The female mind, rejecting all else, went like a needle's point at one thing in this explanation. "Our antagonists?" said Helen, looking sadly puzzled. "Why, what antagonists have we?"
"The messengers," said Hazel, with a groan. "The aerial messengers."
That did the business. Helen dropped the subject with almost ludicrous haste; and, after a few commonplace observations, made a nice comfortable dose of grog and bark for him. This she administered as an independent transaction, and not at all by way of comment on his antagonists, the aerial messengers.
It operated unkindly for her purpose; it did him so much good that he lifted up his dejected head, and his eyes sparkled again, and he set to work, and, by sunset, prepared two more bags of bladder with inscriptions inside, and long tails of fine gut hanging. He then set to work, and, with fingers far less adroit than hers, fastened another set of rushes round the hoop. He set them less evenly, and some of them not quite perpendicular; and, while he was fumbling over this, and examining the effect with paternal glances, Helen's hazel eye dwelt on him with furtive pity; for, to her, this girdle of rushes was now an instrument that bore an ugly likeness to the scepter of straw, with which vanity run to seed sways imaginary kingdoms in Bedlam or Bicetre.
And yet he was better. He walked about the cavern and conversed charmingly; he was dictionary, essayist, raconteur, anything she liked; and, as she prudently avoided and ignored the one fatal topic, it was a delightful evening. Her fingers were as busy as his tongue. And, when he retired, she presented him with the fruits of a fortnight's work, a glorious wrapper made of fleecy cotton inclosed in a plaited web of flexible and silky grasses. He thanked her, and blessed her, and retired for the night.
About midnight she awoke and felt uneasy. So she did what since his illness she had done a score of times without his knowledge—she stole from her lair to watch him.
She found him wrapped in her present, which gave her great pleasure; and sleeping like an infant, which gave her joy. She eyed him eloquently for a long time; and then very timidly put out her hand, and, in her quality of nurse, laid it lighter than down upon his brow.
The brow was cool, and a very slight moisture on it showed the fever was going or gone.
She folded her arms and stood looking at him; and she thought of all they two had done and suffered together. Her eyes absorbed him, devoured him. The time flew by unheeded. It was so sweet to be able to set her face from its restraint, and let all its sunshine beam on him; and, even when she retired at last, those light hazel eyes, that could flash fire at times, but were all dove-like now, hung and lingered on him as if they could never look at him enough.
Half an hour before daybreak she was awakened by the dog howling piteously. She felt a little uneasy at that; not much. However, she got up, and issued from her cavern, just as the sun showed his red eye above the horizon. She went toward the boat, as a matter of course. She found Ponto tied to the helm. The boat was empty, and Hazel nowhere to be seen.