“Look, mother, look away, away off where the shadows are thick. The stars cannot strike there, and yet I see light—one, two, three, a hundred—the black waters are paved with them—oh, mother, he is coming.”
“You forget,” said Catharine, straining her eyes to discover the lights which Tahmeroo saw at once with the quick intelligence of love. “It may only be Queen Esther returning with her detachment of warriors—Heaven forbid that she has found an enemy.”
“No, mother, no. I am sure those torches are lighting him home. Let us meet him. The stars are out, and all the lake is light with our salmon fishers. It is warm and close here—my canoe lies among the rushes—come mother, come, I will carry you across the lake like a bird.”
Catharine arose with a faint smile and followed her daughter to the shore.
With eager haste, Tahmeroo unmoored her little craft, and rowing round a sedgy point, took her mother in. The salmon fishers lay in a little fleet a few rods off, reddening the waves with their torches. At another time Catharine would have paused to rock awhile on the waters, and watch the Indians at their picturesque work, as she had done a hundred times before; but Tahmeroo was full of loving impetuosity; she cut through the crimson waters—saw spear after spear plunged into their depths, and the beautiful fish flash upward and descend into the canoes without notice. How could such scenes interest her when the distant shores were lighted by his presence? Away she sped, turning neither to the right nor left, but on and on, cleaving the silver waters like an arrow, and wondering why the distance seemed so much greater than it ever was before.
At last a fleet of canoes came rounding a point—cast a ruddy light over the forest trees that fringed it in passing, and floated out on the broad bosom of the lake. In the foremost canoe sat a young man with his hat off, and the night winds softly lifting his hair.
“It is he! oh, mother, it is he!” said Tahmeroo. All at once her strength forsook her—the oars hung idly in her hands, and her face fell forward upon her bosom. She remembered how coldly Butler had parted from her, and became shy as a fawn. Like a bird checked upon the wing, her canoe paused an instant on the waves, then turned upon its track, and fled away from the very man its mistress had sought in such breathless haste.
But she had been recognized. A shout followed her retreat; two canoes shot from the rest, and pursued her like a brace of arrows.
“Tahmeroo! Tahmeroo!”
It was his voice—he was glad to see her; never had so much cordial joy greeted her before. She dropped the oars, crept to her mother’s bosom, and burst into a passion of tears—oh, such happy, happy tears! That moment was worth a lifetime to her. A canoe darted up. The Indian girl felt herself lifted from the arms of her mother and pressed to her husband’s bosom.