As in a dream I heard her cry of recognition, and knew that she was gliding toward me. Then I was on my knees at her feet, burying my face in the folds of her dress, and moaning incoherent nothings from sheer exhaustion and rapture.
When at last I could stand up, and felt myself coming back to something like self-possession, a score of eager questions and as many outbursts of deep thanksgiving were in my ears--all from her sweet voice. And I had tongue for none of them, but only looked into her dear face, and patted her hands between mine, and trembled like a leaf with excitement. So much was there to say, the sum of it beggared language.
When finally we did talk, I was seated in a great chair one of the slaves had brought upon the sward, and wine had been fetched me, and my dear girl bent gently over me from behind, softly resting my head against her waist, her hands upon my arms.
"You shall not look me in the face again," she said--with ah! such compassionate, tender playfulness--"until I have been told. How did you escape? Were you a prisoner? Were you hurt?"--and oh! a host of other things.
Suddenly the sky seemed to be covered with blackness, and the joy in my heart died out as by the stroke of death. I had remembered something. My parched and twitching lips did their best to refuse to form the words:
"I have brought Philip home. He is sorely wounded. Send the slaves to bring him from the gulf."
After a long silence, I heard Daisy's voice, clear and without a tremor, call out to the blacks that their master had been brought as far as the gulf beyond, and needed assistance. They started off helter-skelter at this, with many exclamations of great surprise, a bent and misshapen figure dragging itself with a grotesque limping gait at their tail.
I rose from my chair, now in some measure restored to calmness and cold resolution. In mercy I had been given a brief time of blind happiness--of bliss without the alloy of a single thought. Now I must be a man, and walk erect, unflinching, to the sacrifice.
"Let us go and meet them. It is best," I said. The poor girl raised her eyes to mine, and their startled, troubled gaze went to my heart. There must have been prodigious effort in the self-command of her tone to the slaves, for her voice broke down utterly now, as she faltered:
"You have--brought--him home! For what purpose? How will this all end? It terrifies me!"