She turned and moved nearer him.
“Nearer, Ewana,” he said, when she had paused; “the pale flower must not hear what I have to say.”
This drew the red girl to the edge of the couch, where she paused and looked inquiringly down into the Briton’s face.
“What would the scarlet soldier of the king have with Ewana?” she asked, while the major, for a moment thrown from his plots by her radiant, voluptuous loveliness, was contemplating her face, the fairest one save that which he coveted he had ever met in the forest.
“I want to tell Ewana that Wacomet’s tongue has traveled from the trail of truth.”
She shot him a look of indignation, and he saw the flood of jealousy rise in her dark orbs, as she glanced at the pale-faced sleeper.
“It can not be,” she murmured; “Wacomet has lived with Ewana for many moons, yet has his tongue never wandered from the truthful trail.”
“There are times when the best red-skins are false,” continued Runnion, “and this is one of Wacomet’s false times. Now I will tell you the truth, Ewana.”
The narration that followed need not be written here, though the substance might not prove uninteresting. The major dwelt at length, though bespoke rapidly, on Wacomet’s passion for Effie St. Pierre, how he had been driven from the trading-post at the muzzle of old Mitre’s rifle—how he had sworn to make the white girl his bride to the total exclusion of his red mistress, whom he no doubt intended to assassinate when the proper time should arrive. All this Rudolph Runnion poured into the ears of the red girl, whose jealous passions were so aroused that she drew a tiny knife from her bosom, and hissed into the Briton’s ear:
“The Pale Flower shall not nestle on Wacomet’s cheek when he returns; he shall find her withered, beautiful no longer, as cold as the white flowers that grow by the frozen rivers.”