“The archer who watched on the top of the tower has laid his heavy
head down on the wall.
The stealthy hunter who was expecting to surprise the deer has been
surprised by sleep.
The shepherd who awaited the day, consulting the stars, sleeps now,
and will sleep till dawn.
Queen of the water-sprites, follow our steps.
Come to swing in the branches of the willows over the surface of
the water.
“Come to intoxicate thyself with the perfume of the violets which
open at dusk.
“Come to enjoy the night, which is the day of the spirits.”
While the sweet notes of that delicious music floated on the air, Garcés
remained motionless. After it had melted away, with much caution he
slightly parted the branches and, not without experiencing a certain
shock, saw come into sight the deer, which, moving in a confused group
and sometimes bounding over the bushes with incredible lightness,
stopping as though listening for others, frolicking together, now hiding
in the thicket, now sallying out again into the path, were descending
the mountain in the direction of the river-pool.
In advance of her companions, more agile, more graceful, more sportive,
more joyous than all of them, leaping, running, pausing and running
again so lightly that she seemed not to touch the ground with her feet,
went the white doe, whose wonderful color stood out like a fantastic
light against the dark background of the trees.
Although the young man was inclined to see in his surroundings something
of the supernatural and miraculous, the fact of the case was that, apart
from the momentary hallucination which disturbed his senses for an
instant, suggesting to him music, murmurs and words, there was nothing
either in the form of the deer, nor in their movements, nor in their
short cries with which they seemed to call one to another, that ought
not to be entirely familiar to a huntsman experienced in this sort of
night expeditions.
In proportion as he put away the first impression, Garcés began to take
the practical view of the situation and, smiling inwardly at his
credulity and fright, from that instant was intent only on determining,
in view of the route they were following, the point where the deer would
take the water.
Having made his calculation, he gripped his crossbow between his teeth
and, twisting along like a snake behind the mastic shrubs, located
himself about forty paces from his former situation. Once ensconced in
his new ambush, he waited long enough for the deer to be within the
river, that his aim might be the surer. Scarcely had he begun to hear
that peculiar sound which is produced by the violent disturbance of
water, when Garcés commenced to lift himself little by little, with the
greatest precaution, resting first on the tips of his fingers, and
afterwards on one knee.
Erect at last, and assuring himself by touch that his weapon was ready,
he took a step forward, craned his neck above the shrubs to command a
view of the pool and aimed the shaft, but at the very moment when he
strained his eyes, together with the cord, in search of the victim whom
he must wound, there escaped from his lips a faint, involuntary cry of
amazement.
The moon, which had been slowly climbing up the broad horizon, was
motionless, and hung as if suspended in the height of heaven. Her clear
radiance flooded the forest, shimmered on the unquiet surface of the
river, and caused objects to be seen as through an azure gauze.
The deer had disappeared.
In their place, Garcés, filled with consternation and almost with
terror, saw a throng of most beautiful women, some of whom were
sportively entering the water, while others were just freeing themselves
from the light garments which as yet concealed from the covetous view
the treasure of their forms.
In those thin, brief dreams of dawn, rich in joyous and luxurious
images,--dreams as diaphanous and celestial as the light which then
begins to shine through the white bed-curtains, never had the
imagination of twenty years sketched with fanciful coloring a scene
equal to that which now presented itself to the eyes of the astonished
Garcés.
Having now cast off their robes and their veils of a thousand colors
which, suspended from the trees or thrown carelessly down on the carpet
of turf, stood out against the dim background, the maidens ran hither
and thither through the grove, forming picturesque groups, going in and
out of the water and splashing it in glistening sparks over the flowers
of the margin, like a little shower of dewdrops.
Here, one of them, white as the fleece of a lamb, lifted her fair head
among the green floating leaves of an aquatic plant of which she seemed
the half-opened blossom whose flexible stem, one might imagine, could be
seen to tremble beneath the endless gleaming circles of the waves.
Another, with her hair loose on her shoulders, swung from the branch of
a willow over the river, and her little rose-colored feet made a ray of
silvery light as they grazed the smooth surface. While some remained
couched on the bank, with their blue eyes drowsy, breathing voluptuously
the perfume of the flowers and shivering slightly at the touch of the
fresh breeze, others were dancing in a giddy round, interlacing their
hands capriciously, letting their heads droop back with delicious
abandon, and striking the ground with their feet in harmonious cadence.
It was impossible to follow them in their agile movements, impossible to
take in with a glance the infinite details of the picture they formed,
some running, some gambolling and chasing one another with merry
laughter in and out the labyrinth of trees; others skimming the water
swanlike and cutting the current with uplifted breast; others, diving
into the depths where they remained long before rising to the surface,
bringing one of those wonderful flowers that spring unseen in the bed of
the deep waters.
The gaze of the astonished hunter wandered spellbound from one side to
another, without knowing where to fix itself, until he believed he saw,
seated under swaying boughs which seemed to serve her as a canopy and
surrounded by a group of women, each more beautiful than the rest, who
were aiding her in freeing herself from her delicate vestments, the
object of his secret worship, the daughter of the noble Don Dionís, the
incomparable Constanza.
Passing from one surprise to another, the enamoured youth dared not
credit the testimony of his senses, and thought he was under the
influence of a fascinating, delusive dream.
Still, he struggled in vain to convince himself that all he had seen was
the effect of disordered imagination, for the longer and more
attentively he looked, the more convinced he became that this woman was
Constanza.
He could not doubt; hers were those dusky eyes shaded by the long lashes
that scarcely sufficed to soften the brilliancy of their glance; hers
that wealth of shining hair, which, after crowning her brow, fell over
her white bosom and soft shoulders like a cascade of gold; hers, too,
that graceful neck which supported her languid head, lightly drooping
like a flower weary with its weight of dewdrops; and that fair figure of
which, perchance, he had dreamed, and those hands like clusters of
jasmine, and those tiny feet, comparable only to two morsels of snow
which the sun has not been able to melt and which in the morning lie
white on the greensward.
At the moment when Constanza emerged from the little thicket, all her
beauty unveiled to her lover’s eyes, her companions, beginning anew to
sing, carolled these words to the sweetest of melodies.