The Baronets Bride | Page 6

he held a folded paper, in the other a pencil. He had been writing.
"Have you done?" the baronet asked.
"I am done. Your son's fate is here."
He touched the paper.
"Is that for me?" he asked, shrinking palpably from it even while he spoke.
"This is for you." The astrologer handed him the paper as he spoke. "It is for you to read--to do with after as you see fit. I have but one word to say: not I, but a mightier power traced the words you will read--your son's irrevocable fate. Don't hope to shirk it. My task is ended, and I go. Farewell!"
"No, no," the baronet cried; "not so! Remain and breakfast here. The morning is but just breaking."
"And before yonder sun is above the horizon I will be far away. No, Sir Jasper Kingsland, I break no bread under your roof. I have done my work, and depart forever. Look to your son!"
He spoke the last words slowly, with a tigerish glare of hate leaping out of his eyes, with deadly menace in every syllable. Then he was gone down the winding stair-way like a black ghost, and so out and away.
Sir Jasper Kingsland took the folded paper and sought his room. There in the pale day-dawn he tore it open. One side was covered with cabalistic characters, Eastern symbols, curious marks and hieroglyphics. The other side was written in French, in long, clear, legible characters. There was a heading: "Horoscope of the Heir of Kingsland." Sir Jasper sat down and began to read.
Nearly an hour after, a servant, entering to replenish the faded fire, fled out of the room and startled the household with his shrieks. Two or three domestics rushed in. There lay Sir Jasper Kingsland prone on his face on the floor, stiff and stark as a dead man. A paper, unintelligible to all, was clutched tightly as a death grip in his hand. Reading that crumpled paper, the strong man had fallen there flat on the floor in a dead swoon.



CHAPTER III.
THE HUT ON THE HEATH.
Far away from the lofty, battlemented ancestral home of Sir Jasper Kingsland--straight to the seashore went Achmet the Astrologer. A long strip of bleak marshland spreading down the hill-side and sloping to the sea, arid and dry in the summer-time--sloppy and sodden now--that was his destination. It was called Hunsden's Heath--a forlorn and desolate spot, dotted over with cottages of the most wretched kind. To one of these wretched hovels, standing nearest the sea and far removed from the rest, Achmet swiftly made his way.
The sun was high in the heavens; the sea lay all a-glitter beneath it. The astrologer had got over the ground at a swift, swinging stride, and he had walked five miles at least; but he paused now, with little sign of fatigue in his strange white face. Folding his arms over his breast, he surveyed the shining sky, the glittering sea, with a slow, dreamy smile.
"The sun shines and the sea sparkles on the natal day of the heir of Kingsland," he said to himself; "but for all that it is a fatal day to him. 'The sins of the father shall be visited on the children even to the third and fourth generation,' saith the Book Christians believe in. Christians!" he laughed a harsh, strident laugh. "Sir Jasper Kingsland is a Christian! The religion that produces such men must be a glorious one. He was a Christian when he perjured himself and broke her heart. 'Tis well. As a Christian he can not object to the vengeance Christianity teaches."
He turned away, approached the lonely hut, and tapped thrice--sharp staccato knocks--at the door. The third one was answered. The door swung back, and a dark damsel looked out.
"Is it thee, Pietro?"
"It is I, Zara."
He stepped in as he spoke, closed the door, took her face between his hands, and kissed both brown cheeks. The girl's dark face lighted up into the splendor of absolute beauty as she returned his caress.
"And how is it with thee, my Zara, and thy little one?"
"It is well. And thyself, Pietro?"
"Very well. And the mother?"
"Ah, the mother! Poor mother! She lies as you saw her last--as you will always see her in this lower world--dead in life! And he"--the girl Zara's eyes lighted fiercely up--"didst see him, Pietro?"
"I have seen him, spoken to him, told him the past, and terrified him for the future. There is a son, Zara--a new-born son."
"Dog and son of a dog!" Zara cried, furiously. "May curses light upon him in the hour of his birth, and upon all who bear his hated name! Say, Pietro, why didst thou not strangle the little viper as you would any other poisonous reptile?"
"My Zara, I did not even see him. He lies cradled in rose leaves, no doubt, and