THE CHASTISEMENT.
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?"
"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?"
"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."
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."
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 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 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 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 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 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."