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Or, what if somebody should come and find them in that ridiculous affliction? Somebody was coming! "Isabel!" he shouted in her ear, "here come those people we saw in the parlor last night." Isabel dashed her veil over her face, clutched Basil's with her icy hand, rose, drew her arm convulsively through his, and walked ashore without a word.
How comes this Syrian to say that his master is at Rome? Does he lie? Or did the horsemen lie? Or are there, perchance, two Marcians? 'I must speak with him, said Basil. 'Leave me to find out the truth for you. Send Sagaris here, Venantius, I entreat you. The captain appeared to hesitate, but, on Basil's beseeching him not to delay, he agreed and left the room.
Venantius visited the sick man, and found him risen, but plainly in poor case for travel. 'Why, you will never mount your horse, he opined, after touching Basil's hand, and finding it on fire. 'This is what comes of a queasy conscience. Take heart, man! Are you the first that stuck a false friend between the ribs, or the first to have your love kissed against her will?
Basil now drew his horse's rein, raised his long rifle, and the next moment a bullet passed through the gobbler, and stretched him dead upon the grass. Basil then dismounted; and, taking up the turkey, tied its legs to the cantle of his saddle. This required all Basil's strength, for the bird was one of the largest size a forty-pounder.
Indeed, the children of the landlady were so well behaved and prepossessing that, compared with Mrs. Basil's shabby hauteur and garrulity, the legend of the Judge seemed to require no other foundation than offspring of such good spirit and intonation. Mrs. Tryphonia Basil was no respecter of persons. She kept boarders, she said, as a matter of society, and to lighten the load of the Judge.
Hal looked thoughtfully into the fire. "I think she is very lonely. I don't think she will be much happier until... until... there is some one to take Basil's place." "No one can do that." He spoke a little shortly. "Basil was a hero. I do not know how she is ever to love a lesser man." "If she loved a man, she would easily see heroic qualities in him.
This is called, in hunter phrase, "tossing the feather," and gave Basil the exact direction of the wind an important knowledge in the present case. To Basil's gratification he saw that it was blowing down the lake, and nearly towards himself.
Isabel was thirty-nine, and the parting of her hair had thinned and retreated; but she managed to give it an effect of youthful abundance by combing it low down upon her forehead, and roughing it there with a wet brush. By gaslight she was still very pretty; she believed that she looked more interesting, and she thought Basil's gray moustache distinguished.
When Basil's servant had knocked, a little wicket slipped aside for observation; then, after a grinding of heavy locks and bars, the double doors were opened, and a grey-headed slave stepped forward to receive his mistress. Basil had jumped down from his horse, and would fain have entered, but, by an arrangement already made, this was forbidden.
Rupert lurched thoughtfully out of the room, and I followed him even more slowly; in fact, I lingered long enough to hear, as I passed through the room, the passages and the kitchen stairs, Basil's voice continuing conversationally: "And now, Mr Burrows," he said, settling himself sociably in the chair, "there's no reason why we shouldn't go on with that amusing argument.
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