“Let the pale-face rise,” he whispered.
He caught her hand when she moved, suddenly, and drew her toward him.
“The queen will not wake,” he said; “her cup was drugged from the medicine-flask. The pale-face must put on the queen’s own fur mantle and coronet, and walk out of the tent and go slowly down the hill. She will find Gi-en-gwa-tah there.”
The chief disappeared and Adèle rose to perform his bidding. It seemed to her that she did not move; she was unconscious of feeling any great eagerness; her limbs felt half-paralyzed; the shock of a new hope had fairly benumbed her faculties.
She saw that Mahaska had not stirred. Then she put the coronet on her head, threw the mantle over her shoulder, and gathering the folds about her face passed out of the tent. At the entrance a sudden thought occurred to her; she crept back to her bed, heaped some loose furs together on the spot she had occupied, so that if Mahaska awoke, it would appear as if some one were lying among them; this done, she passed out into the moonlight.
The guards were dozing near the tent, but as it was almost a nightly occurrence, when in camp, for Mahaska to walk abroad, sometimes for hours, when the tall form passed them, wrapped in the rich mantle and crowned with the familiar diadem, they did not move, and the fugitive walked on. At length she reached the trysting-place at the foot of the hill. She then beheld the chief waiting under the trees, mounted upon his horse. Without a word, he raised her in front of his saddle and dashed off through the wilderness.
“The pale-face must have courage,” he said, after a time; “before many hours she shall be with her friends. Gi-en-gwa-tah left signs along the path which will guide them. When the day breaks, let the lady watch; she will see her companions coming.”
It was long before Adèle could feel that she had escaped—that she was on the path to freedom and safety. She could not weep; a low prayer went up from her inmost soul—that was all. She tried to speak a few broken words of thankfulness, but the chief checked her with grave kindness.
“Gi-en-gwa-tah understands the pale-face; let her be silent—he has sad thoughts in his heart.”
On, on, they sped through the great forest. The morn waned, the dawn broke, the sun rose and lighted the wilderness with its golden gleams.