第62章

'BUT tell me, Glaucus,' said Ione, as they glided down the rippling Sarnus in their boat of pleasure, 'how camest thou with Apaecides to my rescue from that bad man?'

'Ask Nydia yonder,' answered the Athenian, pointing to the blind girl, who sat at a little distance from them, leaning pensively over her lyre; 'she must have thy thanks, not we. It seems that she came to my house, and, finding me from home, sought thy brother in his temple; he accompanied her to Arbaces; on their way they encountered me, with a company of friends, whom thy kind letter had given me a spirit cheerful enough to join. Nydia's quick ear detected my voice--a few words sufficed to make me the companion of Apaecides; I told not my associates why I left them--could I trust thy name to their light tongues and gossiping opinion?--Nydia led us to the garden gate, by which we afterwards bore thee--we entered, and were about to plunge into the mysteries of that evil house, when we heard thy cry in another direction. Thou knowest the rest.'

Ione blushed deeply. She then raised her eyes to those of Glaucus, and he felt all the thanks she could not utter. 'Come hither, my Nydia,' said she, tenderly, to the Thessalian.

'Did I not tell thee that thou shouldst be my sister and friend? Hast thou not already been more?--my guardian, my preserver!'

'It is nothing,' answered Nydia coldly, and without stirring.

'Ah! I forgot,' continued Ione, 'I should come to thee'; and she moved along the benches till she reached the place where Nydia sat, and flinging her arms caressingly round her, covered her cheeks with kisses.

Nydia was that morning paler than her wont, and her countenance grew even more wan and colorless as she submitted to the embrace of the beautiful Neapolitan. 'But how camest thou, Nydia,' whispered Ione, 'to surmise so faithfully the danger I was exposed to? Didst thou know aught of the Egyptian?'

'Yes, I knew of his vices.'

'And how?'

'Noble Ione, I have been a slave to the vicious--those whom I served were his minions.'

'And thou hast entered his house since thou knewest so well that private entrance?'

'I have played on my lyre to Arbaces,' answered the Thessalian, with embarrassment.

'And thou hast escaped the contagion from which thou hast saved Ione?' returned the Neapolitan, in a voice too low for the ear of Glaucus.

'Noble Ione, I have neither beauty nor station; I am a child, and a slave, and blind. The despicable are ever safe.'

It was with a pained, and proud, and indignant tone that Nydia made this humble reply; and Ione felt that she only wounded Nydia by pursuing the subject. She remained silent, and the bark now floated into the sea.

'Confess that I was right, Ione,' said Glaucus, 'in prevailing on thee not to waste this beautiful noon in thy chamber--confess that I was right.'

'Thou wert right, Glaucus,' said Nydia, abruptly.

'The dear child speaks for thee,' returned the Athenian. 'But permit me to move opposite to thee, or our light boat will be over-balanced.'

So saying, he took his seat exactly opposite to Ione, and leaning forward, he fancied that it was her breath, and not the winds of summer, that flung fragrance over the sea.

'Thou wert to tell me,' said Glaucus, 'why for so many days thy door was closed to me?'

'Oh, think of it no more!' answered Ione, quickly; 'I gave my ear to what Inow know was the malice of slander.'

'And my slanderer was the Egyptian?'

Ione's silence assented to the question.

'His motives are sufficiently obvious.'

'Talk not of him,' said Ione, covering her face with her hands, as if to shut out his very thought.

'Perhaps he may be already by the banks of the slow Styx,' resumed Glaucus;'yet in that case we should probably have heard of his death. Thy brother, methinks, hath felt the dark influence of his gloomy soul. When we arrived last night at thy house he left me abruptly. Will he ever vouchsafe to be my friend?'

'He is consumed with some secret care,' answered Ione, tearfully. 'Would that we could lure him from himself! Let us join in that tender office.'

'He shall be my brother,' returned the Greek.

'How calmly,' said Ione, rousing herself from the gloom into which her thoughts of Apaecides had plunged her--'how calmly the clouds seem to repose in heaven; and yet you tell me, for I knew it not myself, that the earth shook beneath us last night.'

'It did, and more violently, they say, than it has done since the great convulsion sixteen years ago: the land we live in yet nurses mysterious terror; and the reign of Pluto, which spreads beneath our burning fields, seems rent with unseen commotion. Didst thou not feel the earth quake, Nydia, where thou wert seated last night? and was it not the fear that it occasioned thee that made thee weep?'

'I felt the soil creep and heave beneath me, like some monstrous serpent,' answered Nydia; 'but as I saw nothing, I did not fear: I imagined the convulsion to be a spell of the Egyptian's. They say he has power over the elements.'

'Thou art a Thessalian, my Nydia,' replied Glaucus, 'and hast a national right to believe in magic.

'Magic!--who doubts it?' answered Nydia, simply: 'dost thou?'

'Until last night (when a necromantic prodigy did indeed appal me), methinks I was not credulous in any other magic save that of love!' said Glaucus, in a tremulous voice, and fixing his eyes on Ione.

'Ah!' said Nydia, with a sort of shiver, and she awoke mechanically a few pleasing notes from her lyre; the sound suited well the tranquility of the waters, and the sunny stillness of the noon.

'Play to us, dear Nydia, said Glaucus--'play and give us one of thine old Thessalian songs: whether it be of magic or not, as thou wilt--let it, at least, be of love!'