第6章

He had sat thus a hundred times,as aimlessly blinking at the vast possibilities of the shining sea beyond,turning his back upon the nearer and more practicable mountains,lulled by the far-off beating of monotonous rollers,the lonely cry of the curlew and plover,the drowsy changes of alternate breaths of cool,fragrant reeds and warm,spicy sands that blew across his eyelids,and succumbed to sleep,as he had done a hundred times before.The narrow strips of colored cloth,insignia of his dignity,flapped lazily from his tent-poles,and at last seemed to slumber with him;the shadows of the leaf-tracery thrown by the bay-tree,on the ground at his feet,scarcely changed its pattern.Nothing moved but the round,restless,berry-like eyes of Wachita,his child-wife,the former heroine of the incident with the captive packers,who sat near her lord,armed with a willow wand,watchful of intruding wasps,sand-flies,and even the more ostentatious advances of a rotund and clerical-looking humble-bee,with his monotonous homily.Content,dumb,submissive,vacant,at such times,Wachita,debarred her husband's confidences through the native customs and his own indifferent taciturnity,satisfied herself by gazing at him with the wondering but ineffectual sympathy of a faithful dog.

Unfortunately for Elijah her purely mechanical ministration could not prevent a more dangerous intrusion upon his security.

He awoke with a light start,and eyes that gradually fixed upon the woman a look of returning consciousness.Wachita pointed timidly to the village below.

"The Messenger of the Great White Father has come to-day,with his wagons and horses;he would see the chief of the Minyos,but Iwould not disturb my lord."

Elijah's brow contracted.Relieved of its characteristic metaphor,he knew that this meant that the new Indian agent had made his usual official visit,and had exhibited the usual anxiety to see the famous chieftain.

"Good!"he said."White Rabbit [his lieutenant]will see the Messenger and exchange gifts.It is enough.""The white messenger has brought his wangee [white]woman with him.

They would look upon the face of him who hides it,"continued Wachita,dubiously."They would that Wachita should bring them nearer to where my lord is,that they might see him when he knew it not."Elijah glanced moodily at his wife,with the half suspicion with which he still regarded her alien character."Then let Wachita go back to the squaws and old women,and let her hide herself with them until the wangee strangers are gone,"he said curtly."I have spoken.Go!"Accustomed to these abrupt dismissals,which did not necessarily indicate displeasure,Wachita disappeared without a word.Elijah,who had risen,remained for a few moments leaning against the tent-poles,gazing abstractedly toward the sea.The bees droned uninterruptedly in his ears,the far-off roll of the breakers came to him distinctly;but suddenly,with greater distinctness,came the murmur of a woman's voice.

"He don't look savage a bit!Why,he's real handsome.""Hush!you--"said a second voice,in a frightened whisper.

"But if he DID hear he couldn't understand,"returned the first voice.A suppressed giggle followed.

Luckily,Elijah's natural and acquired habits of repression suited the emergency.He did not move,although he felt the quick blood fly to his face,and the voice of the first speaker had suffused him with a strange and delicious anticipation.He restrained himself,though the words she had naively dropped were filling him with new and tremulous suggestion.He was motionless,even while he felt that the vague longing and yearning which had possessed him hitherto was now mysteriously taking some unknown form and action.

The murmuring ceased.The humble-bees'drone again became ascendant--a sudden fear seized him.She was GOING;he should never see her!While he had stood there a dolt and sluggard,she had satisfied her curiosity and stolen away.With a sudden yielding to impulse,he darted quickly in the direction where he had heard her voice.The thicket moved,parted,crackled,and rustled,and then undulated thirty feet before him in a long wave,as if from the passage of some lithe,invisible figure.But at the same moment a little cry,half of alarm,half of laughter,broke from his very feet,and a bent manzanito-bush,relaxed by frightened fingers,flew back against his breast.Thrusting it hurriedly aside,his stooping,eager face came almost in contact with the pink,flushed cheeks and tangled curls of a woman's head.He was so near,her moist and laughing eyes almost drowned his eager glance;her parted lips and white teeth were so close to his that her quick breath took away his own.

She had dropped on one knee,as her companion fled,expecting he would overlook her as he passed,but his direct onset had extracted the feminine outcry.Yet even then she did not seem greatly frightened.

"It's only a joke,sir,"she said,coolly lifting herself to her feet by grasping his arm."I'm Mrs.Dall,the Indian agent's wife.