“Last night they were encamped under the Ledge.”
“And you will tell this white queen what happened—you will keep that bad man away from Monockonok?”
“It is for this I seek the camp; but why did you follow me?—how did you guess where I was going?”
“I don’t know. That strange lady never spoke to me—never saw me in all her life; but I want to look at her again. She seemed standing by the bed all last night, asking me not to sleep. Sometimes I could almost see her crimson feathers wave and hear the wampum fringes rattle on her moccasins. I think that no shadow was ever so real before.”
“And it was this strange fancy that sent you out so early?”
“Yes, for it was a fancy. I could see, as the day broke, that grandmother’s crimson cardinal, which hung again the wall, had flung its shadow downward; but the idea of that strange lady had sunk into my heart before the light told me what it was. I longed to hear her voice again, to see her with the sunlight quivering about her head. Indeed, sir, she was like a queen standing there upon the rock. I caught my breath every time she spoke.”
“And yet she did not speak to you?”
“No; I was out of sight, behind the brushwood. She did not know that a poor creature like me existed—how should she?”
The missionary bent heavily to his oars; drops of perspiration rose to his forehead; he beat the water with heavy, desperate pulls; but it was long before he answered.
They landed at Falling Spring, and made their way into the hills. A trail was broken through the undergrowth, where the Indians had passed up to the ledge the night before. Here and there a blackened pine-torch lay in the path, and fragments of rude finery clung to the thorn bushes.