The song ended; the sword lay motionless upon the motionless stone; the girl’s thoughts were in the green heart of the wood.
“I wonder what sweet name he carries. I wonder who was his mother. She must have been a happy woman. I wonder who will be his happy wife.”
A tear fell upon the bright blade and startled Perpetua.
“I am too big a girl,” she said to herself, “to be such a baby—and tears will rust on a sword.”
As she wiped the sword clean with her sleeve, the new-comer advanced and touched her gently on the shoulder. The girl swung round with a cry of joy. She leaned the sword against a tree, and, running to the man, clasped him in her arms, the strong young girl clinging to the strong elder like some beautiful creeper encircling an ancient, stalwart tree.
“Oh, father!” she cried. “I am so glad you have come! I have been so lonely.”
Theron’s brown hand rested gently on the girl’s head, and his brown face smiled love. There was trouble in his eyes, there was trouble in the lines of his forehead, but the sight of his daughter softened them, and she read nothing but greeting.
“Lonely, little eagle?” he asked, with surprise in his voice. The girl noted the surprise and laughed a little as she answered.
“I never knew what it was to be lonely before. You and I and the sword, and our songs, and the holy men, and the trees and the flowers and the furred and feathered woodlanders”—she ran through the sum of her companionships—“they seemed to make a perfect world of peace.”
Theron heard the change in the child’s voice, Theron saw the change in the child’s eyes.