"Don't be frightened, Regina," he called down to her. "I am not going to hurt you."
Whereupon she returned calmly to her washing.
She wiped her face with her naked arm. "I'm a good climber," she said, looking up at him for a moment with blinking eyes.
"Doesn't the water freeze you? So late in the year, too!"
She made some response that he did not understand. He was curious to see how she would clamber up the steep declivity with her burden, so remained where he was and continued to watch her.
In a few minutes she packed up her washing and climbed on the bank. The moonlight cast a flashing halo round the masses of her hair, which to-day had been combed till it was almost smooth. She looked as if she wore a coronet. With one shy glance to ascertain that he was still standing there, she dived into the shrubs, and he saw her dart rapidly from branch to branch with the agility of a wild-cat. At the top she let down her skirts, and would have flown with her basket, had he not called her back.
"Why do you do your washing at night?" he inquired, making an effort to look friendly disposed towards her.
"Because in the daytime they give me no peace."
"What they always do--throw things at me."
"The next time any one assaults you, come and fetch me."
She did not answer. "Do you understand?" She folded her hands, and looked at him beseechingly.
"Please, _Herr_, don't shoot at them," she stammered. "They like you to do that. He--the _gnädiger Herr_, I mean--tried it once. Then they began to shoot too, from the other side, and there was firing here and firing there; the wonder was no one got shot. Don't you see, if they get into the habit of carrying guns about with them always, they are certain to hit me one day, for I'm obliged to go off the island sometimes?"
It was the longest and most sensible speech he had as yet heard from her lips. He had not suspected the existence of so much thoughtful wisdom behind that low brow, in its frame of wild hair.
"You are right, Regina," he replied. "For your sake I must forbear from provoking them."
He saw in the moonlight a dark flush suffuse her face.
"For my sake, _Herr_?" she said hesitatingly. "I don't quite understand what you mean, _Herr_."
"Oh, well, never mind," he answered evasively. "What I wanted to ask you, Regina, was--are you satisfied in my service? can I do anything to make you more comfortable?"
