He would go to the councilor's. Having once decided, Nathaniel turned in the direction of the town, avoiding the use of the path which he and Obadiah had taken, but following in the forest near enough to use it as a guide. He was confident that Arbor Croche and his sheriffs were confining their man-hunt to the swamp, but in spite of this belief he exercised extreme caution, stopping to listen now and then, with one hand always near his pistol. A quiet gloom filled the forest and by the tree-tops he marked the going down of the sun. Nathaniel's ears ached with their strain of listening for the rumbling roar that would tell of Casey's attack on St. James.
Suddenly he heard a crackling in the underbrush ahead of him, a sound that came not from the strain of listening for the rumbling roar and in a moment he had dodged into the concealment of the huge roots of an overturned tree, drawn pistol in hand. Whatever object was approaching came slowly, as if hesitating at each step—a cautious, stealthy advance, it struck Nathaniel, and he cocked his weapon. Directly in front of him, half a stone's throw away, was a dense growth of hazel and he could see the tops of the slender bushes swaying. Twice this movement ceased and the second time there came a crashing of brush and a faint cry. For many minutes after that there was absolute silence. Was it the cry of an animal that he had heard—or of a man? In either case the creature who made it had fallen in the thicket and was lying there as still as if dead. For a quarter of an hour Nathaniel waited and listened. He could no longer have seen the movement of bushes in the gathering night-gloom of the forest but his ears were strained to catch the slightest sound from the direction of the mysterious thing that lay within less than a dozen rods of him. Slowly he drew himself out from the shelter of the roots and advanced step by step. Half way to the thicket a stick cracked loudly under his foot and as the sound startled the dead quiet of the forest with pistol-shot clearness there came another cry from the dense hazel, a cry which was neither that of man nor animal but of a woman; and with an answering shout Nathaniel sprang forward to meet there in the edge of the thicket the white face and outstretched arms of Marion. The girl was swaying on her feet. In her face there was a pallor that even in his instant's glance sent a chill of horror through the man and as she staggered toward him, half falling, her lips weakly forming his name Nathaniel leaped to her and caught her close in his arms. In that moment something seemed to burst within him and flood his veins with fire. Closer he held the girl, and heavier he knew that she was becoming in his arms. Her head was upon his breast, his face was crushed in her hair, he felt her throbbing and breathing against him and his lips quivered with the words that were bursting for freedom in his soul. But first there came the girl's own whispered breath—"Neil—where is Neil?"
"He is gone—gone from the island!"
She had become a dead weight now and so he knelt on the ground with her, her head still upon his breast, her eyes closed, her arms fallen to her side. And as Nathaniel looked into the face from which all life seemed to have fled he forgot everything but the joy of this moment—forgot all in life but this woman against his breast. He kissed her soft mouth and the closed eyes until the eyes themselves opened again and gazed at him in a startled, half understanding way, until he drew his head far back with the shame of what he had dared to do flaming in his face.
And as for another moment he held her thus, feeling the quivering life returning in her, there came to him through that vast forest stillness the distant deep-toned thunder of a great gun.
"That's Casey!" he whispered close down to the girl's face. His voice was almost sobbing in its happiness. "That's Casey—firing on St. James!"
CHAPTER VII
THE HOUR OF VENGEANCE
For perhaps twenty seconds after the last echoes of the gun had rolled through the forest the girl lay passive in Nathaniel's arms, so close that he could feel her heart beating against his own and her breath sweeping his face. Then there came a pressure against his breast, a gentle resistance of Marion's half conscious form, and when she had awakened from her partial swoon he was holding her in the crook of his arm. It had all passed quickly, the girl had rested against him only so long as he might have held half a dozen breaths and yet there had been all of a lifetime in it for Nathaniel Plum, a cycle of joy that he knew would remain with him for ever. But there was something bitter-sweet in the thought that she was conscious of what he had done, something of humiliation as well as gladness, and still not enough of the first to make him regret that he had kissed her, that he had kissed her mouth and her eyes. He loved her, and he was glad that in those passing moments he had betrayed himself. For the first time he noticed that her face was scratched and that the sleeves of her thin waist were torn to shreds; and as she drew away from him, steadying herself with a hand on his arm, his lips were parched of words, and yet he leaned to her eagerly, everything that he would have said burning in the love of his eyes. Still irresolute in her faintness the girl smiled at him, and in that smile there was gentle accusation, the sweetness of forgiveness, and measureless gratitude, and it was yet light enough for him to see that with these there had come also a flush into her cheeks and a dazzling glow into her eyes.