She removed the string from her neck and by it pulled the small embossed case from her bosom, shook out the few rings and unset stones left in it, and returned the larger jewels to it, and gave it into his hand, still warm from its soft resting place. At the same moment Harry arrived, leading the animals. He lifted his head courageously and his eyes shone as with an inspiration.
“Will you let me accompany you a bit of the way, sir? I’d like to go.” Larry accepted gladly. He knew then what he would do with Amalia’s dowry. “Then I’ll bring Goldbug. Thank you, Amalia, yes. I’ll drink my coffee 248 now, and eat as I ride.” He ran back for his horse and soon returned, and then drank his coffee and snatched a bite, while Amalia and Larry slung the bags of food and the water on the mule and made all ready for the start. As he ate, he tried to arouse and encourage the mother, but she remained stolid until they were in the saddle, when she rose and followed them a few steps, and said in her deep voice: “Yes, I ask a thing. You will find Paul, my ’usband. Tell him to come to me––it is best––no more,––I cannot in English.” Then turning to her daughter she spoke volubly in her own tongue, and waved her hand imperiously toward the men.
“Yes, mamma. I tell all you say.” Amalia took a step away from the door, and her mother returned to her seat by the fire.
“It is so sad. My mother thinks my father is returned to our own country and that you go there. She thinks you are our friend Sir McBride in disguise, and that you go to help my father. She fears you will be taken and sent to Siberia, and says tell my father it is enough. He must no more try to save our fatherland: that our noblemen are full of ingratitude, and that he must return to her and live hereafter in peace.”
“Let be so. It’s a saving hallucination. Tell her if I find your father, I will surely deliver the message.” And the two men rode away up the trail, conversing earnestly.
Larry Kildene explained to Harry about the jewels, and turned them over to his keeping. “I had to take them, you see. You hide them in that chamber I showed you, along with the gold bars. Hang it around your neck, man, until 249 you get back. It has rested on her bosom, and if I were a young man like you, that fact alone would make it sacred to me. It’s her dowry, she said. I’d sooner part with my right hand than take it from her.”
“So would I.” Harry took the case tenderly, and hid it as directed, and went on to ask the favor he had accompanied Larry to ask. It was that he might go down and bring the box from the wagon.
“Early this morning, before I woke you, I led the brown horse you brought the mother up the mountain on out toward the trail; we’ll find him over the ridge, all packed ready, and when I ran back for my horse, I left a letter written in charcoal on the hearth there in the shed––Amalia will be sure to go there and find it, if I don’t return now––telling her what I’m after and that I’ll only be gone a few days. She’s brave, and can get along without us.” Larry did not reply at once, and Harry continued.
“It will only take us a day and a half to reach it, and with your help, a sling can be made of the canvas top of the wagon, and the two animals can ‘tote it’ as the darkies down South say. I can walk back up the trail, or even ride one of the horses. We’ll take the tongue and the reach from the wagon and make a sort of affair to hang to the beasts, I know how it can be done. There may not be much of value in the box, but then––there may be. I see Amalia wishes it of all things, and that’s enough for––us.”
Thus it came that the two women were alone for five days. Madam Manovska did not seem to heed the absence of the two men at first, and waited in a contentment she had not shown before. It would seem that, as Larry had 250 said, there was saving in her hallucination, but Amalia was troubled by it.