Lamont moistened his lips. 'Did he escape?'
Menotah shook her head gladly. 'They caught him, and the warriors tied him to a tree, then shot at him with arrows. Some day I will show you that tree. But he was a coward. He cried for mercy when the women tied his arms.'
'But he was only doing his duty,' argued Lamont, with his careless air. 'You say that vengeance is necessary.'
'But I would never steal upon my enemy and shoot him down. That is the act of a man who fears to fight. I would meet him face to face. Perhaps Sinclair had never done this man an injury after all.' Then she laughed in her happy manner, and set the skull carefully in the cleft of a stunted kanikanik bush. She turned to him and laid a small hand on his arm. 'You would not act as he did,' she said.
He looked at the little fingers curved upon his coat sleeve. Then he placed his hand over and held them. 'Then you do not think me a coward?'
'You!' she said slowly. 'No, you are a brave man, who would fight until death for any you loved.'
'For you?' he said, bending his head to the soft, waving tresses.
'And even after death; your soul would protect me.'
He drew a little back and laughed scornfully. 'Do you believe in such a thing?'
She lifted her face, which was animated with belief. 'You may see it; on the winter's day the shadowy vapour rises to the lips and escapes in breath. You cannot tell where it goes to. But it is the soul.'