The Indian, who, thanks to his sojourn in England, understood their language, considered the question for a minute; then, evidently suspecting that Gyll thus sought to obtain a weapon, smiled craftily, laid down the meat, and proceeded to cut it up with a knife of Frazer’s resembling a Toledo poniard. Next, taking the pieces in his fingers, he piled them on a pewter plate which he drew from the pannier, and offered his guests the savory dish with a grunt of hospitality.
Again Gyll laughed. “But our hands are tied.”
Towaye shrugged his shoulders, and, squatting on the ground, held his wrists together, then raised the dark fingers to his lips. “This way,” he said, “prisoners eat.” And now, turning away, he busied himself in preparing his own meal of venison.
Gyll, with a wry face, stood upon her feet, and, reaching to the low roof, plucked a bunch of grapes—necessarily with both hands at once—which she offered to Eleanor. Then, having provided herself with another cluster, she sat down again and bit off the grapes one by one, with evident relish. Eleanor, however, only looked out listlessly to the crackling fire, her hands clasped, her fingers intertwined with feverish strength. Tears fell slowly on the forgotten fruit in her lap, causing it to shine like a cluster of inestimable rubies in the firelight. Her face, even now like a child’s, but very spiritual for all its witchery, was more sad than fearful, more given over to an expression of deep distress and hopelessness than to terror and apprehension. Her hazel eyes, moist and lustrous, seemed to have gained a new depth, which for the first time reached to her very soul. Their look was a prayer. “My little one, my little Virginia,” again and again she repeated inwardly, half to herself and half to a Higher Power—“My little Virginia.” Like the dull surge of heavy, monotonous surf, her thoughts beat upon her brain, now in comprehending supplication, now in mere unconscious repetition, until suddenly the despair of her eyes became less passive and more intense. Another name sprang into the ceaseless, unutterable murmur and all but escaped her pale lips—“John Vytal.”
Gyll Croyden lay, with elbows on the ground and chin in hand, watching her. The two faces presented a striking contrast, Eleanor’s as we have seen it, Gyll’s an almost indescribable paradox, so suggestive was it of contradictory emotions. The whole expression showed, first, that she had utterly forgotten her plight and surroundings. Eleanor’s face absorbed her thoughts, thoughts which were, apparently, at odds. In her unaccustomed silence there was consideration of her companion’s feelings; in her eyes an unmistakable admiration and kind of wonder; while about the corners of her mouth a look of ironical amusement played unforbidden. Adding an expression more serious—if the word is permissible in connection with so gay a face—her brows were contracted defiantly. And, stranger than all, a keen observer would have noted an unwonted sadness, very subtle, that lay neither in this feature nor in that, but rather, as it were, behind them all.
At last, however, the defiance assumed sway; the consideration was forgotten. “Kyt says all men love thee,” she observed, critically; “now, wherefore, I wonder?” and, as Eleanor turned to her in silent surprise, “Wherefore do they love thee? Thou hast no merry jest of good comradeship, nor yet those subtler, intoxicating ways to madden a man and enslave him. See! hast ever looked at men like this?” She tossed her curls back and smiled roguishly, with a full consciousness of her beauty. “Or this?” She leaned forward, arms outstretched languorously, lips slightly parted, lashes drooping, as though to veil and soften the light of her eyes. And the eyes were now shimmering, alluring, full of a mystic, though physical, enthralment.
Eleanor drew back, with a tremor of repulsion.
“Oh, you recoil,” said Gyll, laughing, with a somewhat hollow mirth; then, mockingly: “And why should you hold aloof? ’Tis better to be a woman than a statue—and not so wonderful a statue, after all. Believe me, ’tis the mere poetry of the thing entrances addle-pated Kyt—the mere delusion. ’Tis the rhythm wherewith he describes you to himself. He writes of you in plays, he calls you so-and-so in this and that. ’Tis all fancy. There is no real you. Indeed, I doubt if you are more than a dream to any man. Now, I am an actual, vivid desire.” And so she prattled on until, at last pausing, as the firelight grew dimmer, she stretched out her arms and buried her head in them on Frazer’s cloak.
Eleanor’s eyes, cast down on the graceful figure, grew more tender. “I am so sorry for you,” she said, “poor—” but Gyll had sprung to her feet.
“Sorry? Sorry?” she demanded, with railing sarcasm. “Your sympathies, Mistress Dare, would better be directed toward yourself. Sorry! Oh—and poor! Hast never seen my wardrobe—the rich broidered stomacher, the rare silk and sarsanet, the fine linen of my smocks, the gold-fringed roundels, drawn out with cypress, the silken simar lined with furs? Methinks the governor’s lofty daughter herself has no such raiment. And then the ear-rings of silver and pearl, the necklaces—oh, poor! An this be poverty, I rest content to be a pauper. Poor, indeed! Poor!” and she laughed as at an absurdity.