With a cry of anguish Cabot clasped the tiny form to his breast and covered it with kisses. But it gave back no response; it was cold and stiff.
For a long time he stayed with his dead. He examined the little toes, with which, but for this cruel civil war, he might have played, “This little pig went to market.” He chafed one tiny hand, and wrapped all its little fingers around a finger of his own, fondly picturing himself as strolling in the castle garden with a little toddler at his side. He knelt by the altar and talked baby talk to the little dead darling. Then wept bitterly and cursed the pride which had kept him from his child in its hour of need.
And what of Lilla, more precious to him than this infant whom he had never known? Very evidently she had been taken prisoner rather than killed. Perhaps Yuri would hold her as a hostage, as the price of Cupian surrender. Or more likely he would force her to marry him, as soon as he could dispose of her husband. Whichever was his plan, it behooved Myles to remain alive for Lilla’s sake.
If Myles’ own grief could be so sharp at the death of a baby whom he had never known, how much more bitter must have been the grief of her who had held this child warm and gurgling to her breast! And in addition, she was now the captive of the murderer of her father, of her babe, and—for all that she knew—of her husband.
Poor dear girl! Cabot roused himself and, clasping the little form close to his breast, carried it outside, and by the light of his flash, dug for it a shallow grave in the castle courtyard. Over the grave he said a Christian prayer, the mound he covered with flowers, and at the head he placed a rude cross.
The problem remained to reach the troops to the northward, and now for the first time he realized his own predicament. Undoubtedly the shore of Lake Luno was already thickly lined with ants, whose airplanes would certainly start dropping bombs on the island as soon as it was daylight. They might even attack by boat, but he rather thought that they respected his rifle too much for this. At all events, what possible chance was there for him ever to escape this trap?
But trap or no trap, northward again he must go, for it was only by reaching his army that he could learn the fate of his princess.
Nothward again! After he had thought he had reached his journey’s end. The word “northward” had already seared itself into his very soul during his interminable quest for Luno Castle, and yet now he must travel north once more.
If only he could travel east, or in some other direction than north!