“Promise to come back,” said the music, while her dark eyes met his; “promise to come back. You are my one friend, my light, my all; do not leave me to perish in the dark. I shall die without you, I shall die, I shall die!”
Could any man resist the appeal? Could Cecil, of all men, thrilling through all his sensitive and ardent 190 nature to the music, thrilling still more to a mighty and resistless love?
“I will come back,” he said, and parted from her; he dared not trust himself to say another word. But the parting was not so abrupt as to prevent his seeing the swift breaking-forth of light upon the melancholy face that was becoming so beautiful to him and so dear.
CHAPTER VI.
THE TWILIGHT TALE.
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That eve I spoke those words again, And then she hearkened what I said. Dante Rossetti. |
The next day the Indians had a great hunt. A circle of men on foot and on horseback was drawn around a large tract of forest on the western side of the Willamette River. Gradually, with much shouting, hallooing, and beating of bushes, the circle closed upon the game within it, like the folds of a mighty serpent.
There was a prodigious slaughter, a mad scene of butchery, in which the Indians exulted like fiends. Late in the afternoon they returned to camp, stained with blood and loaded with the spoils of the chase. Snoqualmie distinguished himself by killing a large bear, and its claws, newly severed and bleeding, were added to his already ample necklace of similar trophies.