10
There was an air of formality, even of solemnity, in the gathering that faced Cunningham several hours later. A full two hundred Strangers were gathered in a little glade with slanting sides that formed a sort of amphitheater. Scouts were hidden in the woods beyond.
And Maria was there, with a white and stricken face which dashed Cunningham’s joyous mood. Vladimir’s servant was there too, ashen with dread and with a crude bandage about his arm where a throwing-knife had gone through his muscles as he tried to shoot Cunningham a second time. And Stephan, Maria’s father, with his features worn and very weary.
Cunningham’s shoulder had been dressed with crushed plantain-leaves. It was a tiny wound at best, hardly worth more than adhesive plaster. The bullet had barely nicked the skin, but Maria had wept over it as she bound it up.
Cunningham had felt that this was no time for common sense. He knew.
“I love you,” he whispered as she bent down above him.
Brimming eyes met his for an instant.
“And I love you,” she said with a queer soft fierceness. “I tell you, because I will never see you again. I love you!”
Cunningham felt a nameless dread. Stephan looked at him with dreary, resolute eyes. Maria’s lips were pinched and bloodless. The Strangers regarded him with somber faces which were not unfriendly, but perturbingly sympathetic.
The gathering seemed to be something like a court. The women were gathered around the outer edges. The men stood about a rock on which Stephan had seated himself. Maria stood beside him. Cunningham found himself thrust gently forward.