All day long we had been walking over thick soft grass:abruptly she stopped,and threw herself upon it.There was yet light enough to show that she was utterly weary.I stood behind her,and gazed down on her for a moment.
Did I love her?I knew she was not good!Did I hate her?I could not leave her!I knelt beside her.
"Begone!Do not dare touch me,"she cried.
Her arms lay on the grass by her sides as if paralyzed.
Suddenly they closed about my neck,rigid as those of the torture-maiden.She drew down my face to hers,and her lips clung to my cheek.A sting of pain shot somewhere through me,and pulsed.
I could not stir a hair's breadth.Gradually the pain ceased.Aslumberous weariness,a dreamy pleasure stole over me,and then Iknew nothing.
All at once I came to myself.The moon was a little way above the horizon,but spread no radiance;she was but a bright thing set in blackness.My cheek smarted;I put my hand to it,and found a wet spot.My neck ached:there again was a wet spot!I sighed heavily,and felt very tired.I turned my eyes listlessly around me--and saw what had become of the light of the moon:it was gathered about the lady!she stood in a shimmering nimbus!I rose and staggered toward her.
"Down!"she cried imperiously,as to a rebellious dog."Follow me a step if you dare!""I will!"I murmured,with an agonised effort.
"Set foot within the gates of my city,and my people will stone you:
they do not love beggars!"
I was deaf to her words.Weak as water,and half awake,I did not know that I moved,but the distance grew less between us.She took one step back,raised her left arm,and with the clenched hand seemed to strike me on the forehead.I received as it were a blow from an iron hammer,and fell.
I sprang to my feet,cold and wet,but clear-headed and strong.Had the blow revived me?it had left neither wound nor pain!--But how came I wet?--I could not have lain long,for the moon was no higher!
The lady stood some yards away,her back toward me.She was doing something,I could not distinguish what.Then by her sudden gleam I knew she had thrown off her garments,and stood white in the dazed moon.One moment she stood--and fell forward.
A streak of white shot away in a swift-drawn line.The same instant the moon recovered herself,shining out with a full flash,and Isaw that the streak was a long-bodied thing,rushing in great,low-curved bounds over the grass.Dark spots seemed to run like a stream adown its back,as if it had been fleeting along under the edge of a wood,and catching the shadows of the leaves.
"God of mercy!"I cried,"is the terrible creature speeding to the night-infolded city?"and I seemed to hear from afar the sudden burst and spread of outcrying terror,as the pale savage bounded from house to house,rending and slaying.
While I gazed after it fear-stricken,past me from behind,like a swift,all but noiseless arrow,shot a second large creature,pure white.Its path was straight for the spot where the lady had fallen,and,as I thought,lay.My tongue clave to the roof of my mouth.
I sprang forward pursuing the beast.But in a moment the spot Imade for was far behind it.
"It was well,"I thought,"that I could not cry out:if she had risen,the monster would have been upon her!"But when I reached the place,no lady was there;only the garments she had dropped lay dusk in the moonlight.
I stood staring after the second beast.It tore over the ground with yet greater swiftness than the former--in long,level,skimming leaps,the very embodiment of wasteless speed.It followed the line the other had taken,and I watched it grow smaller and smaller,until it disappeared in the uncertain distance.
But where was the lady?Had the first beast surprised her,creeping upon her noiselessly?I had heard no shriek!and there had not been time to devour her!Could it have caught her up as it ran,and borne her away to its den?So laden it could not have run so fast!
and I should have seen that it carried something!
Horrible doubts began to wake in me.After a thorough but fruitless search,I set out in the track of the two animals.