The Nyctalope and The Tower of Babel by Jean de La Hire

Author:Jean de La Hire
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Black Coat Press
Published: 2019-04-24T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER II

Conclusion

The first to return to the gypsy camp that Sunday were the Nyctalope and his two companions, Vitto and Soca.

Evening fell with a spreading plume of clouds. Andrès del Borjo finished tending to his mules, as Joachina and Luisa, assisted by Lilla and Pépito who brought them twigs of dry wood, prepared the evening meal. As soon as he saw “Capo Pedro,” and his two assistants, Andrès hurried toward them.

“So?” he asked, looking at the Nyctalope.

“We have discovered something new,” replied Saint-Clair. “But it isn’t the time to talk about it yet. Has Nieve returned?”

“No,” replied the chief of the tribe.

Hearing this, Saint-Clair’s face showed a fleeting expression of simultaneous impatience and anxiety. He knew the sort of danger into which he had sent the beautiful and seductive young girl. Without speaking further, he walked toward the caravan that he occupied with Soca and Vitto, and dismissing his two men with a gesture, shut himself away.

Neither Vitto, nor Soca, nor Andrès, needed precise orders to understand that the main thing now was to wait for Nieve’s return and report her arrival at once to the Nyctalope. So all three, silent as they usually were, walked back and forth over the two hundred meters of the path, with a quick step to battle the harsh cold of the late winter day.

They did nothing but wait for the one they sometimes called the “Sibyl.” In regard to the mystery the Beech Grove, and consequently the Cross of Blood, they knew they did not have all the facts. Until then, they had been directed by Saint-Clair. Now, at the expression of his face when Andrès had answered “no,” they realized that a grave possibility was present. This possibility was that Nieve would not return.

Minutes passed, minutes that seemed interminable. They came closer and closer to the branch of the road leading to the Cross of Blood. Tempted to take it, they consulted each other with their eyes, but the orders of the Nyctalope, given once and for all when they had arrived in the region, were clear: make no movement that could give away their presence to any visible or invisible observer. Except for Nieve with her basket of goods, no other member of the tribe would approach the castle with medieval towers at the bottom of the valley.

So the three men stopped short, the moment their steps were about to take the forbidden path. They couldn’t help but remain there for a few minutes, in the course of which their impatience and anxiety increased. As all three were men of a rude and violent character, anger threatened to add itself to their anxiety.

A few more minutes passed. The cold of the evening, which grew darker and darker, reaching their relatively unprotected bodies, and they shuddered at almost at the same time. As they were taciturn beings, they kept silent. Consulting one another yet again with a glance, they made a half-turn on the spot and set off down the road. When

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