Part 6 (2/2)
”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.
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