"And if you have no weapon take my knife and plunge it into this sad heart, and let me die!" And drawing his knife from its sheath, he flung it down at my feet.
All this performance only served to increase my anger and contempt; but before I could make any reply I caught sight of a shadowy object at some distance moving towards us--something grey and formless, gliding swift and noiseless, like some great low-flying owl among the trees.

It was Rima, and hardly had I seen her before she was with us, facing old Nuflo, her whole frame quivering with passion, her wide-open eyes appearing luminous in that dim light.
"You are here!" she cried in that quick, ringing tone that was almost painful to the sense.

"You thought to escape me! To hide yourself from my eyes in the wood! Miserable! Do you not know that I have need of you--that I have not finished with you yet?
Do you, then, wish to be scourged to Riolama with thorny twigs--to be dragged thither by the beard ?" He had been staring open-mouthed at her, still on his knees, and holding his mantle open with his skinny hands.

"Rima! Rima! have mercy on me!" he cried out piteously.

"I cannot go to Riolama, it is so far--so far.
And I am old and should meet my death.