“On through the wood. Thanks be to God, I was born in the Forest.”
Chapter XXXIX
Mellis knew the ways, and through all the heat of the day she guided Martin southwards toward the Rondel river, picking up the wild tracks and never faltering in her choice. They kept to the woods, and avoided the open heaths, sometimes following a brown stream that flickered under the green shadows and leaving it when it left the woods. Not a living creature did they see save a few deer far down a deep glade, a hawk searching for food, and once, a gray-green snake basking on a bank in the sun.
A gloom seemed to have fallen on the Forest, and even the young foliage looked darker, heavier, less bright with the freshness of spring. The open woods were full of a listening sadness, a mysterious expectancy; for Death was out, Death and the Lord of Troy. Yet Mellis was touched by no such melancholy, no sinister forebodings; her man’s life was in her hands, her eyes were keen and watchful; danger gave a sparkle to her beauty; the day’s need steadied her heart.
Martin Valliant watched her, and marveled. He forgot his wounds in looking at her forest-shaded face with its clean, clear comeliness, its alert, proud self-trust. There was nothing more wonderful than her eyes and the way they filled with light when meeting his. Their color seemed so elusive, changing from blue to black, and sometimes they were all a-glimmer like water touched by the sun. He looked at her lips, her white throat, her hair, the hands that held the reins, and had to tell himself that she was his. Every part of her seemed a piece of enchantment. She was so fair in his eyes that the thought of touching her seemed sacrilege.
He found her smiling at him shyly.
“Have we lost our tongues, dear man?”
“So much has happened, and you——”
“And I?”
“Sometimes I think that you do not belong to this world, that you will vanish away.”