There was little sleep for Connor that night. He lay awake, turning over the possibilities of a last minute failure, and when he finally dropped into a deep, aching slumber it was to be awakened almost at once by the voice of David calling in the patio. He wakened and found it was the pink of the dawn.
"Shakra waits at the gate of the patio. Start early, Benjamin, and thereby you will return soon."
It brought Connor to his feet with a leap. As if he required urging! Through the hasty breakfast he could not retain his joyous laughter until he saw David growing thoughtful. But that breakfast was over, and David's kind solicitations, at length. Shakra was brought to him; his feet were settled into the stirrups, and the dream changed to a sense of the glorious reality. She was his—Shakra!
"A journey of happiness for your sake and a speed for mine, Benjamin."
Connor looked down for the last time into the face of the master of the Garden, half wild and half calm—the face of a savage with the mind of a man behind it. "If he should take my trail!" he thought with horror.
"Good-by!" he called aloud, and in a burst of joy and sudden compunction, "God bless you, David!"
"He has blessed me already, for He has given to me a friend."
A touch of the rope—for no Eden Gray would endure a bit—whirled Shakra and sent her down the terraces like the wind. The avenue of the eucalyptus trees poured behind them, and out of this, with astonishing suddenness, they reached the gate.
The fire already burned, for the night was hardly past, and Joseph squatted with the thin smoke blowing across his face unheeded. He was grinning with savage hatred and muttering.
Connor knew what profound curse was being called down upon his head, but he had only a careless glance for Joseph. His eye up yonder where the full morning shone on the mountains, his mind was out in the world, at the race track, seeing in prospect beautiful Shakra fleeing away from the finest of the thoroughbreds. And he saw the face of Ruth, as her eyes would light at the sight of Shakra. He could have burst into song.