As she hastened before me among the trees of the garden, and, later, when she stood and waited for me on the verandah steps, looking down between the clustering vines, I thought that any man, no matter how poetical, was a fool to fall in love with the beauty depicted on a stone, when the world of living things contained such loveliness in the flesh. Truly it was as Kahikatea had said: the woman who had conceived the image of Hinauri and reproduced it upon the stone could not have borne an unlovely child. Yet to say that Crystal Grey was “not unlovely” would be a very inadequate description. More positive statements than that would have fallen from lips more matter-of-fact than mine. If eyes were made for seeing, then Crystal Grey had her own excuse for being, as someone somewhere sings, but if words were made for description, the subtle charm of this child of dreams could find no vehicle but music.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE CHIEF OF THE VILE TOHUNGAS.
Having made up his mind to accompany me with his daughter on our search expedition, Dreamer Grey began setting his sheep-run and his household matters in order, in view of an absence which might prove prolonged. It was necessary to engage a competent manager to look after things, and this meant a delay of at least a week, which, however, would afford ample time to prepare for the journey. During the first two or three days of this week I saw much of Grey, helping him with his sheep and various other things that had to be seen to. As a consequence we got to know and trust each other well.
Tiki, who worshipped ‘the little maiden’ as if she were a divine being, and, when she spoke to him in his own tongue, replied invariably with a mixture of acquired politeness and native poetry, half comical, half grand to listen to, had made himself and me thoroughly uneasy about that taepo he had seen in Cazotl’s boat. With the wisdom of a savage, who, long accustomed to intertribal wars, knows almost intuitively when he is being tracked, if not why, Tiki had it firmly fastened in his mind that the people on the yacht ought to be watched. As I had not informed Tiki of my suspicion that we had been tracked along the whole course of our journey, I regarded his independent view more seriously than if he had known and exaggerated my own weird feeling in regard to that wizened negro.
“Very well, Tiki,” I said, the day after our arrival, when he spoke about it, “if you think ‘the little maiden’ is in danger from those people you might keep your eye on them.”
He needed no second permission. From that time I saw very little of him for several days, but I knew he was keeping a strict eye on the movements of Cazotl and his crew. It was not until the evening of the fourth day after our arrival that my suspicions received verification, and his watchfulness nearly cost him his life.
In the evening of that day, when Grey was busy with some correspondence in his library, I strolled down into the garden, where I knew I should find Crystal, for I had seen her go out some time before with her sketching book. I had dreams of a heaven on earth—indeed, I should have been less than human if more than three days had passed over my heart without bringing my ‘love at first sight’ to a stage in which I felt that the garden where Crystal moved and had her being was a sacred place. Sweetness lingered in the air. The dreamy trees, as they rolled in the summer zephyrs, made music which could not be written down; the rustic retreat beneath the hazels was full of an influence which I can only describe as the presence of angels lingering in an atmosphere which has been purified for them. Sitting here alone late at night, I had been able to cast aside the littleness of my life and feel that by right of an ennobling love I might remain there awhile on sufferance. I was aware that a great change had taken place in me. A new world had sprung into being, and the splendour of its sun, moon, and stars was centred in Crystal.
It was with a feeling that all this must soon come to an avowal of love, as surely as water boils at a given temperature, that I sought her that evening in the garden; and, I reflected, it would in all probability reach a sudden end just as surely as the same water under different conditions freezes at a given degree, for in all sober reason, who or what was I to deserve the love of such a girl? But I went to find her all the same, and making my way to the retreat beneath the nut-trees, held aside the leaves about the entrance and looked in.
Crystal was sitting in the wicker chair with an open book on her knees. Her hat was laid aside, and a wisp of her raven hair, fanned loose from the good-natured mass, half screened her cheek.
“May I come in?” I asked.