Page:Once a Week, Series 1, Volume II Dec 1859 to June 1860.pdf/116

28, 1860.] ‘Virginia, more!—more, for pity’s sake! Thine own Glaucus asks it of thee.’

“She tore off a smaller morsel than before. It was maddening. More I must have. I held her hands, and tore the remainder in halves.

“The poor wrists bled afresh with her resistance. She swallowed her portion, and then with eager tongue licked her fetters.

“I was a man again. The food was like new life: but still I saw.

‘Glaucus, I thirst. Let me drink.’

“Once more I led her to the fountain: there was no water! The wine ran gurgling into its full basin, and flowed away.

‘Glaucus, I must drink, my throat is on fire!’

“I saw frenzy in her eyes. I could not deny her longer. ‘But a little, dearest Virginia! but a little.’ She put aside my hands with the wine in them, impatiently, and stooped down to the basin and drank.

“I thought she would never cease; at last she did—raised her flushed face to mine.

‘Drink, Glaucus! drink! My fetters pain me not: I am cool now.’

“In a few minutes she looked at me again, and put her arms about me: her fetters were lighter now. I met her look.

“I have wandered at nightfall through the streets, and seen eyes that as a boy I wondered at, as a youth admired, as a man pitied. My God! my God! those eyes looked at me now! My own Virginia, pure as an angel, was looking at me, as those eyes only can look.

‘Glaucus, dearest Glaucus!’ and her arms tightened round me, and her lips were pressed to mine. Her breath, odorous of wine, half-suffocated me. Would that I had died before I had been obliged to recognise in this fierce drunken girl my own Virginia! Yet it was so. I could not return her fierce caresses.

‘Dost thou not love me, dearest Glaucus?”Glaucus?’” [sic]

“The old man paused, choked with his emotions.

“The horrors of that night I shall never forget. I struggled, and I conquered. She slept at last, the heavy, dead sleep of those given to wine.

“I wiped the dews from her brow again and again till morning came. She woke not; the midday came, and still she slept. I saw all the time,—all through the lone night as she lay in my I arms, I saw.

“As the sun was going down she woke and looked at me with a new light in her eyes; cried for water. I had not a drop. Then she sang again some hymn of childhood, then knelt in front of me.

‘Marcus’ (she thought she was a child again, and I her brother), ‘I’ll make thee a garland,’ and she gathered the straw of the place, put the ears together, and made a garland; then put it on my head. I helped her by holding the fetters; she thought I held her.

‘Let me go, Marcus,—let me go.’

‘Nay, Virginia, thy Marcus loves thee too well.’

“She looked from my face to her hands. ‘See, I’ve found some poppies among the corn and squeezed them; see, the juice is running down my arm. I’ll paint thee, Marcus, as we saw the man from Britain painted in the market-place; it’s red, not blue; but never mind;’ and she took a few pieces of the straw and put them to her poor arms, and with her own dear blood streaked my face.