Zilla

“ Nevertheless, he could not very well do without Zilla's society, and they were very much together as before, especially at the time of their confirmation.
But when Eilert became a man, and mixed more with the people of the parish, he began to fancy that this old companionship lowered him somewhat in the eyes of his neighbours. There was nobody who did not believe as a matter of course that there was something shameful about Finn blood, and he, therefore, always tried to avoid her in company. ”

“ Azil! It is the form of one like myself!"
"It is your own form, Naia," Croft told her; "the body in which all your life you have dwelt—the beautiful habitation of your spirit—which you cast into the pool in an effort to gain rest."
"But—I—I—" The diaphanous soul form began once more to tremble.
"You are you—even as I am I," said Croft. "That body over which Gaya works is but the servant which has done your bidding, which, save you obey me, you condemn to death. Return to it before it is too late. I, Jason, who have met you midway between the body Azil gave you and Zilla's domain, command it. ”

“ Wherefore, it was best that he learn quickly what those schemes embraced, what new danger to Naia and Jason, Son of Jason, might be involved.
"Fear not, beloved. Zitu means not these spawn of Zitemku to prevail against us—wherefore we are warned. Ga, thou art, priestess of the Eternal Fire, to me—messenger of Azil have I been to thee, and shall be again—but messenger of Zilla will I be to these plotters—making all their plotting vain. Farewell, thou mate of Jason. He goes to learn what they plan." ”

“ You would seek by a use of trickery—a matching of wits—to answer an insult to Tamarizia and thyself? Was it for this I gave my consent to your union with my daughter—or that she went down to the gates of Zilla's realm in the bearing of your child? Has marriage softened you so much, Jason, that the blood turns to water in your veins? Now, by Zitu—"
"Hilka! Hold!" Croft mouthed his own words at him. His face was pallid, its eyes narrowed, its lips gone livid. "Father of Naia—I respect thy surprise and grief, and therefore forgive your words. ”

“ Joel Fenno was wading almost thigh-deep in a billowing and tossing grayish sea. Here and there, near him, arose the upper two-thirds of other men—his young partner, Royce Mack; their chief herder, Toni, the big Basque; and the other Dos Hermanos shepherds.
The tossing gray-white sea was made up of sheep;—hundreds upon hundreds of milling and worried sheep. Through its billows, like miniature speed-boats of black and of red-gold, dashed Zit, the squat little black “working collie” and his little black mate, Zilla, and the glowingly tawny bulk of Treve. ”

“ Here you love Paul, and yet you plague him and cuss him out as if you hated him. I simply can't understand why it is that the more some folks love people, the harder they try to make 'em miserable.”
“You love Ted and Rone—I suppose—and yet you nag them.”
“Oh. Well. That. That's different. Besides, I don't nag 'em. Not what you'd call nagging. But zize saying: Now, here's Paul, the nicest, most sensitive critter on God's green earth. You ought to be ashamed of yourself the way you pan him. Why, you talk to him like a washerwoman. I'm surprised you can act so doggone common, Zilla!” ”

“ Zillah trembled. This sudden transformation--this complete change from warm affection to icy coldness--from devoted love to iron sternness--was something which she did not anticipate. Being thus taken unawares, she was all unnerved and overcome. She could no longer restrain herself.
"Oh, father!" she cried, bursting into tears, and flinging herself at his feet in uncontrollable emotion. "Oh, father! Do not look at me so--do not speak so to your poor Zillah. Have I any friend on earth but you?" ”

“ This suspicion was natural. His own secret was so huge, so engrossing, that when one came to him as Zillah did now, bowed down by the weight of another secret, he would naturally imagine that it was connected with his own. He sat now opposite Zillah, with this fear in his face, and with the air of a man who was trying to fortify himself against some menacing calamity.
"I have been in very deep trouble," began Zillah, timidly, and with downcast eyes. "This time I ventured into dear papa's study--and I happened to examine his desk." ”

“ His wife had kept him in ignorance of the fasts by which she was appealing to Heaven; and when of a Monday or Thursday, on his return from his boot-factory in Bethnal Green, he had sat down to his dinner in Dalston, no suspicion had crossed his mind that it was Zillah’s breakfast. He himself was a prosaic person, incapable of imagining such spontaneities of religion, though he kept every fast which it behoves an orthodox Jew to endure who makes no speciality of sainthood. ”

“ With infinite care Brum was dressed and wrapped up, and placed in a specially comfortable brougham; and thus at last mother and son stood waiting in one of the ante-chambers of the Vatican, amid twenty other pilgrims whispering in strange languages. Zillah was radiantly assured: the mighty Power, whatever it was, that spoke in music and in mountains, [38] would never permit such weary journeyings and waitings to end in the old darkness; the malice of witches could not prevail against this great spirit of sunshine. ”

“ The doctor tells me that I have but a short time to live; and I feel that what he says is true. If I must leave you, my darling, I can not leave you without a protector."
At this Zillah's unaccustomed self-control gave way utterly. Overcome by the horror of that revelation and the anguish of that discovery, she flung her arms around him and clung to him passionately.
"You shall not go!" she moaned. "You shall not go; or if you do you must take me with you. I can not live without you. You know that I can not. Oh, papa! papa!" ”

“ He told of heroic exploits--dashing acts of almost superhuman valor, where human nature became ennobled and man learned the possibilities of man. The fervid excitement that burned in his soul was communicated to the fiery nature of Zillah, who was always so quick to catch the contagion of any noble emotion; his admiration for all that was elevated, and true and pure found an echo in the heart of her who was the daughter of General Pomeroy and the pupil of Lord Chetwynde. ”

“ Still the kneeling figure did not move.
"Zillah," said the General, querulously, and with an excitement in his feeble voice which showed how readily he might lapse into complete delirium--"Zillah, my child, be quick. There is no time to lose. Go and get ready for your wedding. Don't you hear me? Go and dress yourself."
"Oh, papa!" moaned Zillah, in a voice which pierced to the inmost heart of Guy, "will it not do as I am? Do not ask me to put on finery at a time like this." Her voice was one of utter anguish and despair. ”

“ Having herself breathed all her life an atmosphere of noble sentiments, her nature exulted in the words of this high-souled, this chivalric man, who himself, fresh from a scene which had tried men's souls as they had not been tried for many an age, had shared the dangers and the triumphs of those who had fought and conquered there. No, never before had Zillah known such hours as these, where she was brought face to face with a hero whose eye, whose voice, whose manner, made her whole being thrill, and whose sentiments found an echo in her inmost soul. ”

“ He, too, had made discoveries on that eventful day far darker, far more fearful, far more weighty, and far more terrible than any which Obed could have made--discoveries which filled him with horror and alarm for himself, and for another who was dearer than himself. The first of these was the great, the inexplicable fact that Zillah was really and truly alive. This at once accounted for the phantom which had appeared and stricken terror to him and to Hilda. Alive, but how? ”

“ The room changed to the old room at Chetwynde Castle. There was the window looking out upon the park. There was the door opening into the hall. Zillah stood there, pale and fearful, bidding her good-night. There was the bed upon which lay the form of a venerable man, whose face was ever turned toward her with its expression of fear, and of piteous entreaty. "Don't leave me," he murmured to the phantom form of Zillah. "Don't leave me with her," and his thin finger pointed to herself. But Zillah, ignorant of all danger, promised to send Mrs. Hart. ”

“ On the stretcher, in the middle of the floor, lay an Arab, looking very untidy and weak, and in great pain. I heard his story. His name was Ahmed bin Haroon, and he was a poor fisherman from the distant village of Zillag. Zillag is one of those little struggling hamlets on the Island of Bahrein to which the missionaries occasionally make zigzag journeys, visiting the people to carry them Gospels or to invite the sick to the hospital. ”

“ Obed was soon brought face to face with this new actor in the great tragedy of Zillah's life. He was a short, stout, thick-set man, with bull neck, broad shoulders, deep chest, low brow, flat nose, square chin, and small black eyes, in which there lay a mingled expression of ferocity and cunning. His very swarthy complexion, heavy black beard, and thick, matted, coal-black hair, together with his black eyes, were sufficiently marked to make him worthy of the name of "Black Bill." ”

“ A deep, angry, crimson flush passed over Zillah's face.
"So that is the reason why I have been sold?" she cried, impetuously. "Well, Sir, your manoeuvring has succeeded nobly. Let me congratulate you. You have taken in a guileless old man, and a young girl."
Guy looked at her for a moment in fierce indignation. But with a great effort he subdued it, and answered, as calmly as possible:
"You do not know either my father or myself, or you would be convinced that such language could not apply to either of us. The proposal originally emanated entirely from General Pomeroy." ”

“ The white-faced, mysterious-looking housekeeper, as she looked sadly and wistfully at the new-comers, and asked in a tremulous voice which was Guy's wife, formed for Zillah a striking incident in the arrival. To her Zillah at once took a strong liking, and Mrs. Hart seemed to form one equally strong for her. From the very first her affection for Zillah was very manifest, and as the days passed it increased. She seemed to cling to the young girl as though her loving nature needed something on which to expend its love ”

“ Like the salute they had once given to Prince Sandor, the Tzigani began proudly the heroic march of free Hungary, their music sending a fast farewell to the dead as the sun gave her its last kiss.
Then, as the hymn died slowly away in the distance, soft as a sigh, with one last, low, heart-breaking note, Andras Zilah laid the light form of the Tzigana upon the couch; and, winding his arms about her, with his head pillowed upon her breast, he murmured, in a voice broken with sobs: "I will love only, now, what you loved so much, my poor Tzigana. I will love only the land where you lie asleep." ”

“ Understanding nothing of the reason of Zilah's disappearance, the General listened in childish alarm to Marsa, wildly imploring mercy and pity of some invisible person. The unhappy old man would have faced a battalion of honveds or a charge of bashi-bazouks rather than remain there in the solitary house, with the delirious girl whose sobs and despairing appeals made the tears stream down the face of this soldier, whose brain was now weakened by drink, but who had once contemplated with a dry eye, whole ditches full of corpses, which some priest, dressed in mourning, blessed in one mass. ”

“ A bright, joyous light flashed for a moment across the face of the Tzigana. She extended to the young Prince the little bag of leather containing several small, round pebbles like grains of maize.
“At all events,” exclaimed the young girl, “there will be one Zilah whom the balls of the Croats will spare for the safety of Hungary.”
Andras slowly detached from his shoulder the silver agraffe, set with opals, which clasped his fur pelisse, and handed it to the gypsy, who regarded it with admiring eyes as it flashed in the red light. ”

“ To watch together a silent tomb; yes, yes, what remained to him now?
“What remains to you if she dies?” said old Yanski, slowly. “There remains to you what you had at twenty years, that which never dies. There remains to you what was the love and the passion of all the Zilah princes who lie yonder, and who experienced the same suffering, the same torture, the same despair, as you. There remains to you our first love, my dear Andras, the fatherland!”
The next day some Tzigana musicians, whom the Prince had sent for, arrived at the castle. ”

“ There was no need for the name of Prince Andras Zilah—or, as they say in Hungary, Zilah Andras—to have been written in characters of blood in the history of his country, for one to divine the hero in him: his erect figure, the carriage of his head, braving life as it had defied the bullets of the enemy, the strange brilliance of his gaze, the sweet inflections of his voice accustomed to command, and the almost caressing gestures of his hand used to the sword—all showed the good man under the brave, and, beneath the indomitable soldier, the true gentleman. ”

“ Marsa questioned him no further; but she resolved that she would never allow the Prince to take her to that court which claimed his presence. In her eyes, she was always the Tzigana; and, although Menko was dead, she would never permit Zilah to present her to people who might have known Count Michel.
No, no, let them remain in the dear old castle, he living only for her, she breathing only for him; and let the world go, with its fascinations and its pleasures, its false joys and its false friendships! Let them ask of life only what truth it possesses ”