The reply furnished food for the young man’s reflection.
It was evident to him, at least, that Alaska had known Hewitt in times when insanity was a stranger to her poor brain; but now, memory served her not—memory had deserted her with reason; but at intervals, as the reader has seen in the course of our romance, memory revisited her; but these visits were as fleeting as a sunbeam.
Again and again Mayne questioned her regarding the hermit, and her replies served to strengthen his belief, as given above. Perhaps she was the hermit’s wife, at least he thought that Hewitt half believed and feared thus, and an inward monitor told him that the coming night would behold the lifting of mystery’s curtain.
But he never dreamed the true and terrible revealment of that mystery.
He remained in the double wigwam until the dawn of twilight, when he left it unquestioned by Alaska.
Instead of making his way toward the knoll, where Oonalooska and the hermit awaited, with mingled anxiety and impatience, his appearance, he sauntered toward Eudora’s prison. Before the door sat the two guards, indulging one of their passions by gambling with little pebbles, after the sportive manner of American children, in the game called “Hull-gull handful.” The Indians were oblivious to all surrounding objects, and therefore the young man glided to the rear of the lodge unnoticed.
In a few words he acquainted Eudora with the plans, so far as he knew them, of rescue, and the maiden clasped her hands and prayed for the success of the attempt.
It made Mayne Fairfax happy to fill her heart with hope, and, elate with anticipated triumph, he left her, and hurried toward the knoll.
A few minutes later he stood before the twain, and without accident the trio gained the old Medicine’s lodge.