He knew that she did not hear or see. "My beauty !" he
said aloud. "My splendid girl, my charmer of Cadiz! My wonder of the
Alhambra, my Moorish maid! My bird of freedom--hand of Charlemagne, your
lips are sweet, yes, sweet as one-and-twenty!"
His lips grew redder at the thought of the kisses he had taken, his
cheek flushed with the thought of those he meant to take; and he laughed
greedily as he lowered himself into the flume by a ladder, just under the
lever that opened the gates, to begin his inspection.
It was not a perfunctory inspection, for he was a good craftsman, and he
had pride in what his workmen did.
"Ah!"
It was a sound of dumbfounded amazement, a hoarse cry of horror which was
not in tune with the beauty of the morning.
"Ah!"
It came from his throat like the groan of a trapped and wounded lion.
George Masson had almost finished his inspection, when he heard a noise
behind him. He turned and looked back. There stood Jean Jacques with
his hand on the lever. The noise he had heard was the fourteen-foot
ladder being dropped, after Jean Jacques had drawn it up softly out of
the flume.
"Ah! Nom de Dieu!" George Masson exclaimed again in helpless fury and
with horror in his eyes.
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