"Horrible!" said Ellen: "are there such wretches?"
As she spoke, the poor miserable being approached her with feeble steps, and in French asked her if she would have the goodness to purchase a trinket he had to sell--all he had left of better days.
Ellen spoke French but imperfectly: she could read and understand it pretty well, but did not attempt to converse in it; she knew, however, what he said, and though her nature shuddered at a being of whom she had heard such a shocking account, endeavoured to answer him with civility: her voice, however, was low, and her accent not perfectly intelligible to the Algerine; and thinking she intended to accept his offer, he drew from his bosom a cross, composed of large rubies set in gold, and put it into her hand: he sighed heavily; and the sight of this ornament, which seemed to corroborate the story that this man had been bred a Christian, gave to Ellen a painful sensation: she endeavoured to make him understand that his wants should be relieved without his parting from the trinket, which she offered again to him.
At that moment Mrs. Bayfield, with the nurses and little Constantine, came towards them: she cast her eyes upon the Algerine--she trembled, again she looked; she caught the glance of his dark gloomy eyes, and the sound of his voice met her ears: instantly she exclaimed:
"_That_ wretch!" and snatching the infant from his nurse, she folded him to her bosom and fled away, crying as she ran--"Come, my Lady, oh, come for God's sake! leave that monster: come, Miss Ross--run! fly! he will murder us all."
Wild and extraordinary as this panic seemed to Ellen, her feet involuntarily obeyed, and with the cross still in her hand, she suddenly fled from this poor sickly wretch, who, unable to follow, stood amazed at their apparently frantic demeanour.
Joanna and Griffiths ran after the Countess; though still no one knew the cause of this extraordinary alarm; and so eagerly did the affrighted Bayfield speed, that though encumbered with the child, and advanced as she was in years, they could not easily overtake her.
While they hastened on, each unable to account for the strange terror which had seized them all, they were met by St. Aubyn and Charles Ross, who, passing Bayfield at some little distance, were unobserved by her, and seeing Ellen and Joanna apparently terrified, ran by a shorter cut to meet them.
