Page:King James and the Egyptian robbers, or, The court cave of Fife (1).pdf/11

OR THE COURT CAVE OF FIFE.11 Arthur felt abashed beneath the rebuke, which his solicitude for this individual had exposed him to, and he could only mutter in reply something about the young damsel beside him.

'Ah! ah!' replied the stranger, resuming his good humour, 'it is to her your looks were sent? Soul of Bruce! but she is well worthy of your wonder. Never—and I have seen many bright eyes—have I lighted on a pair so witching.' Then, turning to the object of these praises, he took her hand, and whispered in her ear something, which, though inaudible to those present, was evidently of no unpleasing nature, as her dimpling check unquestionably testified.

The patriarch had viewed, for some time, with ill-dissembled anger, the approaches of the stranger to the temporary sovereign of his affections. But whether he thought them becoming too close, or was enraged at the placidity with which they were received, his indignation now burst out, and, as is usual in matters of violence, the weight of his vengeance fell heaviest on the weaker individual. He smote the girl violently on the cheek, and, addressing the stranger in a voice hoarse with passion, poured forth a torrent of words, which were to Arthur utterly unintelligible.

The stranger, who did not seem to understand the expressions of this address, could not, however, mistake its meaning. The language of passion is universal—and the flashing eye, and shrivelled brow of the Egyptian chief, were too unequivocal to be misunderstood. He remained silent but a moment, and then, drawing from his bosom a purse, apparently well filled, he took out a golden Jacobus, and proffered it to the patriarch, as a peace offering to his awakened anger. The fire of indignation fled from the old man's eyes as they lighted on the gold, but they were instantaneously lighted up by a fiercer and more deadly meaning. Arthur could observe significant looks circulating among the men, who also began to speak to one another in a jargon unintelligible to him. He felt convinced that the purse which the incautious stranger had produced had determined them to destroy him; and, prepossessed with this idea, he saw at once this necessity of the keenest observation, and of the danger which attended his scrutiny being detected. He pretended to begin to feel the influence of the potations in which he had indulged, and apparently occupied himself in toying with the willing dell who sat beside him. He now perceived one or two of the men rise, and proceed to the several openings of the cave, evidently to see that no one approached from without, or perhaps to cut off retreat. He saw, too, that