But without waiting even to reply, the Indian girl sprang into the waves. An instant later and he saw her arms gleam in the moonlight as, with the strong slow strokes of an experienced swimmer, she struck out for the boat. In spite of the perilous rocking of the little craft he rested on his oar to watch her for a moment in sheer admiration of her skill. But the maid knew well the danger of every instant's delay. In the very nick of time she seemed almost to throw herself between him and the rocks while, with a strength he would have believed impossible in one so small, she pulled the boat around. Then, still swimming and without a word to him, she began to push it ahead of her toward the shore. It was but a few minutes before they stood together on the beach.
And now the young noble, overcome with gratitude, fell on his knees before her and caught her hand between his own. He would have kissed it in sheer joy at his escape, but the Indian girl drew sharply back.
“Quick!” she whispered, yet remembering to speak in Spanish, “You must hide yourself at once. My father will kill you if he should find you here!”
Swiftly she concealed the boat in a tiny cove behind the boulder, a hiding place he would never have seen though it was apparently perfectly familiar to her.
“Sometimes my own canoe I keep there too,” she whispered. “Now come!” and she hurried him along the beach and up an easier trail beyond the rocks to her cavern bower above.
Nor did she pause for an instant's rest until they had passed safely behind the manzanita branches which concealed the entrance. Here, motioning him to do the same, she dropped upon a pile of skins. But instead, in real concern, the young Englishman knelt again beside her.
“Thou art so wet and cold,” he began anxiously, “Will it not make thee ill? Yet 'twas a wondrous feat,” he added admiringly, “well conceived and carried out with skill such as any man might envy!”
The princess laughed.
“'Twas nothing,” she answered briefly. “I do it almost every day.”
“I came to bring to thee the gift I promised,” explained Lord Harold then, and from his belt he drew the little case. Eagerly he flung the gleaming string of garnets about her slim brown throat.