"To the Governor!" exclaimed a few, but it might have been noticed they were men from the town, directly beneath the shadow of his Excellency's castle, and now close within reach of the fat factotum's arm.
"Once more! Had I the ordering of wine, the barrels would all be empty ones, but her ladyship would be generous, and--"
Beppo broke abruptly off, his wandering glance, on a sudden, arrested.
"_Hein!_" he exclaimed, with eyes protruding.
A moment he stammered a few words of surprise and incredulity, the while he continued to search eagerly--but now in vain! The object of his startled attention, illumined, for an instant, on the outskirts of the throng, by the glare of a torch, was no more to be descried. As questioning the reality of a fleeting impression, his gaze fixed itself again near the edge of flickering lights; shifted uncertainly to the pavilion where servants from the Mount hurried to and fro; then back to the people around him. His jaw which had dropped grew suddenly firm.
"Clear a space for the dance!" he called out in tones impatient, excited. "It is her ladyship's command--so see you step blithely! And you fellows there, with the _tambourin_ and _hautbois_, come forward!"
Two men, clad in sheepskin and carrying rude instruments, obediently advanced, and at once, in marked contrast to the recent tinkling measures of the orchestra, a wild, half-barbaric concord rang out.
But the Governor's man, having thus far executed the orders he had received, did not linger to see whether or not his own injunction, "to step blithely," was observed; some concern, remote from _gaillarde_, _gavotte_ or _bourrée_ of the people, caused him hastily to dismount from his stand and make his way from the throng. As he started at a rapid pace across the sands, his eyes, now shining with anticipation, looked back.
"What could have brought him here? Him!" he repeated. "Ah, my fine fellow, this should prove a lucky stroke for me!" And quickening his step, until he almost ran, Beppo hurried toward the tower gate of the Mount.
"They seem not to appreciate your _fête champêtre_, my Lady!" At the verge of the group of peasant dancers, the Lady Elise and the Marquis de Beauvillers, who had left the other guests to the enjoyment of fresh culinary surprises, paused to survey a scene, intended, yet failing, to be festal. For whether these people were too sodden to avail themselves of the opportunity for merrymaking, or liked not the notion of tripping together at Beppo's command, their movements, which should have been free and untrammeled as the vigorous swing of the music, were characterized only by painful monotony and lagging. In the half-gloom they came together like shadows; separated aimlessly and cast misshapen silhouettes--caricatures of frolicking peasants--on the broad surface of the sands beyond. These bobbing, black spots my lady disapprovingly regarded.