her lover's encircling arm, a red flush mounting to her brow. With caressing words he soothed her wounded pride, picturing in vivid colouring the happiness that would crown their lives when, as his idolised wife, he would take her to England and present her at the English Court, just as John Rolfe had presented his beautiful bride, Pocahontas, the daughter of King Powhattan. From her own people Heather Flower had heard the story of the Indian princess and the renowned Captain Smith, of her marriage to the young Englishman who had taken her to his native land; but the truth did not wholly satisfy her own conviction of right. "The great warrior whose life Pocahontas saved was the warrior she loved, so it is told beside the lodge fires of my people; why, then, did they take her to the lodge of another white chief?" she asked. "From a warrior of the Manhansetts, who was carried away in the white-winged canoe to be the white man's slave, and come back after many moons to the lodges of his people, his red brothers know that, when in the great lodge of the pale-face father she looked upon the war-chief whose life she had saved, she covered her face with her blanket and wept, that, for love of the brave war-captain she died; did the red warrior of the Manhansetts speak with a straight tongue?" "It is not certainly known, but it is believed that Pocahontas gave her love to the gallant Rolfe; at all events, she became his wife of her own free will," returned Kingsland, "a marriage of convenience, of diplomacy upon her father's part, it may have been; such are not uncommon." It required all the arts of which he was past master to combat the objection of the forest girl to the course marked out by her treacherous lover, that she would meet him at intervals, and in secret, that both should use the strictest rule of etiquette usual among her people when in the presence of others, and that their betrothal should not be made known until his secret mission was concluded and he was free to claim her as his wife. With all the sophistry at his command, he explained that by the laws of his people one engaged in a secret mission must, upon no account, become entangled in a matrimonial alliance; that such an entanglement subjected him to arrest, imprisonment, perhaps death, should an enemy arise to bear false witness; and she, ignorant of the white man's laws, believed, implicitly, his honeyed speech. In haste to divert her attention, he cunningly turned the conversation into another and less dangerous channel. "I shall be on my guard at all times, and it is unlikely that Poniute will be able to take me at a disadvantage; but remember he is stealthy of foot, familiar with every path in his native forest, while I, a stranger in woodcraft, might easily fall a prey, pierced to the heart by an arrow sent from ambush. His eyes must be blinded to the truth, or my heart's idol may chance to see my scalp in the belt of the red warrior." "Should my white chief be sent to the spirit land Heather Flower would go to him; she would live no longer; but should he turn from her, should his words be false, should he take a pale-faced maiden to his lodge, then would Heather Flower take his scalp in her hand and laugh at his groans! Despite his hardihood, Guy Kingsland was startled out of his self-possession. He had not looked for such an early exhibition of the fierce nature lying dormant beneath the usually calm demeanour, and for the moment he heartily wished he had not committed himself. This magnificent woman who was a very dove in her constancy and depth of affection could prove a tigress were her jealousy once aroused. Her eyes were blazing, her cheeks had lost their colour, her face was illuminated with a baleful flame at the bare contemplation of treachery. Should she fathom the depths of his meditated perfidy, what would be the consequence? He shuddered involuntarily, dimly realising the horrible vengeance she was capable of meting out should he continue in the course he had mapped. But the novelty of possession, the triumph of knowing that this untamed, beautiful maiden loved him, blinded him to the peril. His love was too passionate, too selfish, to endure, he knew that; but he promised himself that ere the truth could come to the Indian girl he would be safely on board ship and on his way to "Merrie England." With tender caresses he quelled the momentary ebullition of anger, and almost as suddenly as her jealousy had arisen her mood changed to the softness of the cooing dove. "If I ever forget my vow may Heaven forget me in my hour of sorest need," he whispered, feeling a wild sense of exultation that he held a loyal heart in the hollow of his hand, that this regal beauty loved him with a wild worship that she had given no other earthly being, and quite forgetting that thus had he raved of the charms of the lily-fair English maid who was his betrothed, and whom he meant to make his wife. The afternoon had waned, the sun was casting long shadows across highland and glen, when the lovers parted, he with the memory of the promise she had made that until his mission was accomplished and he was at liberty to demand her of her father, to all the world they should be as the merest acquaintances; she, only conscious that she had never been so happy, never had the song of the birds charmed her so entirely, never had the sun shone so brightly, and only longing for the hour when she might again meet her false love, the man she deemed so perfect. Ah, happier would it have been for both had they never met. But for that meeting many a dark tragedy enacted within the gloomy recesses of the pine and fir forest would have been lost to the traditions of the Lords of the Soil. CHAPTER VIII AN INVOCATION TO HO-BAM-O-KOO "May the grass wither from thy feet; the woods A grave! the sun his light! and heaven her God!" HE red glory of a setting summer sun was blazing aslant beneath the tangled branches of the willow, maple and oak grove clothing the islet Manchoage,1 set like an aquamarine gem in the centre of the lake that lay hidden in the heart of the Heather woods, and turning the waters into patches of gold, crystal and crimson where the rays fell, deepening the lengthened shadows cast by the dark boles of the trees fringing the shore. Over the smooth surface a canoe was gliding, propelled by the strong arms of an Indian paddler. Around a weird silence reigned, no barking of dog or croak of frog smote the drowsy air, the only sign of human presence the thin line of smoke curling from the apex of a solitary lodge in a dense grove, through which, however, a well-worn path led straight from the shore of the tiny island. Beaching his canoe, the young warrior strode up the steep bank in the direction of the lodge, but halting at a few yards distance from the solitary wigwam he gave a peculiar, long-drawn call, like the cry of a night-bird, but no living thing appeared. Twice again, with a moment's interval of silence, 'Manchoage. Now known as the Great Pond Island. |