“I assure you I had no such intention: my object was very different. I was prompted to speak to you, knowing something of your affair of the other night with my friend Wingrove—which you remember I was witness of. I could not help overhearing—”
I was interrupted by another quick contemptuous exclamation, that accompanied a glance of mingled vexation and scorn:—“You may know too much, and too little, my brave slayer of red panthers! Su-wa-nee does not thank you for interfering in her affairs. She can promise you sufficient occupation with your own. Go! See to them!”
“How? What mean you?” I hurriedly asked, perceiving a certain significance in her looks, as well as words, that produced within me a sudden feeling of inquietude. “What mean you?” I repeated, too anxious to wait her reply; “has anything happened?”
“Go, see yourself! You lose time in talking to a squaw, as you call us. Haste! or your bell-flower will be plucked and crushed, like that which you wear so proudly upon your breast. The wolf has slept in the lair of the forest deer: the yellow fawn will be his victim! Su-wa-nee joys at it: ha, ha, ha! Hers will not be the only heart wrung by the villainy of the false pale-face. Ha, ha, ha! Go, brave slayer of red panthers! Ah! you may go, but only to grieve: you will be too late—too late—too late!”
Finishing her speech with another peal of half-maniac laughter, she snatched her pannier from the log, flung it over her shoulder, and hurried away from the spot! Her words, though ill understood, were full of fearful significance, and acted upon me like a shock—for a moment paralysing my powers both of speech and action. In my anxiety to ascertain their full meaning, I would have intercepted her retreat; but before I could recover from my unpleasant surprise, she had glided in among the shrubbery, and disappeared from my sight.
Chapter Thirty.
A Storm without and within.
Heading my horse to the path, I rode out of the glade; but with very different feelings from those I had on entering it. The words of this ill-starred maiden—attainted with that sibylline cunning peculiar to her race—had filled my heart with most dire forebodings. Her speech could not be mere conjecture, put forth to vex and annoy me? She had scarcely motive enough for this; besides, her display of a positive foreknowledge was proof against the supposition, that she was deceiving me?