Читать книгу A Pageant of Victory - John Jeffery Farnol - Страница 12

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Three days have elapsed and the travellers have journeyed far. All day long the tinkling plash of their paddles and the rippling murmur at the prow, as the long canoe glides against the stream ever north-westerly, is broken only when they land to eat or stretch their limbs.

Halcyon days of ceaseless yet joyous effort; nights of murmurous talk beside the camp fire and dreamless sleep beneath whispering leaves or starry heaven. A time this of ever-growing intimacy; for Anthony, putting aside future cares, is merry as a boy, while Mahtocheega, the Tuscarora chief, becoming less taciturn, is much readier of speech and grave smile and all because of Blodwen; for she, forgetting all past doubts and fears, laughs often and sometimes falls to singing in her soft, rich voice as she is doing now, while Anthony watches her unconscious form with eyes that miss nothing of its lissom shapeliness, its sweetly tender curves, until, as if suddenly aware of this, she turned and meeting his look frowned and hushed her singing.

"Pray go on," said he.

"No!" she answered almost sullenly. "No. Besides I forget the rest."

"However it is very strange to hear 'The Bailiff's daughter of Islington' in this American wilderness. It is a song of old England."

"And yet I seem to have known it all my life."

"And this is stranger yet," he nodded thoughtfully.

"Like my ring," said she bitterly, "my ruby ring that you half recognize yet cannot remember how or why. And so here again is the old mystery that none can ever answer--who am I and what?" She sighed. "All I can be sure of is that this--this is the river that bore me out of the unknown past so many years ago, and to-day is bearing me into the unknown future.... And to what? Oh God of mercy--to what?" Now though her voice was gentle as ever, there was that in her look so altogether unexpected that Anthony almost dropped his paddle.

"Lord!" he exclaimed, "Lord love you, child, you go to find happiness I hope and pray."

"I wonder!" she whispered.

"Why then, at least to the welcome and loving care of your friends in Philadelphia."

"I have no friends in Philadelphia."

"No ... friends?" he echoed.

"Not one in all the world."

"But," he stammered, "why then ...? Then why go to Philadelphia?"

"As well there as anywhere else," she answered wearily.

"But this ... this is preposterous, unthinkable! How shall you live?" he demanded viewing her in such stark dismay that her vivid, sensitive lips quivered.

"Indeed, but I am not so useless as you think, sir. I can sew as well as I shoot--almost. And you've never seen me really shoot yet, Anthony. And then I can cook besides. Oh, I am quite an accomplished person! But, talking of cooking, I'm ravenous! See, it's sunset already! When do we camp?"

"When you will, Blodwen. Here if you wish, though I know a little creek some miles ahead, a very excellent place, if you can wait."

"To be sure," she answered, looking bright-eyed at the radiant West, "let us go to your creek."

"Oh, Mahtocheega," said Anthony to their silent companion, "our last camping place coming down, can we reach it ere dark, think you?"

"Assuredly," answered the Sagamore, glancing back across swaying shoulder, "if my brother plieth paddle nimbly as his tongue."

"Ay, faith!" laughed Anthony.

Down went the sun in splendour, making the river a flaming highway winding between sombre woodlands where purple shadows crept, as this glory waned, and evening grew to a glimmering dusk lit by faint stars whose radiance waxed as night closed down.

And now they journeyed through a vast and silent immensity, a star-spangled firmament above them, a mystery of waters below, fretted with starry gleams, that came and went, and no sound but the rippling whisper of their going, the rhythmic dip and tinkle of their paddles. And presently Anthony spoke softly:

"A wonderful world, Blodwen."

"Yes!" she sighed. "Ah yes! Do you wonder I so love it all, I that am a waif of the wilderness?"

And after some while up rose the moon to pale the stars and fill the world about them with a magic radiance; and the river now a broad path of rippling silver.

"Yonder it is, my brother!" said the Sagamore, his deep voice strangely loud in the pervading stillness.

"True enough, Cheega! I was dreaming, egad, and should have missed it."

The canoe turned inshore, coasted a line of shadowy trees, swung between bush-grown banks, followed a narrow channel and was finally beached where a little spring bubbled.

"Well," said Anthony when they had landed and drawn up the canoe, "here we are, comrade!" And he glanced where stood Blodwen, a strange, lovely shape in the bright moonlight, looking about her glad-eyed.

"Oh, a paradise!" she murmured.

"The question is," said he gathering an armful of twigs, "do you cook to-night or shall I?"

"I will, of course!" she answered very decidedly, but with such smile and so joyously eager that he smiled also.

"Why, then, the Sagamore and I will build you a wickiup."

"Why trouble?" said she, busied with the tinder-box. "My bed shall be a buffalo robe beneath this tree. Pray, sir, remember I am no finical fine lady."

"However," said he, in his gentle though dogged fashion, watching how deftly she set and lit the fire, "you shall sleep in a bower to your comfort--see, the Sagamore is busy at it already." So saying, Anthony unslung his tomahawk and fell to work beside the Sagamore, though more than once he must pause to watch and listen where Blodwen sang softly sweet as she prepared their meal. And after some while comes the stately Tuscarora to take her hand and lead her to see the leafy bower their woodman's skill has wrought for her.

"Wigwam!" quoth he, with his slow, grave smile. "Sleep so, very good, my daughter!"

Smiling, she thanked him, and coming back to the fire, found Anthony in the act of dishing their supper. So down they sat and ate, and laughed and talked like the good friends they had become.

The meal ended, Anthony gave her his hand, leading her away to walk beside the little creek; and now they spoke seldom but paused very often, listening to the murmur of the stream, the rippling of the spring, or to gaze up at the radiant moon.

"Lord!" he murmured at last, "but you are marvellous changed, Blodwen! You can laugh and sing. Is this because you are happy?"

"Yes," she answered, glancing up and round about them, "yes, Anthony, for this is God's great wilderness, unspoilt and new from His hand, clean with new life and ... infinite possibilities. In this deep silence a great, still voice speaks, to such as may hear, of what was and shall be. Here is triumph and failure, hope and final achievement. And here I think I shall find happiness or death.... And I suppose," said she, turning to look at his intent face, "all of this sounds very strange and wild to you?"

"Strange ... yes!" he answered, struck anew by her vital, glowing beauty. "But I also love the wilderness, this was why I built my house deep in the forest. Perhaps ... someday you ... you might care ... to see it."

"Yes," she answered, turning to go back, "someday ... perhaps."

"Well, here is your lodge, Blodwen ... and yonder lies the Sagamore asleep already. No need to keep watch to-night, you may slumber sound."

"Then Good night!" said she, reaching him both her hands with impulsive, half-shy gesture. "Sleep well, friend Anthony!"

"Good night!" he murmured and took her hands and kissed them, then drew and seized her in sudden, compelling arms to clasp her to his heart, kissing her fragrant hair, her eyes, her quivering mouth until, warned and chilled by her passionless compliance, her dumb resignation, he freed her, stepped back and blenched as from a blow, at the hate he read in her look.

"Oh ... God!" said she, in voice more dreadful because it whispered. "You too! So all men are the same, even ... Anthony Falconbridge. Now for this I could kill you ... and myself!"

"But ... but Blodwen," he stammered, "I ... oh upon my life I meant nothing evil."

"No!" sighed she, with miserable, hopeless gesture, "No, I waked the beast in you."

"Never think it," he pleaded, "you do but insult your own womanhood."

"Well, why not? I hate it!"

"You also insult me,--ah bitterly!"

"Very well," she answered, turning from him, "now you may go and sleep."

"Not till you believe that I ... oh, Blodwen, I had no least thought of hurting or offending you, I vow ... I swear it!"

"And now, Mr. Anthony, I beg you'll leave me ... or must I stay and be kissed and kissed until you weary and are sated?"

"Blodwen--!" said he, and choked, and stood for a moment quite confounded.

"Mr. Anthony, will you leave me?"

"Yes," said he in strangled tone, "and for your wilful, cruel misjudgement of me let God forgive you, for I will not!" And so he turned and went striding away in a cold fury to scowl from placid moon to the placid waters of this little creek and to heap curses on the whole universe and all women therein.

And when at last he lay beside the Sagamore who slept placid as the night itself, he tossed and turned, watched the dying fire until it was dead and the moon until it was down, and when sleep took him at last, scowled in his slumber.