As I mused thus we reached a higher level, and, through a rent in the stormy sky a shaft of morning sunlight glanced across my shoulder and plunged forward into the woods beyond. I looked back, startled, and for a brief moment saw the sun's golden disc; then a black cloud effaced it from the sky.
"Padre!" I cried, "we are travelling westward!"
"Yes," he said calmly.
"Westward!" I exclaimed again. "Westward—and inland! when the English settlement lies to the north of us, upon the coast!"
He bowed again in silent acquiescence. Then my indignation broke forth, and without stopping for further question I accused him bitterly of breach of trust.
"Did you not promise Doña Orosia to deliver me to my friends?" I cried.
"What cause have you to doubt my good faith?" he asked, turning his sombre eyes toward me, but still speaking in the same calm tones. "Had I a ship at San Augustin in which we could set sail? Or could such a ship have left the harbour unperceived? Not even a canoe could have been obtained there without danger of discovery. We have a long journey before us,—could we set out upon it unprovisioned?"
I hung my head, ashamed, of my doubts. Once it was not my nature to be suspicious; but so much of trouble had come to me of late that I began to fear I would never again feel the same confidence in my fellow creatures, the same implicit trust in Heaven that I had held two years ago. I had never been a stranger to trouble; but, as a child, I knew it only as a formless cloud that cast its shadow sometimes on my path, dimming the sunlight for a moment and hushing the song upon my lips. Even when my mother died I was too young for more than a child's grief—an April shower of tears; and although my earliest maidenhood was often lonely, I had made me my own happiness with bright imaginings, and prayed God to bring them to pass. So I awaited my future always with a smile and never doubted that it would be fair. All that had gone by. Trouble had shown its face to me, and I knew it for something terrible and strong, ready to leap at my throat and crush life out of me. What wonder, then, that I walked fearfully from hour to hour?
Padre Felipe spoke again after a time. "The woods are thinning," he said. "A few more steps and we shall come out on the shores of the San Juan, near to a small village of the Yemassees, in which there are many whose eyes have been opened to the truth. There we shall find shelter from the storm, and means to pursue our journey when the clouds are past. Let us hasten; the bearers with the litter are far ahead."
He gave me his arm once more, and ere many minutes were past, we came in sight of the bold stream of the San Juan and the crowded huts of an Indian village.