Meeting the gaze of the big, unafraid blue eyes, he asked at a venture in English, "And what is your name, young man?"
"Archie Royston," promptly replied the assured and lordly youngster.
"Alchie Loyston," mechanically repeated the old sibyl. Even the glance of her dimmed eyes was a caress as she fondly turned them toward the child.
Bayne looked as if he might faint. A sharp exclamation was scarcely arrested on his lips. He flushed deeply, then turned pale with excitement. For months past, flaring in all the public prints, that name had been advertised with every entreaty that humanity must regard, with every lure that might excite cupidity, with every threat that intimidation could compass. And here, in this sequestered spot, out of the world, as it were, among the remnant of an Indian tribe, of a peculiarly secluded life, of a strange archaic speech and an isolated interest, was craftily hidden the long-lost child. Any ill-considered remark might even yet jeopardize his restoration, might result in his withdrawal, sequestered anew and inaccessible. Julian Bayne became poignantly mindful of precaution. He affected to write down the Cherokee words as the interpreter and the old sibyl discussed them, but his pencil trembled so that he could hardly fashion a letter. It was an interval to him of urgent inward debate. He scarcely dared to lose sight of the boy for one moment, yet he more than feared the slightest demonstration unsupported.
He was in terror lest he find the situation changed when next he approached the fortune-teller's cabin, a few hours later, but the little blond boy, half nude, was playing in the lush grass before the open door. The visitor was bolder now, being accompanied by officers of the law; so bold indeed that he was able to pity the grief of the poor, unintelligible squaw, volleying forth a world of words of which every tenth phrase was "Alchie Loyston." By what argument she sought to detain him, what claims she preferred, what threats she voiced, can never be known. The sheriff of the county was obdurate, deaf to all intents and purposes. He shook his head glumly when it was suggested that she might remain with the child until his mother should arrive in response to the telegram already sent. "Might poison him—Indians are queer cattle! Mocking-birds will do that if the young ones are caged, through the bars, by jing!"
All night long, like some faithful dog, she lay on the floor outside the door of the room where they kept the child, her face to the threshold; and on the inner side, in emulation and imitation, little Archie lay on the floor and echoed her every groan and responded to her lightest whisper. But sleep was good to him, and when he was quite unconscious the officers took him up and placed him on a bed, while they awaited in great excitement and with what patience they could muster the response to the telegram sent by Bayne, couched in guarded phrase and held well within the facts:
Child here in the Qualla Boundary, answering to description in advertisements. Says his name is Archie Royston. Will not talk further. Well-treated. Held for identification. Awaiting advices.
Lillian, at her home in Glaston, replied by wire in that tumult of emotion which each new lure was potent to excite, despite the quicksands of baseless hope that had whelmed its many precursors. Still, she expected only another instance of deliberate and brazen fraud, or crafty and sleek imposture, or, worse still, honest mistake. The little suit-case, packed with all that the child might need, which had journeyed through so many vicissitudes, so many thousand miles, was once more in her hand as she took the train. She never forgot that long night of travel, more poignant than all her anguished journeyings that had preceded it. Hurtling through the air, it seemed, with a sense of fierce speed, the varied clangors of the train, the ringing of the rails, the frequent hoarse blasts of the whistle, the jangling of the metallic fixtures, the jarring of the window-panes, all were keenly differentiated by her exacerbated and sensitive perceptions, and each had its own peculiar irritation. She scarcely hoped that she might sleep, and it was only with a dutiful sense of conserving her strength and exerting the utmost power of her will in the endeavor, that she lay down when her berth was prepared. But the seclusion, the darkness within the curtains, oppressed her, for unwittingly the sights and sounds of the outer world had an influence to make her quit of herself, in a measure, and to focus her mind on some trivial object of the immediate present. She drew the blind at the window that she might see the scurrying landscape—the fields, the woods, the river—and now and again the sparkling lights of a city, looking in the distance as if some constellation, richly instarred with golden glamours, had fallen and lay amidst the purple glooms of the hills. For these elevations, and the frequent tunnels as the dawn drew near, gave token that the mountains were not distant; the great central basin of Tennessee lay far to the west; the engine was often climbing a steep grade, as she noted from the sound. She was going to the mountains, to the mountains—to meet what? Sometimes she clasped her hands and prayed aloud in her fear and heart-ache and woe. Then she blessed the many clamors of the train that had lacerated her tenderest fibres, for they deadened the sound of her piteous plaints, and she was a proud woman who would fain that none heard these heart-throbs of anguish but the pitying God Himself.
She must have slept from time to time, she thought, for she was refreshed and calmer when she looked forth from the window and beheld the resplendent glories of the sunrise amidst the Great Smoky Mountains. Vast, far-stretching, lofty, as impressive as the idea of eternity, as awesome as the menace of doom, as silent as the unimagined purposes of creation, they lifted their august summits. They showed a deep, restful verdure in the foreground, and in more distant reaches assumed the blandest enrichments of blue, fading and fading to mere illusions of ranges, and finally dreaming away to the misty mirages of the horizon.