Exhausted, she lay back among the pillows, her eyes closed. How grateful to her must have felt that great English bed, with its soft coverlets! For how many days had she wandered, without sight or word of her own people! Her thin, fine lips quivered unceasingly, while her blue eyes held a constant mist, seemingly haunted by some troubled spectre that pursued her ceaselessly.
Once she raised her hands feebly, then plucked at the coverlet with long, white fingers.
“What a death! oh, what a death!” she whispered, faintly.
After a long silence her voice raised itself to the pitch of one delirious.
“If I could see—” Her words came slowly and with difficulty, and she repeated them ramblingly. “If I could only see—a white face—a white—one of my own people. Oh, so long, and, oh me!—mamma, mamma!”
“Ah, dear lady,” said Aoi, “if you will but deign to rest I will go forth and endeavor to find some of your people. There are white people in the next town. It is not far—not very far, and perhaps, ah, surely, they will come to you.”
“My people,” the woman repeated. “No, no.” Her voice became hoarse. She started up in her bed. “You do not understand. I must never, never see them again. I could not bear it. They are cruel, wicked. No! Ah, you shall promise me—promise me.”
She fell back, exhausted from her transport of passion. Aoi knelt beside her and took her hands within her own.
“I will promise you whatever you wish, dear lady. Only speak your desires to me. I will humbly try to carry them out.”
The sick woman’s voice was so weak that she scarce could raise it above a whisper, but her words were plain.