“I thank thee, oh my father!” she cried, and all her voice was music because of her joy. “And thou art still my father,” she added, earnestly. “What care I to go to Spain? I will stay always with thee.”
“For a time, it may be. Yet have a care, little wild rose,” he cautioned, smiling, “Let not the Englishman lure thee away! He, too, may not be all that thou thinkest.”
And even as he spoke, in mocking confirmation of his words, there came to them suddenly from across the water, the distant creaking of ropes, the snapping of sails flung hastily to the wind. Before their unbelieving eyes the vessel swung about and put slowly out to sea. Dumb with amazement they watched until the last faint light flickered into darkness. Not until the remotest chance of a mistake was past did the old chief rise, trembling with rage, to his feet.
“See'st thou now what I meant, my daughter? The English pale-faces know not the meaning of honor,—no, nor of gratitude either!”
He lifted his long spear from the ground and shook it fiercely.
“The words of the Mariposa are few,” he cried, “but their revenge is sure. Let but an Englishman set foot again on Punagwandah and, swifter than the arrow leaves the bowstring, he dies!”
And at once, without answer, in the silence of suffering which only the wild things of the earth understand, Wildenai crept from the lodge, her heart heavy with its own bitter disappointment. Noiselessly she passed among the tepees where her father's people slept. Not one of them should ever know how far dwelt slumber from her own eyes that night. Up the steep trail beyond the Bay of Moons she climbed and flung herself weeping on the bed of skins within the cavern.
“Oh, thou false one,” she moaned, “why did'st thou promise then, when never did'st thou mean to keep it?”
Yet nothing had been farther from the young Englishman's thoughts when he left her than faithlessness to his word. On reaching the ship again he had gone directly to his cabin. Here he took from its small but richly embroidered case a slender chain of gold, threaded so closely with garnets that even in the dim light of the one flaring lantern, the only illumination the room could boast, it glowed, a glancing stream of crimson, in his hand. This he carried to the light and as he examined it under the lantern he smiled.
“Never saw the little maid such jewels before, I'll warrant me! Yet, beshrew my heart, but she deserves them. Indian though she be, still is she, nevertheless, the loveliest woman that ever mine eyes have looked upon!”