THE MYSTERIOUS HUNTER
The morning following the earthquake found Victoria Custer still confined to her bed. She told Lady Greystoke that she felt weak from the effects of the nervous shock; but the truth of the matter was that she dreaded to meet Curtiss and undergo the ordeal which she knew confronted her.
How was she to explain to him the effect that the subterranean rumblings and the shaking of the outer crust had had upon her and her sentiments toward him? When her brother came in to see her she drew his head down upon the pillow beside hers and whispered something of the terrible hallucinations that had haunted her since the previous evening.
"Oh, Barney," she cried, "what can it be? What can it be? The first deep grumblings that preceded the shock seemed to awake me as from a lethargy, and as plainly as I see you beside me now, I saw the half naked creature of my dreams, and when I saw him I knew that I could never wed Mr. Curtiss or any other—it is awful to have to admit it even to you, Barney, but I—I knew when I saw him that I loved him—that I was his. Not his wife, Barney, but his woman—his mate, and I had to fight with myself to keep from rushing out into the terrible blackness of the night to throw myself into his arms. It was then that I managed to control myself long enough to run to you, where I fainted. And last night, in my dreams, I saw him again,—alone and lonely, searching through a strange and hostile world to find and claim me.
"You cannot know, Barney, how real he is to me. It is not as other dreams, but instead I really see him—the satin texture of his smooth, bronzed skin; the lordly poise of his perfect head; the tousled shock of coal black hair that I have learned to love and through which I know I have run my fingers as he stooped to kiss me.
"He carries a great spear, stone-tipped—I should know it the moment that I saw it—and a knife and hatchet of the same flinty material, and in his left hand he bears the severed head of a mighty beast.
"He is a noble figure, but of another world or of another age; and somewhere he wanders so lonely and alone that my heart weeps at the thought of him. Oh, Barney, either he is true and I shall find him, or I am gone mad. Tell me Barney, for the love of heaven! you believe that I am sane."
Barney Custer drew his sister's face close to his and kissed her tenderly.
"Of course you're sane, Vic," he reassured her. "You've just allowed that old dream of yours to become a sort of obsession with you, and now it's gotten on your nerves until you are commencing to believe it even against your better judgment. Take a good grip on yourself, get up and join Curtiss in a long ride. Have it out with him. Tell him just what you have told me, and then tell him you'll marry him, and I'll warrant that you'll be dreaming about him instead of that young giant that you have stolen out of some fairy tale."
"I'll get up and take a ride, Barney," replied the girl; "but as for marrying Mr. Curtiss—well, I'll have to think it over."