the full significance of his words. She was
like a saint walking over red-hot coals without once singeing the hem of
her robe.

Ciprianu's house was, as is usual among the Wallachian nobility, well
fitted for the reception of guests. Everything savoured of the
householder's nationality, but comfort and abundance were everywhere
manifest. Canopied beds were provided for all, only the master of the
house, according to established custom, lay down before the kitchen
door, wrapped in his sheepskin, and with his double-barrelled musket by
his side. In an adjoining room stood two beds for Blanka and Zenobia.
Aaron and Manasseh were likewise given a chamber in common.

Curiously enough, one is often most wakeful when most in need of sleep.
All her surroundings were so strange to Blanka that she found herself
wide awake and listening to the barking of the dogs, the occasional
crowing of the cocks, the snoring of the master of the house, and his
frequent mutterings as he dreamed of fighting with thieves and
housebreakers. Then her companion began to moan and sob in her sleep,
and to utter disjointed sentences in Hungarian, of which she had so
studiously feigned ignorance a few hours before. "Oh, dear Jonathan,"
she whispered, passionately, "do not leave me! Kiss me!" Then she moaned
as if in anguish.

Blanka could not compose herself to sleep. Only a wooden partition
separated her from the room in which the two brothers slept. She could
hear Manasseh turning restlessly on his couch and muttering in his sleep
as if in dispute with some one.

"No, I will not let you go!" she heard him exclaim. "You may plunge my
whole country in blood, you may baptise my countrymen with a baptism of
fire, but I will never despair of my dear fatherland. Your hand has girt
it round about with cliffs and peopled it with a peaceful race. It is my
last refuge, and thither I am carrying my bride. With your strong arm
restore me to my beloved home. I will wrestle with you, fight with you;
you cannot shake me off. I will not let you go until you have blessed
me."

The fisticuffs and elbow-thrusts that followed must have all spent
themselves on poor Aaron's unoffending person. At length the elder
brother wearied of this diversion and aroused his bedfellow.

"With whom are you wrestling, brother?" he cried in the sleeper's ear.

"With God," returned Manasseh.

"Like Jacob at Peniel?"

"Yes, and I will not let him go until he blesses me--like Jaco