she answered, boldly:

“No, it doesn’t! Damp my courage, forsooth! Do you really suppose I am afraid of you, Rozzel Garnet? of you, the most arrant, white-livered coward God ever afflicted the earth with! Ha! ha! why, if you think so, you are a greater fool than even I ever took you to be.”

His teeth closed with a spasmodic snap; he half rose, in his fierce rage, to his feet, as he hissed:

“Girl, take care! tempt me not too far, lest I make you feel what it is to taunt me beyond endurance!”

“Barking dogs seldom bite, Mr. Garnet; little snarling curs, never.”

“By heaven, girl, I will strangle you if you do not stop!” he shouted, springing fiercely to his feet.

She took one step back, laid her hand on a carving-knife that had been on the table since dinner-time, and looked up in his face with a deriding smile.

In spite of himself, her dauntless spirit and bold daring struck him with admiration. He looked at her for a moment, inwardly wondering that so brave and fierce a spirit could exist in a form so slight and frail, and then, with a long breath, he sunk back into his seat.

“That’s right, Mr. Garnet: I see you have not lost all your reason yet,” said Pet, quietly; “if you value a whole skin, it will be wise for you to keep the length of the room between us. I don’t threaten much, but I’m apt to act when aroused.”

“Miss Lawless, forgive my hasty temper. I did not come to threaten you, to-night, but to set you at liberty,” said Garnet, looking penitent.

“Humph! set me at liberty! I have my doubts about that,” said Pet, transfixing him with a long, unwinking stare.

“Nevertheless, it is true. To-night they are all gone – we are all alone; say but the word, and in ten minutes you will be as free as the winds of heaven.”

“Worse and worse! Mr. Garnet, just look me in the eye, will you, and see if you can discover any small mill-stones there? Do you really think I’m green enough to believe you, now?”

“Miss Lawless, I swear to you I speak the truth. In ten minutes you may leave this, free and unfettered, if you will.”

“Well, I declare! Just let me catch my breath after that, will you? Mr. Garnet, I have heard of Satan turning saint, but I never experienced it before. So you’ll set me free, will you? Well, I’m sure I feel dreadfully obliged to you, though I don’t know as I need to, since but only for you I wouldn’t be here at all. I’m quite willing to go, though, and am ready to start at any moment.”

“Wait one instant, Miss Petronilla. I will set you free, but on one condition.”

“Ah! I thought so! I was just thinking so, all along! And what might that condition be, if a body may ask?” inquired Pet.

“That you become my wife!”

“Phew-w-w! Great guns and little ones! bombshells and hurricanes! Fire, murder, and perdition generally! Your wife! Oh, ye gods and little fishes! Hold me, somebody, or I’ll go into the high-strikes.”

“Girl, do you mock me?” passionately exclaimed Garnet, springing to his feet.

“Mr. Garnet, my dear sir, take things easy. It’s the worst thing in the world, for the constitution and by-laws, flaring up in this manner. It might produce a rush of brains to the head, that would be the death of you, if from nothing but the very novelty of having them there. ’Sh – sh! now; I see you are going to burst out with something naughty; but don’t – you really mus’n’t speak of your kind friend and patron with the tail and horns, to ears polite. Mock you! St. Judas Iscariot forbid! I trust I have too much respect for your high and mighty majesty, to do anything so impolite. Sit down, Mr. Garnet, and make your unhappy soul as miserable as circumstances will allow. No, now that I’ve eased my mind, I’d rather not get married just at present, thank you. I intend to take the black veil some of these long-come-shorts, if I may be allowed so strong an expression, and second-hand nuns are not so nice as they might be. No, Mr. Garnet, I’m exceedingly obliged for your very flattering offer; but I really must decline the high honor of sharing your hand, heart, and tooth brush,” said Pet, courtseying.

“And by all the fiends in flames, minion, you shall not decline it!” shouted Garnet, maddened by her indescribably taunting tone. “By the heaven above us you shall either be my wife or – ”

“Well,” said Pet, sitting down at the table, resting her elbows upon it, dropping her chin in her hands, and staring at him as only she could stare; “what? Why don’t you go on? I never like to have a burst of eloquence like that snapped short off in the middle like the stem of a pipe; it spoils the effect!”

“Then, mad girl, you shall either be my wife, or share a worse fate.”

“Well, Mr. Garnet, I don’t like to contradict you; but if there can be a worse fate than to have anything to do with you, I’d like to know it – that’s all.

“Then you will not consent!” he said, glaring on her like a tiger.

“Mr. Garnet, for goodness’ sake don’t make such an old goose of yourself, asking silly questions!” said Pet, yawning. “I wish you would go! I’m sleepy, and you look just now so much like a shanghai rooster with the jaundice, that you’ll give me the nightmare if you don’t clear out. Mr. Garnet, I don’t want to be personal, but even the nicest young men get tiresome after a while.”

“Petronilla Lawless, take care! Have you no fear?”

“Well, no, I can’t say that I have; at least, I don’t stand very much in awe of you, you know. I expect I ought to, but I don’t. It’s not my fault, for I can’t help it.”

“Then, since fair means will not do, something else must!” exclaimed Garnet, making a spring toward her, while his eyes were blazing with a terrible light. But Pet was as quick as himself and seizing her formidable weapon she darted back, and flourished it triumphantly, exclaiming: