“God hears the unspoken prayer in your heart, Maria; and to-night let me help you upstairs. My arm is stronger than Rachela’s.”
She rose with a little affectation of greater weakness and lassitude than she really felt. But she wished to be weak, so that her Roberto might be strong—to be quite dependent on his care and tenderness. And she let her daughters embrace her so prettily, and then offered her hand to Dare and Luis with so much grace and true kindness that both young men were enchanted.
“It is to be seen that they are gentlemen,” she said, as she went slowly upstairs on her husband’s arm—“and hark! that is the singing of Luis. What is it he says?” They stood still to listen. Clear and sweet were the chords of the mandolin, and melodiously to them Luis was protesting—
“Freedom shall have our shining blades!
Our hearts are yours, fair Texan maids!”
CHAPTER X. THE DOCTOR AND THE PRIEST.
“I tell thee, priest, if the world were wise
They would not wag one finger in your quarrels:
Your heaven you promise, but our earth you covet;
The Phaetons of mankind, who fire the world
Which you were sent by preaching but to warm.”
Your Saviour came not with a gaudy show,
Nor was His kingdom of the world below:
The crown He wore was of the pointed thorn
In purple He was crucified, not born.
They who contend for place and high degree
Are not His sons, but those of Zebedee.”
—DRYDEN.
The exalted state of mind which the victorious men had brought home with them did not vanish with sleep. The same heroic atmosphere was in the house in the morning. Antonia’s face had a brightness upon it that never yet was the result of mere flesh and blood. When she came into the usual sitting-room, Dare was already there; indeed, he had risen purposely for this hour. Their smiles and glances met each other with an instantaneous understanding. It was the old Greek greeting “REJOICE!” without the audible expression.
Never again, perhaps, in all their lives would moments so full of sweetness and splendor come to them. They were all the sweeter because blended with the homely duties that fell to Antonia’s hands. As she went about ordering the breakfast, and giving to the table a festal air, Dare thought of the old Homeric heroes, and the daughters of the kings who ministered to their wants. The bravest of them had done no greater deeds of personal valor than had been done by the little band of American pioneers and hunters with whom he had fought the last four days. The princes among them had been welcomed by no sweeter and fairer women than had welcomed his companions and himself.
And, though his clothing was black with the smoke of the battle and torn with the fray, never had Dare himself looked so handsome. There was an unspeakable radiance in his fair face. The close, brown curls of his hair; his tall figure, supple and strong; his air of youth, and valor, and victory; the love-light in his eyes; the hopes in his heart, made him for the time really more than a mere mortal man. He walked like the demi-gods he was thinking of. The most glorious ideal of life, the brightest dream of love that he had ever had, found in this hour their complete realization.