For a moment Nepeese did not answer. She, too, was looking into the fire. Then she said:
"Tuboa meant to kill him when the spring came, and he could travel. When Tuboa died I knew that it was I who must kill him. So I came, with Tuboa's gun. It was fresh loaded—yesterday. And—M'sieu Jeem"—she looked up at him, a triumphant glow in her eyes as she added, almost in a whisper—"You will not go to Lac Bain. I HAVE SENT A MESSENGER."
"A messenger?"
"Yes, Ookimow Jeem—a messenger. Two days ago. I sent word that I had not died, but was here—waiting for him—and that I would be Iskwao now, his wife. Oo-oo, he will come, Ookimow Jeem—he will come fast. And you shall not kill him. Non!" She smiled into his face, and the throb of Carvel's heart was like a drum. "The gun is loaded," she said softly. "I will shoot."
"Two days ago," said Carvel. "And from Lac Bain it is—"
"He will be here tomorrow," Nepeese answered him.
"Tomorrow, as the sun goes down, he will enter the clearing. I know. My blood has been singing it all day. Tomorrow—tomorrow—for he will travel fast, Ookimow Jeem. Yes, he will come fast."
Carvel had bent his head. The soft tresses gripped in his fingers were crushed to his lips. The Willow, looking again into the fire, did not see. But she FELT—and her soul was beating like the wings of a bird.
"Ookimow Jeem," she whispered—a breath, a flutter of the lips so soft that Carvel heard no sound.
If old Tuboa had been there that night it is possible he would have read strange warnings in the winds that whispered now and then softly in the treetops. It was such a night; a night when the Red Gods whisper low among themselves, a carnival of glory in which even the dipping shadows and the high stars seemed to quiver with the life of a potent language. It is barely possible that old Tuboa, with his ninety years behind him, would have learned something, or that at least he would have SUSPECTED a thing which Carvel in his youth and confidence did not see. Tomorrow—he will come tomorrow! The Willow, exultant, had said that. But to old Tuboa the trees might have whispered, WHY NOT TONIGHT?