“Who knows?” Florence murmured dreamily.
Presently the big girl’s head fell forward. She slept, as the wild people before her had slept, sitting before the fire.
Greta did not wake her. “I will hear in time if there is any danger,” she told herself. She liked the feel of it all, the warmth of the fire on her face, the little breezes playing in her hair, her sleeping comrade, the night, the mysterious forest—all this seemed part of a new world to her. She smiled as she thought of her own soft bed at home with its bright covers and downy pillow. “Who would wish to live like that always?” she asked herself. “Who—”
Her thoughts snapped off like a radio singer who had been cut off. Wind was beginning to come down the bay and, wafted along by it was a sound, faint, indistinct but unmistakable.
“The phantom violin!” she whispered.
This time the sound came from so great a distance that it was but a teasing phantom of sound.
She wanted to slip away into the forest and follow the sound. But she dared not.
* * * * * * * *
Petite Jeanne was with her wild, free friends of other days. In the pale light of Japanese lanterns she danced with the bear the old fantastic dances of those other days. When it was over and she passed the tambourine for Bihari, a great weight of silver coins thumped into it. For a moment she was deliriously happy. When it was all over and she had rowed alone in a small boat out to the center of the narrow bay, her feelings changed. For one short moment she wished herself back on the wreck with Florence and Greta.
“But I must not!” She pulled herself up short. “Bihari and his people have done much for me. I must not fail them now.