Towaye drank, and drank again. Gyll peered out and saw his head fall back slowly as, gradually inverting the bottle until it stood bottom up, he drained its contents to the dregs.
At this moment Gyll Croyden did an unaccountable thing. Raising her bound hands to the crown of her head, she surprised Eleanor by untying a short scarlet ribbon that confined her hair, and instantly a radiant cascade of gold rippled and rioted downward, completely enveloping her. “Watch now a piece of play-acting. ’Twould delight Kyt’s heart.”
Towaye rose and entered the arbor. His features were distinctly visible, for the fire, being on the ground partly to one side of the opening, cast its gleam up even to the roof of grapes and obliquely athwart the intruder’s face. His hands, now empty, were half outstretched, palms forward, fingers bent as though to grasp something.
Eleanor drew back with a cry of terror. For a moment the dark form, naked save for an apron of deerskin, stood motionless. Then, with a guttural monosyllable in his own tongue, Towaye started forward. Slowly Gyll arose and faced him. The fire, with a final high flare, lit up her hair. The long tresses, falling in ripples below her knees and completely veiling her face, shone like a flood of sunlight. But for the minute his savage eyes and heavy steps were directed to Eleanor.
Gyll spoke, and the Indian stopped short to look at her. “Towaye,” she said, in a voice that sounded far away behind the golden curtain of her hair, “hark! You stand before the Daughter of the Sun. Advance no farther, or the fire that inflames your brain shall burn your body also.” She paused. Her knowledge of Indian theology was hopelessly scant and indefinite. She had heard that somewhere, in some part of this vast America, there was a people who worshipped the sun. Might not a like heliolatry be induced here, even though the Hatteras tribe acknowledged no such deity? “I, the Daughter of the Sun, command you! Leave me!” She thrust her hands through the shining locks and held them aloft as though to weave a spell. “See, Towaye. Even now the spell of the Sun enthralls thee. Thy legs tremble and waver.” She swayed slightly to and fro to increase his own unsteadiness. “Thy brain whirls as the flame of a camp-fire. Thy thoughts clutch at dreams. In an instant thou shalt be consumed.”
The Indian groaned and staggered backward. Her voice came lower. “Leave me, Towaye! The Daughter of the Sun hath spoken!”
He stepped back, until his knees weakened suddenly and he sank moaning to the ground. His head lay against the viny side of the natural doorway; his gleaming body stretched across the threshold. Long the heavy lids blinked with a great effort to keep awake; but the mind, utterly unaccustomed to the fumes of wine, succumbed at last. He fell asleep.
Gyll pulled her skirts above the knee, and, beckoning to her companion, would have stepped over the prone figure had not Eleanor detained her. “It cannot last. We shall lose ourselves in the woods and he will readily overtake us. Then—”
“Ay, you are right,” said Gyll. “I had not thought of that; ’twould indeed be madness.” And the two women, once more seating themselves in a corner, surveyed the human barrier before them.
As the firelight waned, Gyll lay on her back again, looking up at the tracery of interlaced grape-vines which were now but vague arabesques on the leafy ceiling. The Indian’s head rested on a similar vine, which formed a pendent arc, a shadowy crescent, beneath his neck. With a sidelong glance at the recumbent figure, and particularly at the head’s posture, Gyll saw that the low-hanging vine on which the cranium rested was about three inches thick and very strong; moreover, it was braided like a woman’s hair. “Like a woman’s hair.” Several times her thoughts repeated the simile, and grew more daring with the repetition. She whispered to Eleanor, and then, a second time lifting her skirts well above the knee, stepped over Towaye and out of the arbor. Her tread was wonderfully light and soundless. Near the fire she stooped and picked up something from the ground that lay near a birch bow and a bundle of flint-headed arrows. Eleanor saw her bending figure, the petticoats still raised to prevent their rustling on the leaves, the red silk hose, the golden cataract of hair, and remembered that picture always.