King of Camargue Part 6

"Ah! it's you," he cried, "you, who go about and stand in doorways to frighten young girls when they happen to be left alone! who tell lies and play monkey-tricks to make them give you what they refuse to give!

Don't let it happen again, thief! or you'll find out how the pitchfork and the goad feel!"

The insulted queen was absolutely convulsed with furious rage. If she had been near the drover, she would have jumped straight at his throat, as the serpent straightens itself out like an arrow and darts at its prey. She felt that she grew pale, a shiver ran through her whole body, and swaying a little, like the adder about to spring, with her head thrown slightly back, she walked toward the horseman--but how far away he was!

"Aha!" he cried, "you are coming near to hear better! Come on, you heathen, come! I will explain it all to you!"

As he remembered how the woman had threatened Livette, his wrath rose within him. They were not Christians, these Bohemian creatures, but thieves, bandits, one and all. Why, it was said that they ate human flesh, child's flesh, when they could find nothing better. If that were not true, how would they have whole quarters of bleeding flesh in their kettles so often? Ah! a race of wolves, of accursed foxes!

"Come on!" he cried again.

She came on, but not without difficulty, having to force her way step by step through the resisting waves. Her shoulders were not yet visible, and she was accelerating her speed by using her arms under the water. She could have made the same distance more quickly by swimming, but she did not even think of that. She was thinking of something very different!

Renaud mechanically cast his eye along the sh.o.r.e, behind him, and saw, a few steps away, the gipsy's clothes lying in a heap out of reach of the waves,--and her tambourine on top of them; then he looked around once more at the woman coming toward him. The water was now up to her armpits, and not until then did he see that she was entirely naked.

Her bust slowly emerged from the water. At a hundred paces from the sh.o.r.e, the water reached only to her knees. She was beautiful. Her slender, well-knit body was very youthful. She stood very erect, and seemed as if she were going into battle without any thought of shame.

She had been a.s.sailed: she was rushing at her a.s.sailant, that was the whole of it. Her fists were clenched, her arms slightly bent, her head still thrown back a little. Her whole att.i.tude was threatening. The water was rolling down in glistening pearls from her neck to her feet, over every part of her swarthy, bronzed body. Her swelling chest seemed to be put forward, as if it were ready, like a magic buckler, to receive the blows that would be powerless to injure it.

The drover sat still in speechless amazement. He gazed at the approaching woman, who, as he saw her, springing from the water, surrounded by white foam, with her unusual coloring, appeared to him like a supernatural being.

What was she there for? She came forward, boldly aggressive; and her witch's mind was revolving many evil schemes, no doubt.

Did she not bend over a moment, as if to pick up pebbles from beneath the water, with which to stone her enemy? Was she not holding them now in her clenched fists. No: the sands of Camargue stretch very far beneath the water, sloping very gradually, and not the tiniest pebble meets the swimmer's bare foot.

What was she doing then?

And now she was close beside the horseman, whose curiosity constantly increased. But he had ceased questioning himself. He simply stared at her, stupefied and enchanted.

He followed her with his eyes, fascinated, forgetting his spear resting upon his stirrup, forgetting his horse, forgetting everything.

And now she was within three paces of him, standing perfectly straight, insolent in her whole bearing, in every undulation of her figure, looking him in the face, with eyes from which a steely flame shot forth, and which no other eye could penetrate. And as she presented her profile to him for a second, he had a swift, hardly conscious thought that the lower part of the face--from below the nostrils to the base of the chin--resembled the head of the lizard of the sand, and the turtles and snakes of the swamp. There was the same vertical line, broken by thin, slightly-receding lips, whence he expected to see a forked, vibrating tongue come forth, as in a dream of the devil.

But this impression was but momentary, and he saw naught but the woman, young, fair, unclothed, seemingly offering herself voluntarily to his savage l.u.s.t, in the security of that deserted sh.o.r.e, amid the plashing of the waves, in the fresh breeze blowing from the sea, and the evening sunlight, which, with the salt water, coursed in streams over the whole lovely body.

Dazzled, blinded, drunken with the waves of blood, which from his heart, whither it had rushed at first, suffocating him and making him waver in his saddle,--now poured back to his brain, suffusing his face and bull-like neck with red,--he was about to leap down from his horse, or perhaps to stoop over only, s.n.a.t.c.h up the creature--a mere feather in his hands--by strength of wrist, and centaur-like carry her away _en croupe_,--when she, more prompt to act, darted forward, stretching out her arms, and with her left hand seized and pulled back with all her strength the double rein of Renaud's horse, making him rear and fall back. And with her right hand she struck the creature's face!

[Ill.u.s.tration: Chapter VII

_He saw naught but the woman, young, fair, unclothed, seemingly offering herself voluntarily to his savage l.u.s.t, *** when she, more prompt to act, darted forward, stretching out her arms, and with her left hand seized and pulled back with all her strength the double rein of Renaud's horse, making him rear and fall back._]

"Go, dog! go and tell your people that a woman has revenged herself upon you and has struck the horseman on his horse's face! Coward! Vile neat-herd! Go and tell it to your sweetheart! Go, tell her that when I struck you, you knew not what to do or say!"

There was no wrath left in Renaud; he had no feeling but fear mingled with amazement. The woman's performance seemed to him in very truth surprising, diabolical. In coloring, bearing, expression, and audacity, she was the sorceress to the life. A strange terror took possession of him. Perhaps he would have gone astray gaily, without remorse, with any other than this ill-omened gipsy, who terrified him.

He was especially alarmed for Livette. He felt that she, and he himself with her, were threatened by some mysterious, obscure disaster; and the thought of being unfaithful to her filled him with dismay, as the beginning of the end. He was afraid of himself; afraid, for Livette, of this unforeseen, inexplicable creature, who rose up before him, challenging him to contend with her, for what?--Thus, malignity and hatred brought the woman to him as love would not have done!--He was bewildered. He simply waited till his rein should be let go, ready to start off at a gallop, feeling no longer in his heart the wrath a man must feel in order to ride down any woman, though she were a witch, and trample her beneath his horse's feet, at the risk of killing her.

But why was he no longer angry? Because his eyes, against his will, followed every movement of that body with its weird beauty,--the body of an enemy.

"You would like to fly like a coward, would you?" she suddenly cried.

"You shall not go until I choose!"

Profiting by the horseman's open-mouthed stupor, she had seized with her teeth a hanging end of the la.s.so that was coiled about the horse's neck, and with the a.s.sistance of one hand--the other still holding the rein--had swiftly pa.s.sed it about the nostrils and tied it in a cruel knot. With a fierce pull upon this instrument of torture, she held the beast fast just where she wished him to be.

"You must wait until your comrades pa.s.s!" she said. "They must see a bull-tamer tamed by a woman!"

"Upon my word," thought Renaud, "that would be, as she says, a very absurd thing!" And he drew his horse back a little, thinking he might release him, but the horse stretched out his head and neck, balked, dropped his tail, and stiffened his four legs, as if he were tied to a wall. The gipsy did not stir. She laughed, showing an unbroken set of small, white, pretty, formidable teeth.

"Take care!" said Renaud at last, "I am going to ride my horse upon you!"

"I defy you to do it!" she replied tranquilly.

She saw with her unerring glance signs of confusion in the drover's eyes: the charm was working! Through a mist he now gazed upon this woman, whose captive he was, by virtue of a burning curiosity already closely akin to love. She smiled.

This lasted some time. At last, Renaud felt that his wits were leaving him. To remain faithful to Livette, whom he could not betray with the very woman upon whom he had promised to avenge her, he must not dismount from his horse, for as soon as he put his foot to the ground he would have become the stronger of the two! To remain faithful he must have courage to remain vanquished in this struggle of beauty against strength. And he waited.

She surprised the drover glancing for an instant toward the moor.

"Aha! you are afraid some one will see you, coward! but never fear!

Every one shall know what has happened to you, all the same. I will take care of that! Some day you shall come and tell me what your pale-faced, white-blooded blonde had to say to it!"

Humiliated at being forced thus to obey a woman, but rendered wavering and weak by the physical delight she caused him to feel, he remained where he was! His horse, as he irritated without maddening him, tried several times to free himself, but without success. Renaud looked on.

Slight, supple as a tiger's whelp, active and strong, and accustomed to contend with horses, the gipsy, still holding the cruel cord in her left hand, had seized the long mane and wound it about her right hand, and when the horse reared, she being thus made fast to him, allowed herself to be raised from the ground, standing erect upon the tips of her rigid toes--or else she would twine her feet about the rider's leg, clinging to him as the polypus clings, with its tendons to the rock, and laughing always, with a wicked, obstinate, triumphant air.

"You shall never be rid of me again!"

At last, becoming more and more alarmed, he came to have a horror of her, as of a poisonous insect, seen in a dream, a spider or a dragon-fly, that follows you obstinately, or of an adder that conceives a strange, almost human hatred for you, persists in following your footsteps, with unwearying patience, and becomes an object of terror, despite his puny size, because of his supernatural tenacity.

And in very truth the fierce resolution, the malevolent perseverance, the demoniacal obstinacy of the woman, protected as she was by her beauty and her weakness, were terrifying.

But the play of the muscles, causing that gleaming flesh, now moist with perspiration, to throb and undulate, aroused the man's interest, in spite of everything, and pleased him more and more. Desire awoke in him. And instantly he refused to accept his defeat, and rebelled.

"Look out!" he cried, and he urged his horse forward, driving his spurs into his sides; but the beast, held fast by the nostrils, gave but three leaps and then stopped short, breathing fire. Poor Blanchet, who was used to his young mistress's caresses and sweetmeats! he was learning now to know woman's true nature.

At last, the gipsy released her double prey.

"Go! you have looked at me enough!" she suddenly exclaimed.

Renaud gazed at her an instant longer, without speaking or moving. The strength and chaotic character of his temptations held him fast there for another moment. So this extraordinary experience (which would never be repeated!) was ended at last!--Mad thoughts, each clear enough in itself, but confused by their great number, jostled one another in his brain. Why had he not sooner put an end to this conflict? What would people say of him when it was known? How could it be that he, the king of the moor, had not stooped to pick up this joy?--But Livette?--ah, yes! Livette!

He buried his spurs in Blanchet's flanks, and the beast flew away toward Saintes-Maries.

The gipsy stood on the sh.o.r.e a long while, looking after the fugitive.

She smiled. She reviewed in her mind the varying fortunes of the battle, and gauged the extent of her victory. She recalled, one by one, to enjoy them to the full, the thoughts that had pa.s.sed through her mind when she was wading toward the sh.o.r.e.

She had not premeditated her a.s.sault, as she made it--her first idea had been to pick up some stones and throw them at Renaud's head, being an adept in the art. But she could find none. So she had continued her forward movement, not knowing what she would do, but certain that she must do something to punish the insolent Christian.

But when she felt the cool air blowing upon her bare breast, she had said to herself in her mysterious language, full of cabalistic words and images, that if a saint had been able to recompense a boatman--her good friend--simply by revealing to him her beauty all unclothed, a heathen might, by similar means, chastise a brutal drover; for love is the magician's herb, the bitter-sweet, the plant with two savors, balm and poison at once; and woman is bitter as the salt sea water, frightful as death,--her hands are chains stronger than iron, and her whole being is as much to be dreaded as an army!

Could not she, brown as she was, almost black beside the white-skinned blondes, domineer over the pale-faced Livette's lover, if she chose?

Indeed, what more need she do, to make him unfaithful to his fair fiancee, than show herself to him, and could she not do it without seeming to intend it? As she had, beyond question, been insulted by this Christian, she could pretend to forget her nudity in her wrath, and thus attack him with that same nudity!--No, no, there was no need of philters, magic incantations, or fires lighted at night when the moon is young, under tripods on which marsh-water, filled with snakes, is boiling--no need of such things to bewitch this fellow! She would come forth from the water, naked and lovely as she was, and the devil, at her command, would do the rest! What were the stones she might throw at a young man, compared with the power that exhaled from herself? Yes, therein lay the charm of charms. She knew it,--being a witch like every other woman! l.u.s.t for her body was what she would throw at him like an evil destiny; with that she would poison his life--and then, she would calmly watch the ravages of the poison.