"Ralph, I sorry," she said in a low voice, sharp with emotion. "I not know anything else to do."
It did not help matters any. He was too full of resentment to give a thought to her side of the case. "This is what I get for trying to do the square thing by you!" he cried. "For holding myself in night and day to keep from distressing you! You worked on my sympathies. You made me think you were on the square. You talked about friendship, and then you attacked me while I was asleep! Oh! I have been nicely taken in!"
He heard no more from her.
They slid the boat off the stones; Nahnya climbed over Ralph to take her place in the stern; and they set off in the current. For hours after that Ralph had nothing to go on but the quiet dip of the paddles, the answering leap of the boat to the thrust of their strong arms, and the drip of the water as the blades were withdrawn. Both brother and sister had a great capacity for silence.
Ralph's frame of mind was anything but an enviable one. It is not pleasant to a man to be confronted by a mystery in the woman he loves. As long as they had been in accord it had troubled him very little; he had looked in her clear eyes, thinking, "whatever may be in store, she's on the square." But when she turned against him all this was changed. Every look, word, act that he had not understood at the time recurred to him charged with a sinister significance. Wounded pride hatefully suggested to him that she was using his love for her to further her own ends.
Nevertheless he could not but admit that for such a hardy villainess some of her acts were strange. He had plenty of time to think things out. He remembered how she had boxed Charley's ears when the boy had first suggested tying him up; he remembered how her eyes had filled, and how sadly she whispered, "I think you going to hate me by and by." This suggested that she might be the victim of circumstances no less than himself. "Why can't she trust me a little?" he thought. "She knows I'd do anything for her!"
Behind all this was the mystery of what lay ahead, hanging like a heavy black curtain athwart his gaze. When a man has his eyes to see, and his arms to fight with, a mystery is pleasantly provocative and stimulating. When he lies blindfolded, bound, and helpless, the darkest apprehensions seize upon him. Thus the weary round continued in Ralph's mind.
The long silence was broken by Nahnya. She uttered in Cree what sounded like a quiet warning. Immediately afterward the dugout lurched violently as under a side blow, spun around, and went on as smoothly as before. For a long time Ralph lay vainly threshing his brain for an explanation of this odd shock.
A new sound slowly stole on his ears, a dull, heavy growl from down the river. He did not need to be told what this was; rapids—but no such rapids as they had shot in the Pony River, or hitherto in the Rice. Those compared with this sound were as the laughter of children to the voice of a giant. The growl became a roar which grew louder with every moment. Ralph's heart began to beat painfully. It is probable that it never occurred to Nahnya, certainly not to Charley, what a refined species of torture they were inflicting on their prisoner. There is no terror like terror of the unseen. "If anything happens I'll drown like a cat in a bag!" thought Ralph. He would not stoop to make any complaint aloud.
Charley and Nahnya stopped paddling, and talked low-voiced; Nahnya gave unmistakable orders. The slight, sharp note of excitement in their voices shook Ralph's breast. From the sounds ahead he pictured a very cataclysm of the waters awaiting them, wilder indeed than any earthly rapids. Little beads of perspiration broke out on his forehead. Oh! for his sight! the use of his arms! But he would not ask it. They started paddling again. The roaring seemed to be on every side of them now. Ralph clenched his teeth and his hands. "Now we're going to take the plunge!" he thought. "Now! Now!" And still it held off, until he could have screamed with the suspense.