"One can kill with more things than with a sword. I found the face of my vision, I followed it step by step. I hunted it down with sighs and tears till at last it was mine. I held it one short moment in my arms, a moment within which I lived the ultimate triumph of my desire. Then it was gone. I myself destroyed it, consumed it, with the thirst of my soul!"

"But was she happy?" queried Radu, with tears in his eyes.

"Was she happy! Good G.o.d! was she happy!" cried Eric, clenching his fists towards the skies. "Yes, I believe she was happy! If I did not believe that I could not live. She said to me to kiss her eyes so that for ever she could keep the picture of what she had loved best in this world! At that moment she died! My warm touch of love was death! Canst grasp that frightful truth?... was death! My lips, my lover's lips closed her eyes for ever!... for ever ... over the vision of my face!

"Before they laid her in the ground I wrapped her in my cloak; that is why it is gone. I would not leave her thus thinly clad within the cold shadow of her grave; and upon the spot where she lies I planted my sword. There, where the eyes I followed so far are for ever closed, I left my sword."

"Oh," sobbed Radu, "and now I shall never see that face!"

"Yes, thou shalt," answered his friend. "Come with me and thou shalt see the fairest being G.o.d ever made!"

"Where?" asked the astonished peasant, "where?"

"Follow me and thou shalt know!"

"But my sheep,--they are tired; and see how tame are my dogs, exhausted by the length of the way."

"It is not far from here--there thou canst rest; thou art not in a hurry, and I would thou shouldst know the eyes of my dream."

Again Eric hid his face in his clasped hands, whilst a harsh dry sob rose to his throat.

"Come, come! I, too, thirst for the sight of her face."

Towards the evening the two lads arrived at the gypsies' camp.

Along the dreary roadside several tall wooden crosses had been erected, tall and gaunt, with curious shapes, decorated with archaic saints in crudest colours.

These weird crosses stood in a line like silent spectres, some bending sideways, as if tired of their vigil.

It was here that old Zorka had told Eric he would find their halting-place. The fires had already been lit, the dark men and women sat about in groups. The tents stood out, dismal shadows, against the Western Bar.

Eric holding Radu by the hand led him to where Zorka was cooking her evening meal in a blackened pot.

Radu's flock had followed pitter-patter in their wake, hardly discernible in the dusk, their way-stained wool the colour of the ground they trod.

When she saw her favourite the old seer ran forward and clasped him to her breast, anxiously scanning his haggard face, but saying never a word for fear of awakening his surging grief.

"Mother Zorka," he said, "here is a friend who has come to look upon her face!"

Zorka went to her tent, brought out the wonderful picture, and put it into the peasant's hands. He stared at it in enraptured silence. Then very slowly he laid it on the ground and knelt before it, making the sign of the cross over his brow, the tears flowing down his cheeks.

Zorka brought the boys food in a dish, urging her dear one to eat, but Eric shook his head.

"Mother Zorka, willst thou tend him and give him a bed? for he was good to me when I was in sore distress."

Then taking the picture he went off alone in the darkness of the night.

The wind howled, and the rain came down in heavier showers, beating upon the miserable tents.

Zorka sat with the young shepherd in the shelter of her dwelling, looking out upon the darkness into which the lonely mourner had disappeared.

"Was she an angel?" asked Radu, who had finished his meal, and whose face was still wet with tears.

"I think she was," said Zorka, nodding her head.

"Tell me," he continued, "why did she die?"

"Why did she die?" repeated the tired old woman. "Because it is given to some never to wake from their dream of bliss, and those it is said are loved of the G.o.ds."

"Why was he left alone? Do the G.o.ds not love him?"

Zorka sighed: "Because some must learn to the bitter end to overcome all they reach; must learn to leave behind them both joy and pain; to rise above all their desires, and hopes, and fears, till their souls are as pure and bright as an archangel's sword; and those are the chosen of G.o.d."

"But was she happy?" queried Radu, for the second time.

"Yes," answered Zorka, with a solemn voice. "Yes, she was happy. She died of joy."

XXVIII

A star has ceased to shine in my lonely skies, Sometimes I dream I see it shining in my heart.

FIONA MACLEOD.

Zorka could not bear to part from Eric of the golden locks, and begged him to remain at her side.

He, too, for a while felt that he dared not leave the old woman who had led him to his love; so all that winter he wandered about with the travelling clan, from clime to clime, leaving far behind him the country of his dream. Wherever he went the falcon followed, flying as near his head as it could.

Radu had parted from Eric with tears in his eyes; both boys felt as they joined hands for the last time that nothing could wipe out the deep affection they had conceived for each other.

Radu had gone off on an endless road, playing a melancholy tune on his wooden flute, his flock following him, his cowed dogs at his heels, his feet splashing about in the mud, the patient sheep leaving thousands of small footprints wherever they pa.s.sed.

But Eric played no more, neither did he sing; and over the gold of his locks the silver began to spread more and more, like foam on the sea.

Wherever he stopped he bought canvas and paint, but each of his pictures showed always but the one and only face.

He painted the features of his dream in every form his heart could remember.

He represented her as first he had seen her, crowned with a wreath of bells, her old violin pressed under her cheek, her eyes full of the visions she alone could see. He painted her seated in the dust of the road with a circle of corn-ears round her delicate brow. He conjured up her beauty against the setting sun, whilst the coronet she wore was of autumn leaves all glowing as the blazing sky.

One of his sketches showed her shimmering and pale, lit by the rays of the moon, and this time it was a halo he had painted round the pureness of her heavenly face.

And once his restless fingers had created the picture of her marble features as she lay motionless on her bier, her face still and white under the brooding clouds, with the crown of thorns on her head, her wonderful eyes closed beneath the heavy lids, a smile of peace and happiness hovering like a blessing over her lips.

But one picture alone no human eye but his was ever allowed to see; on that one he had awakened, for a second and last time, the look her eyes had borne when he had closed them with his lips.

This sketch he kept jealously hidden beneath all the others, and it was never shown--not even Zorka had the right to cast a glance upon that expression which was too holy for mortal to look upon.