“I am glad that we overtook you. Señor Icarza has asked me to marry him. You shall be first to congratulate us.”
Gordon’s glance had risen to hers in wonder and consternation. Then—the tricks fancy plays us! Fonda and ravine faded into a glade in a Java forest where the light broke down through giant fronds and twined a golden aureole around her fair hair. From that great distance, without recognizing it for his own, he heard a voice.
“I wish you all happiness!”
The crash of Lee’s glass as she threw it among the stones brought him back to the sight of her riding at full speed down the cañon.
Ramon was looking after her, transfixed with wonder.
Gordon’s practical Anglo-Saxon instinct was first to assert itself. He spoke very quietly. “We’d better catch her before she breaks her neck.”
[XX: SLIVER IS DULY CHASTENED]
Had Lee been really trying to break her neck, she could not have ridden more recklessly.
Where the mule path crossed and recrossed the stream, she took it in successive leaps. Once from the crest of an abrupt declivity her beast launched out like a flying bird, yet picked up its stride and flew on full forty-five feet beyond. Unconsciously, she bent to avoid the oaks that reached down gnarled hands to snatch her from the saddle. Possessed by but one impulse, to escape, she raced down the cañon and out upon the plain.
Had she given full rein to her feeling she would have galloped on and on and on over the receding horizon into a strange world that knew naught of her affairs. But as the violence of the exercise drew the blood from her brain, responsibility resumed its sway. Of her own accord she slackened speed and allowed Ramon, whose fast beast had outrun Gordon’s, to catch up.