The young Creole as she spoke lowered her eyes, no longer regarding the eclipse, but as if involuntarily directing her glance downward.
“Ah, yes!” continued she in thought, “and even if alike impossible for them ever to meet, still would her smiles be his! Ah, yes!”
For some seconds she remained silent and abstracted. Smythje, attracted by the altered tone of her voice, had taken the telescope from his eye, and turned towards her.
Observing this abstracted air, which he had often before remarked, he did not think of attributing it to any other cause than that which his vanity had already divined. Kate Vaughan was in love; and with whom but himself?
His sympathetic soul was ready to give way; and he was almost on the point of departing from the programme which he had so ingeniously traced out. But the remembrance of the pretty speeches he had rehearsed with Thoms—and the thought that any deviation from the original design would deprive him of the pleasure of witnessing the effects which they must undoubtedly produce—restrained him from a premature declaration, and he remained silent.
It did not hinder him from some unspoken reflections.
“Poor queetyaw! evidently suffwing! Neithaw distance nor absence can make the slightest impwession upon her love—not the slightest. Ba Jawve! I feel more than half-inclined to bweak the spell, and reweive her fwom her miseway. But no—it would nevaw do. I must wesist the temptation. A little more suffwing can do no harm, since the situation of the queetyaw wesembles the pwoverb: ‘The darkest hour is that which is neawest the day.’ Haw! haw!”
And with this fanciful similitude before his mind, the sympathetic and self-denying lover concluded his string of complacent reflections; and returning the glass to his eye, once more occupied himself in ogling the eclipse.
The young Creole, seeing him thus engaged, withdrew to one side; and placing herself on the very edge of the cliff, stood gazing outward and downward. It was evident that the grand celestial phenomenon had no attraction for her. She cared neither to look upon the sun, nor the moon, nor the stars that would soon be visible in the fast-darkening sky. Her eyes, like her thoughts, were turned upon the earth; and as the penumbra began to cast its purple shadow over the fair face of Nature, so could a cloud be seen overspreading her beautiful countenance.
There was now deep silence below and around. In a few seconds of time a complete change had taken place. The uttering of the forest was no longer heard. The birds had suddenly ceased their songs, and if their voices came up at intervals, it was in screams and cries that denoted fear. Insects and reptiles had become silent, under the influence of a like alarm. The more melancholy sounds alone continued—the sighing of the trees, and the sough of the distant waterfall. This transformation reminded Kate Vaughan of the change which had taken place in her own heart. Almost equally rapid had it been—the result of only a few days, or perhaps only hours: for the once gay girl had become, of late, habitually grave and taciturn. Well might she compare her thoughts to the forest sounds! The cheerful and musical were gone—those that were melancholy alone remained!