"And yet he has already been at home these two days. I saw his sign over
against my window."

"Impossible. It cannot be," cried the girl passionately.

"What cannot be? Do you think I am dreaming or lying?"

"If he were at home, he would have come to see me ere this."

The old man shrugged his shoulders.

"And yet he did not come. But the day before yesterday, about midnight,
I found the three owl-feathers there in the window."

"The wind carried them thither."

"The wind did not carry them thither for they were stuck fast in putty.
And only we three know what that means. Fatia Negra would speak with us
and we are going to meet him in the Lucsia cavern."

"It cannot, cannot be--three days at home and never to come to me--to
_me_!"

"Who knows?" said the old man coolly, tightening his saddle girth, "a
whole month is a long while, long enough for the moon herself to change
four times. There are many pretty wenches on the other side of the
mountain."

"O no! such a one as I am he will not find there," said the girl
proudly, glancing into the tremulous water-mirror which threw back a
distorted likeness of her defiant face--"and besides he knows very well
that I should murder him were such a woman to mock me."

"Ah, ah!" mocked the old man, "so Fatia Negra is afraid of you,
eh?"--and with that he swung himself back into his saddle with
youth-like agility. "Black Face fears nobody, I tell you. He is not even
afraid of the commandant of Gyulafehervar, nor of the lord-lieutenant of
Krasna, and they have no end of soldiers and heydukes. Nay, he fears not
the devil himself."

And with that he urged on his horse which ambled forward meditatively,
whilst the girl's little nag whinnied in the rear.

"He may not fear the great gentlemen, he may not fear the devil, but I
tell you that he would be afraid of the girl he made to love him, if he
proved false to her."

"So you really think he loves you violently?" said the old man casting a
backward glance at her.

"He swore he did."

"To whom? the priest?"

"Go along with you! No, to me!"

At this the old man chuckled--"little fool!" said he.

"And if he breaks his oath now, the devil shall have him. I'll murder
him."

"Very well, I suppose you know him. Yet you have never seen his face. If
he were to tear the black velvet mask from his face you would never
recognize him."

"But that he cannot do as to that mask he owes all his power."

"Well, you are a comic