“Ho, ho!” laughed Dick. “Surprise them, eh? What a pity the birch-tree was in the way; you would have done it properly then. Egad, here’s another surprise.”
Dick’s last exclamation was caused by his having suddenly come upon a wide gully in the rock, through which dashed a headlong torrent, crossed by a single plank.
“You must be mad to have taken this road,” cried Turpin, gazing down into the roaring depths in which the waterfall raged, and measuring the distance of the pass with his eye. “So, so, Bess!—Ay, look at it, wench. Curse me, Luke, if I think your horse will do it, and, therefore, turn him loose.”
But Dick might as well have bidden the cataract to flow backwards. Luke struck his heels into his horse’s sides. The steed galloped to the brink, snorted, and refused the leap.
“I told you so—he can’t do it,” said Turpin. “Well, if you are obstinate, a wilful man must have his way. Stand aside, while I try it for you.” Patting Bess, he put her to a gallop. She cleared the gulf bravely, landing her rider safely upon the opposite rock.
“Now then,” cried Turpin, from the other side of the chasm.
Luke again urged his steed. Encouraged by what he had seen, this time the horse sprang across without hesitation. The next instant they were in the valley.
For some time they rode along the banks of the stream in silence. A sound at length caught the quick ears of the highwayman.
“Hist!” cried he; “some one sings. Do you hear it?”
“I do,” replied Luke, the blood rushing to his cheeks.
“And could give a guess at the singer, no doubt,” said Turpin, with a knowing look. “Was it to hear yon woodlark that you nearly broke your own neck, and put mine in jeopardy?”
“Prithee be silent,” whispered Luke.
“I am dumb,” replied Turpin; “I like a sweet voice as well as another.”
Clear as the note of a bird, yet melancholy as the distant dole of the vesper-bell, arose the sound of that sweet voice from the wood. A fragment of a Spanish gipsy song it warbled; Luke knew it well.
The tender trembling of a guitar was heard in accompaniment of the ravishing melodist.
The song ceased.
“Where is the bird?” asked Turpin.
“Move on in silence, and you shall see,” said Luke; and, keeping upon the turf, so that his horse’s tread became inaudible, he presently arrived at a spot where, through the boughs, the object of his investigation could plainly be distinguished, though he himself was concealed from view.
Upon a platform of rock, rising to the height of the trees, nearly perpendicularly from the river’s bed, appeared the figure of the gipsy maid. Her footstep rested on the extreme edge of the abrupt cliff, at whose base the water boiled in a deep whirlpool, and the bounding chamois could not have been more lightly poised. One small hand rested upon her guitar, the other pressed her brow. Braided hair, of the jettiest die and sleekest texture, was twined around her brow, in endless twisted folds.
And so exuberant was this rarest feminine ornament, that, after encompassing her brow, it was passed behind, and hung down in long thick plaits almost to her feet. Sparkling, as the sunbeams that played upon her dark yet radiant features, were the large, black, oriental eyes of the maiden, and shaded with lashes long and silken. Hers was a Moorish countenance, in which the magnificence of the eyes eclipses the face, be it ever so beautiful (an effect to be observed in many of the paintings of Murillo), and the lovely contour is scarcely noticed in the gaze which those long, languid, luminous orbs attract. Sybil’s features were exquisite, yet you looked only at her eyes—they were the lodestars of her countenance. Her costume was singular, and partook, like herself, of other climes. Like the Andalusian dame, her choice of colour inclined towards black, as the material of most of her dress was of that sombre hue. A bodice of embroidered velvet restrained her delicate bosom’s swell; a rich girdle, from which depended a silver chain, sustaining a short poniard, bound her waist; around her slender throat was twined a costly kerchief; and the rest of her dress was calculated to display her slight, yet faultless, figure to the fullest advantage.
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