She dwelt upon
my mysterious conduct in insisting upon our ascending the cliff by
different gangways. She recalled her picking up from the sands a
parchment scroll and spelling out by the moonlight the words of the
curse it called down upon the head of any one who should violate the
tomb from which the parchment and the jewel had been stolen, but as
she repeated the words of the curse she was evidently unconscious of
the tremendous import of the words in regard to herself and her
father. She told me of her desire to conceal from me, for my own sake
merely, the evidence afforded by the scroll that my father's tomb had
been violated. She recalled my seeing the parchment and being thrown
thereby into a state of the greatest mental agony. She recalled my
taking her hand as we neared the new tongue of land made by the
_debris_, and peering round it as though in dread of some concealed
foe, but evidently she had no idea of _what_ was behind there. She
described the way in which my 'foot slipped on the sand,' and how I
was thrown back upon her as she stood waiting to pass the _debris_
herself.
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