She still affected to dispute, though it was no longer
with spirit and ingenuity, but what she said was uttered more as
a lure to draw her antagonists on to an easy conquest, than with
any hopes of succeeding herself. Once or twice, it is true, her
native readiness suggested a retort, or an argument that raised a
laugh, and gave her a momentary advantage; but these little sallies,
the offspring of mother-wit, served the better to conceal her real
feelings, and to give to the triumph of the other party a more
natural air than it might have possessed without them. At length
the disputants became wearied, and they rose in a body as if about
to separate. It was now that Hist, for the first time, ventured
to turn her face in the direction whence the signal had come. In
doing this, her movements were natural, but guarded, and she stretched
her arm and yawned, as if overcome with a desire to sleep. The
chirrup was again heard, and the girl felt satisfied as to the
position of her lover, though the strong light in which she herself
was placed, and the comparative darkness in which the adventurers
stood, prevented her from seeing their heads, the only portions
of their forms that appeared above the ridge at all.
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