Читать книгу Zula - H. Esselstyn Lindley - Страница 6

Table of Contents

A band of gypsies seated on the grass about a mile from the city limits, were lazily washing their breakfast dishes. Two or three young girls were laughing and chatting merrily as they sat in the shade together. Farther away was an old woman, wrinkled, and with a sour look on her face, working at a beaded cushion. Her black uncombed hair hung down her back and around a face ugly in the extreme. A large, broad nose, and a wide, ill-shaped mouth, the latter of which often resembled that of a snarling hyena, gave her a look from which anyone would well turn in disgust. Her dirt-begrimed fingers were covered with rings of every conceivable design. She looked up as she heard footsteps in the grass, and saw Zula standing before her.

“So you are here at last, you young gypsy?”

“Yes.”

“And there is a good flogging here for you, too. Did you find anything on your travels?”

“Yes, I got some money.”

“Ah, ha! You did, did you? Well, but you was gone all night; how so?”

20

“I couldn’t get back; I was shut up.”

“Shut up. Where?”

“Where I couldn’t get out, and only for a kind little lady I would stayed there.”

“Ah, ha! you fool, why didn’t you look out for that?”

“I couldn’t.”

“Well, I can look out for you, so make yourself ready.”

The girl stood patiently awaiting the old woman’s decision, and as she arose from the ground Zula drew from her pocket a silver dollar and gave it to her without uttering a word.

“Here, Crisp, come and give the lazy thing a dozen good, stout lashes.”

A young man about eighteen, and closely resembling the old woman, approached Zula with a horsewhip, knotted at the end. As he neared the place where Zula stood she raised her eyes and looked searchingly at Crisp, and not even when the lash descended with full force on her quivering shoulders did she withdraw her gaze or exhibit the least sign of fear. One by one the blows fell, bringing no sound from the girl’s lips until the last blow descended, when the look of bitter hatred that gleamed in her eyes was terrible to see, and in a voice trembling with rage she said:

“Crisp, I hate you, and if I can ever do anything to make you cry I’ll do it, just remember it!”

Another blow descended upon the young girl’s shoulders with such force that a groan escaped her.

“Oh, I thought I’d bring tears; your gypsy pride is coming down a little, ain’t it?”

21

“No,” she answered, firmly, “you can’t make me cry, and I’ll let you know it.”

“Well, if I can’t make you cry I can make you smart.”

“I hate you, and I always will!”

The whip was laid down and Crisp moved away. His snake-like eyes, so deeply shaded by shaggy black brows, were turned toward the ground, as though he feared the searching gaze of his suffering and wronged sister, on whom he had ever looked with a jealous eye.

“Take yourself off to your tent and stay there till to-morrow night, and not a mouthful will you get till you know how to behave yourself,” said old Meg, as she gave her a rude push.

Zula obeyed, and, lying down on her straw bed, wept long and bitterly.

“Oh, how I hate him!” she said; “if he is my brother, I hate him, and I hate her, too; I could kill them both. Oh, how those lashes hurt! I know I could kill Crisp. I don’t believe that is wicked. Oh, I wish I was dead. I don’t believe that sweet little girl ever gets whipped. How happy she is, as happy as the little birds that fly around out here in the trees. She is out riding in a nice carriage this beautiful morning, and I must stay in this dirty old tent two whole days!”

She had reached this part of her soliloquy when old Meg entered the tent.

“Here, Zula, is work for you,” she said in a cross voice; “now see that you keep to it till your time is up.”

22

Zula took the basket, and, wiping away her tears, began her work.

“You’ll learn to hurry around next time, won’t you?”

Zula made no reply.

“Oh, you need not pout so; you will find out who is master here. Come, you sulky thing, go to work as though you meant to do something. Why don’t you talk?”

“I ain’t got nothin’ to say,” said Zula.

“Well, I’ll give you something to say, and you’ll be glad enough to say it, too, when you get a chance. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” she said, looking down again, with eyes fast filling with tears.

“Oh, don’t try to make believe you feel bad; you can’t make me pity you if you do cry; you don’t feel half as bad as you pretend.”

“I don’t want you to pity me. I don’t cry ’cause I’m sorry; I’m mad, and I hate Crisp and I hate——”

“Me, too; why don’t you say it?”

“No, I don’t hate you, ’cause——”

“’Cause what?”

“’Cause you are my mother.”

“Well, well, that might do to tell; but don’t I know you hate me? Can’t I see it in them devilish black eyes? Can’t I tell by the way that head shakes? Oh, yes, I know you hate me, but I can take it out of you if I have to bury the lash in your back, and if I can’t I know who can.”

“Who, Crisp?”

“Yes.”

23

Zula rose from the ground, and, with a face pale with rage and eyes full of fiery indignation, advanced a step toward her mother. Her little brown hands were closed tightly together, and in a voice hoarse with anger she said:

“If Crisp ever whips me again I’ll kill him!”

The old gypsy was startled. She had never seen Zula so enraged before. Her lips were colorless and came firmly together over the strong white teeth.

“Zula,” the old woman said, “what do you mean?”

“I mean what I say,” Zula said, sinking back, trembling, on the pile of straw she called her bed.

Old Meg left the tent, soon to return with Crisp. He carried a handful of rope, which he began to unwind, and, advancing toward Zula, he caught her hands and held them tightly while the old woman tied them. A grin of satisfaction passed over the ugly face of Crisp as he fastened Zula’s hands behind her, tying them to a small post in the ground. Her feet were tied in the same manner and her basket of bead work taken from her. She knew that resistance was useless, since Crisp had grasped her hands, for he was possessed of herculean strength.

“You have lost your tongue, I guess,” he said, stepping close to her.

She made no reply.

“I can make you talk.” He struck her cheek with a force that made the air ring. The crimson blood mounted to the girl’s face, then left it, giving place to a marble-like paleness. Had she been free to act the little 24 revolver might have been called into action, but luckily she was powerless.

All through that weary day Zula sat in that one position. She had eaten nothing and was growing faint with hunger. Once her heart gave a great bound as Crisp entered with a bowl of hot soup, and, holding it close to her face, said:

“Don’t you wish you had it?”

She burst into tears, and the next moment said:

“Oh, Crisp, I am so hungry; won’t you give me some?”

His only reply was a grin, and, taking a place on the ground just near enough that she might inhale the odor from the bowl, he ate its entire contents.

“I don’t believe I could think of anything as mean as Crisp does if I hated anybody,” thought Zula. The day and night passed away and brought her no reprieve, and the next afternoon found her still unreleased. Old Meg and Crisp had looked in just long enough to remind her of their existence, then left her to her solitary confinement. A sound of strange voices without attracted her attention. It was a party of young ladies and gentlemen from the city who had come to have their fortunes told. Old Meg was seated so near the tent that Zula heard every word. Two voices sounded strangely familiar, but she could not tell where she had heard them until the clear voice of June floated out upon the air, saying:

“Please give us a good fortune, for none of us want bad ones.”

Zula’s heart leaped for joy as she heard the voices of her friends, but sank in despair when she remembered 25 she could not speak to them, and even if she could she would not let them know she was there, for in that case they would know she was a gypsy.

The young girl’s fortune was told, and June, addressing Scott, said: “Come, have your fortune told; don’t you see what a lovely one I am to have? I shall always be happy thinking about it. Have your fortune told and you will know whether you will ever be married and whether you will live happy or not.”

“Oh, we know who he is going to marry,” chimed in a miss of sixteen, “but we don’t know whether he will be happy or not.”

“I rather think my life will be just the same, whether I have my fortune told or not. If it is to be a happy one it is well, and if not I shall know it soon enough,” said Scott.

“Let me tell it for you,” said the old dame, looking eagerly up.

“I did not come to have my fortune told; I only came as an attendant to these foolish young ladies,” Scott said, with a smile.

“Oh, yes,” said Nellie Blake, a pretty little blonde, shaking back her shining curls, “he calls us silly, when he is just dying to know his fortune, only he is afraid it will be a cloudy one. I dare him to have it told.”

Scott, smiling, said it would not do to have the young ladies think him a coward, so turning around gave the old gypsy his hand.

Zula, though tired and weak, meantime, watched through the crevice of the tent the faces of her kind deliverers. How bright and happy June looked, and 26 how wonderfully the pretty lavender suit she wore became her pink and white complexion, and Zula, contrasting her own dusky face with that of June, thought surely the angels in Heaven could not be sweeter or more holy than she.

Poor Zula! There she had been for nearly two days, lame and tired, and so weak, waiting like a prisoner until her sentence should expire, waiting for time to move and bring her a respite. She saw the carriage move away, drawn by two dapple-gray ponies; she heard its occupants laughing merrily. She sat wondering if her time had not nearly expired, for the sun was going down and the whippoorwill beginning his mournful song, and she wondered as she thought of the weird gypsy tales she had been told, if “poor will” had been whipped for nothing. She peeped out to gaze at the group around as Meg entered.

“If you are cured of your ugliness, now, you may come out and get some soup; there’s some onions and other stuff, too, that Crisp has brought in; no thanks to you though.”

As Meg said this she untied the cords, and Zula arose. She trembled in every limb, for the fast of two days had made her very weak, and her sunken eyes looked larger and blacker than ever. She followed Meg out of the tent and partaking of the soup she wandered away from the rest and sat down on the trunk of a fallen tree. Zula had but one thought, and that was revenge. She was puzzling her poor little tired brain as to how she should manage to injure Crisp. She looked up, and the object of her thoughts stood before her, and, casting 27 a look of fiendish exultation toward her, he said: “I guess you don’t hate me any more.”

Zula made no reply.

“Do you hate me, yet?” he asked again.

“Yes, I do hate you, Crisp, and I can’t help it.”

“I guess you want another dose of the lash, don’t you? If you do you can have it.”

Zula arose from the rough seat and took a step farther away from Crisp. Child though she was she looked up at the stars and made a firm resolution that she would in some way escape the surveillance of her cruel persecutor. He had never treated her as though she were his sister, and as each day his abuse of her grew more and more severe, her hatred increased.

“What would you give if I was to let you go without any more such threshings?” he asked.

“I wouldn’t give anything; for I don’t believe you’ll ever whip me that way again; I’ve been whipped enough.”

“You’ll find that out some other time.”

Zula made no reply, but when night came, and all were asleep, she lay planning a way to escape from the life she led.

“I believe I’ll comb my hair out sleek this morning,” she said to herself as she stood brushing back the heavy tangled mass. “I look awful dirty, but then we always look dirty.”

A heavy stroke on the shoulder startled her, as the voice of old Meg sounded close in her ear, saying:

“Here’s a whole basket full of work; now mind and 28 don’t come back till you sell every one of ’em, do ye hear?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t bring one back; if you do Crisp’ll settle ye.”

The last sentence decided the matter.

“No,” Zula answered, “I won’t bring any back.”

29