Being willing to break from the dalliance in which I lived, I had craved to be taken with them, for I was fast mending since fresh meat had grown abundant. But Frank would not hear of it, and once more I was left alone with my prisoners, of which in my heart I fear I was glad.
Sweet indeed were the days that followed. Every hour my strength seemed to grow, and since there was nothing to do after I had made my rounds amongst the sick, I wandered with my Señorita along the shore or in the woods wellnigh the livelong day, and was never weary. Yet what we spoke of I cannot tell. I can hardly recall a phrase she uttered, yet she chattered like the golden brook, where we loved best to sit, and I listened more willing and untiring than ever I did to the wisest voices of the ancients.
Of herself and of me it seems to me now was all her talk, the empty prattle of a child; yet I sat and watched her ripe face and wanted no more. Ours was the life of the lazy pelicans and the scarlet cranes, and all the other shore fowl that breathed around us that tingling tropic life, and crowned with their presence the enchanting beauty of the scene.
Once, and only once, I remember she wandered to deeper things. She spoke of the faith of her people, and how she longed sometimes to be a nun, and have done with love and be good again.
'Are you a heretic?' she then said, suddenly looking at me very wistfully.
'I trust not,' I said, smiling, for it seemed a strangely merry thing to me to see her serious.
'Why do you laugh?' she said, pouting a little. 'My Padre says all Englishmen are Lutheran heretics and will go to torment. How can you laugh at that? It makes me very sad to think of you there, and to think I shall not find you in heaven when I come. Why will you be a heretic and pray to the devil?'
'Ah, gentle Señorita,' I answered, 'never think of those things. Your pretty head must not wear such ugly thoughts. Forget it now; go and crown yourself with flowers as you did yesterday, and I will worship a true goddess and no devil, though something of a witch. So you shall see I am a true believer in your loveliness and no heretic. What would you more?'
'Witch or not,' she answered, rising with a smile, 'I have tamed your tongue, my faithful worshipper, and brought it to a most gentle pacing; I may not choose but be carried now whithersoever it will amble with me.'
''Twas but a sorry jade,' I said, as she rose and gathered some bright flowers that seemed to bend down to kiss her hand. 'Yet since you took the rein I think it can never stumble, nor ever falter or grow dull so long as it feels the gentle spurring of your eye.'