This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of thefile for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making anentire meal of them. D.W.]
By Georg Ebers
"When the moon is over Pelican Island." How often Ledscha had repeatedthis sentence to herself while Hermon was detained by Daphne and herPelusinian guests!
When she entered the boat after nightfall she exclaimed hopefully, sureof her cause, "When the moon is over Pelican Island he will come."
Her goal was quickly reached in the skiff; the place selected for thenocturnal meeting was a familiar one to her.
The pirates had remained absent from it quite two years. Formerly theyhad often visited the spot to conceal their arms and booty on the denselywooded island. The large papyrus thicket on the shore also hid boatsfrom spying eyes, and near the spot where Ledscha landed was a grassyseat which looked like an ordinary resting place, but beneath it thecorsairs had built a long, walled passage, that led to the other side ofthe island, and had enabled many a fugitive to vanish from the sight ofpursuers, as though the earth had swallowed them.
"When the moon is over the island," Ledscha repeated after she had waitedmore than an hour.
The time had not yet come; the expanse of water lay before hermotionless, in hue a dull, leaden gray, and only the dimly illumined airand a glimmering radiance along the edges of the waves that washed theisland showed that the moon was already brightening the night.
When its full orb floated above the island Hermon, too, would appear, andthe happiness which had been predicted to Ledscha would begin.
Happiness?
A bitter smile hovered around her delicately cut lips as she repeated theword.
Hitherto no feeling was more distant from her; for when love and longingbegan to stir in her heart, it seemed as though a hideous spider wasweaving its web about her, and vague fears, painful memories, and intheir train fierce hate would force glad expectation into the shadow.
Yet she yearned with passionate fervour to see Hermon again, and when hewas once there all must be well between them. The prediction of oldTabus, who ruled as mistress over so many demons, could not deceive.
After Ledscha had so lately reminded the lover who so vehemently rousedher jealous wrath what this night of the full moon meant to her, shecould rely upon his appearance in spite of everything.
Various matters undoubtedly held him firmly enough in Tennis—sheadmitted this to herself after she grew calmer—but he had promised tocome; he would surely enter the boat, and she—she would submit to sharethe night with the Hellene.
Her whole being longed for the bliss awaiting her, and it could come fromno one save the man whose lips would seek hers when the moon rose overthe Pelican Island.
How tardily and sluggishly the cow-headed goddess who bore the silver orbbetween her horns rose to-night! how slowly the time passed, yet she didnot move forward more certainly that the man whom Ledscha expected mustarrive.
Of the possibility of his non-appearance she would not think; but whenthe fear that she was perhaps looking for him in vain assailed her, theblood crimsoned her face as if she felt the shame of a humiliatinginsult. Yet why sh