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Yes! for many important reasons, this interview of M. Rodin with Prince Djalma may be doubly decisive to me as to the confidence, or the inexorable hate, that I must henceforth feel for M. Rodin. So, Florine, quick! my cloak and bonnet, and the carriage. You will go with me. As for you, my dear, pray wait for me here," she added, turning to the work girl.
Djalma, thinking he had discovered the cause of the noise which had aroused him for an instant, stretched out the arm upon which his head had rested, and went to sleep again, with scarcely any change of position. For some minutes, the most profound silence once more reigned in this solitude, and everything remained motionless.
There was a mystery in the transaction, which Adrienne sought in vain to penetrate. These trying doubts, this cruel curiosity, only served to nourish Adrienne's fatal love; and we may imagine her incurable despair, when she found that the indifference, or even disdain of Djalma, was unable to stifle a passion that now burned more fiercely than ever.
His upper lip, blood red, was curled convulsively, exposing a row of small, white, and close set teeth, and giving to his countenance lately so charming, an air of such animal ferocity, that Rodin started from his seat, and exclaimed: "What is the matter, prince? You frighten me." Djalma did not answer.
The doctor said to Djalma, before he left him: 'Your wound is doing well, but the fatigue of the journey might bring on inflammation; it will be good for you, in the course of to-morrow, to take a soothing potion, that I will make ready this evening, to have with us in the carriage. The doctor's plan was a simple one," added Faringhea; "to-day the prince was to take the potion at four or five o'clock in the afternoon and fall into a deep sleep the doctor to grow uneasy, and stop the carriage to declare that it would be dangerous to continue the journey to pass the night at an inn, and keep close watch over the prince, whose stupor was only, to cease when it suited your purposes.
"Yes, in this country and in every land of oppression, distress, corruption, and slavery." "Could we but induce Djalma to join us, as Mahal the Smuggler advised," said the Indian, "our voyage to Java would doubly profit us; for we should then number among our band this brave and enterprising youth, who has so many motives to hate mankind." "He will soon be here; let us envenom his resentments."
A faint light spread itself gradually through an adjoining apartment, and Djalma now perceived, for the first time, the existence of a little round window, in the wall of the room in which he was. On the side of the prince, this opening was protected by a slight but strong railing, which hardly intercepted the view.
Struck with stupor, Djalma, who for some moments had kept his eye riveted on the fatal mark, was unable to pronounce a word, or make the least movement: his powers of thought seemed to fail him, in presence of this incomprehensible fact. "Would you dare deny this sign?" said the officer to him, with indignation. "I cannot deny what I see what is," said Djalma, quite overcome.
The Strangler became again silent; crouching cross-legged upon the carpet, with his elbows resting on his knees, and his chin upon his hands, he kept his eyes fixed on Djalma, and seemed to await the reply or the orders of him whose sire had been surnamed the Father of the Generous.
As Djalma still struggled to rise, the half-caste added to restrain him: "Just now, she grew pale and red with jealousy. No weakness, or all is lost!" "So! there you are again, talking your dreadful gibberish," said Rose Pompon, turning round towards Faringhea. "First of all, it is not polite; and then the language is so odd, that one might suppose you were cracking nuts."
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