“No,” said Clancy, who had been wondering all along at the strange words of the woodman, “they did not tell any thing of the kind. I never knew it till now.”
“Strange!” replied the other. “And although I am sure I was there for quite a length of time while you lay unconscious in the little place curtained off at the back end of the cavern, the giant did not tell me of your presence. It can not be that there was any cause for this concealment; and concealment does not seem to be a predominant trait of the big hunter’s.”
“I do not understand you,” said Vere wonderingly. “Do you mean to say that we were both at the cave at the same time? Please explain yourself.”
And Darke told Clancy the story of his accident the day before, and how Leander Maybob had carried him to the cavern lodge of his brother Alonphilus and himself, cared for him till he was able to come home, carefully guarding against any allusion to the oaken chest and its ghastly contents, but telling him of the strange episode of the little apartment, and repeating the mysterious words of the giant hunter, whose meaning he had until now vainly tried to discover. They held no hidden portent now. He knew instinctively that the words he had so vainly wondered at, “Does he show any signs of life yet? Can’t be he is dead!” referred to Clancy Vere.
One mystery was solved!
For several minutes both men remained silent. Darke was ruminating over the discovery he had just made and Clancy was thinking what a lovely picture Vinnie made as she leaned carelessly against the mantle, looking intently into the dancing blaze of the fire, whose red glow lit up her fair face till it seemed fairly radiant in its fresh young beauty.
Was she building air-castles again?
Clancy was!
Raising her long lashes suddenly, she met his ardent, passionate, yet respectful gaze.
Both pair of eyes sought the floor simultaneously; and it would have been no easy task for one to have determined which face flushed the deepest—the maiden’s or her lover’s; for Clancy Vere knew he did love Vinnie Darke with all his heart.