The Huntress Part 29

He began to listen for the words. Suddenly he recognized it--one of the loveliest of old English songs. Evidently it had been transmitted from ear to ear until it had acquired the character of a new race of singers.

He progressed from bush to bush. He wasn't going to have anything to do with her, he would have said, but she could sing. He came to a final stop only a few yards away, and watched her through the leaves with burning eyes. She was in her favourite att.i.tude, sitting on her heels, her strong young back curving in to her swaying waist.

Her hair, all unbound, fell around her in s.h.i.+fting ma.s.ses like smoke.

While she sang she combed it with long strokes, holding her head now on this side, now on that, and ever revealing a lovelier pose of her round arms. The half light lent her an unearthly beauty.

The sight was no less affecting than the sound. A great pain filled Sam's breast, and the old inward struggle dragged him back and forth.

She was at once so desirable and so hateful in his eyes. It was the cry of bewildered youth: "What right has anything so bad to be beautiful!"

No doubt of her badness occurred to him. Had she not ruined his chances in that country? The old antagonism was there, the readiness to believe ill of the other s.e.x that is born of mutual fear. She had become the immemorial siren in Sam's eyes, and he was fighting to save his soul. But she was beautiful enough to make a man wish to be d.a.m.ned.

She came to the end of her song, and presently started another, a more rollicking air, but still charged with wistfulness. Who had taught her those hushed, thrilling tones? Sam recognized this air, too, and thought of the mother who had sung it to him years ago.

It was "Twickenham Ferry." Why that of all songs? he wondered rebelliously. It was not fair that she should be armed thus to seek out the weakest joints in his armour.

The desire to stop the song with his own mouth became more than he could bear. The struggle was almost over when she paused and bent her head to listen, and looked up and down the beach.

It broke the spell.

"She's just trying to bring you to her!" Sam told himself, aghast.

"That's why her hair is down and all. And you're falling for it, you fool!"

He turned and fled back around the beach.

Whether or not she heard him run away, the song presently ceased, and troubled him no more that night. He returned to his blankets, but not to sleep again.

He built a fire and lay beside it smoking. He drove away the recollection of the disturbing loveliness he had seen by counting over his injuries at her hands, nouris.h.i.+ng them and magnifying them in his mind until they filled it to the exclusion of everything else.

It became as dark as it would get. Midnight at that season is no more than an intensified twilight. By and by the moon arose far across the water, looking like an old-fas.h.i.+oned gas-globe, and set sail on her brief voyage low down in the sky from south-east to south-west.

Sam received the friend of lovers with a scowl. He had omitted her from his calculations. "The nights are short enough without that!" he thought.

Thinking of escape, a new idea caused him to sit up suddenly.

"Why bother with a raft?" he thought. "She's got to sleep sometime. If I could sneak around the beach and push the dugout in! No matter how quick she woke once I was afloat. Oh! it would do my heart good to float just out of her reach and tell her a few things. On a night like this I could paddle anywhere. She's got some food and a blanket. Serve her right, anyhow. I could send some one back after her."

To think of it was to desire to put it into instant action. The moon, however, forbade. Sam cursed her again, and sat down to wait with what patience he could muster until it should slowly sink out of sight.

When the bright scimitar edge sunk behind Nine-Mile Point he arose with a beating heart. Making his blankets into a bundle, he took his way once more around the strip of beach, his moccasined feet falling noiselessly on the sand.

It was about two o'clock, and the afterglow had moved around to the north-east. In an hour it would be light again. The island objects loomed twice their size in this dusk of dusk. Sam kept close under the willows to avoid making a silhouette against the sky. As he drew close to Bela's camp he saw that her fire was out, from which he argued that she had been asleep for some time.

Coming nearer still, he made out the form of the dugout against the pale sand. Bela had drawn it up higher, and had turned it over. Still hugging the willows, he paused, looking for her resting-place. He could not see her. He supposed she had made her bed under the willows behind her fire. He dared not approach to make sure. Likely she was a light sleeper.

Following man's first instinct, he bent double, and crept across the open sand to the dugout. It lay on its side, the bottom turned toward him.

His heart was beating like a steam hammer. If with one quick movement he could turn it over and rush it into the water, let her wake as quick as she chose. If she attempted to stop him she must take the consequences. When a man's liberty was at stake he could not be too nice with the s.e.x. He took a long breath and turned the canoe over.

Bela was lying beneath it.

"Sam!" she said softly.

The keyed-up Sam grunted at the suddenness of the shock and ran back for ten paces, gasping. Then he got command of himself, and came back ashamed and raging.

Bela stood up. "What you want?" she asked mildly.

"I want to get away from here!" cried Sam, "and, by George, I'm going to! If you try to stop me your petticoats won't protect you. Get back!"

Rather to his surprise she fell back without a word. He glanced at her uncertainly. Putting his hands on the canoe he started to shove it toward the water.

"How you goin' mak' it go?" asked Bela softly.

Sam came to a stop, swearing savagely. In his excitement he had neglected to think of paddles. They were not lying anywhere about.

"Where are the paddles?" he demanded.

"I hide 'em," she answered coolly.

"Where are they?" he cried.

She was silent.

"Tell me where they are or take the consequences!" he cried, approaching her threateningly.

"I not tell you if you kill me," she replied, standing fast.

This was an out and out challenge to him to strike her. When it came to the point he could not do it, of course. He turned away, wild with impotent rage. Must she always get the best of him? If there had only been a man of her people there that he could take it out on! He broke into pa.s.sionate denunciations of her. It was a weird enough scene, there on the sh.o.r.e in the dim dusk.

"What are you keeping me here for, anyway?" was the burden of his cry.

"What do you expect to gain by it?"

"You safe here," Bela muttered. "If we go to the sh.o.r.e those men kill you, I think."

This did not help soothe him.

"I'll take my chance of that!" he cried. "I know how to deal with men.

I don't need a woman to look after me! Do you think you're going to keep me here all summer?"

"No," she returned. "The bishop and the police comin' pretty soon.

Then you safe."

"It's all your fault anyhow!" cried Sam. "Why couldn't you let me alone in the first place? What's your game anyhow?"

Bela was silent.

"Give me a plain answer!" he cried. "What was your idea in carrying me off?" He blushed as he said it. "O Lord!" he added helplessly.

"I hear those men talk," Bela said sullenly. "Say they goin' kill you in the morning. I think if I tell you, you jus' laugh. So I tak' you away quiet."