The Bridge of the Gods Part 19

The sight was painful to Cecil, and he too went away while the game was at its height. Drawn by an influence that he could not resist, he took the trail that led down the bank of the river to the retreat of Wallulah.

CHAPTER V.

A DEAD QUEEN'S JEWELS.

For round about the walls yclothed were With goodly arras of great maiesty, Woven with golde and silke so close and nere That the rich metall lurked privily.

_The Faerie Queene._

He found the sentinels by the pathway half reluctant to let him pa.s.s, but they did not forbid him. Evidently it was only their awe of him as the "Great White Prophet," to whom Multnomah had added the dignity of an Indian sachem, that overcame their scruples. It was with a sense of doing wrong that he went on. "If Multnomah knew," he thought, "what would he do?" And brave as Cecil was, he shuddered, thinking how deadly the wrath of the war-chief would be, if he knew of these secret visits to his daughter.

"It is an abuse of hospitality; it is clandestine, wrong," he thought bitterly. "And yet she is lonely, she needs me, and I must go to her; but I will never go again."

Where he had met her before, he found her waiting for him now, a small, graceful figure, standing in the shadow of the wood. She heard his footsteps before he saw her, and the melancholy features were transfigured with joy. She stood hesitating a moment like some shy creature of the forest, then sprang eagerly forward to meet him.

"I knew you were coming!" she cried rapturously. "I felt your approach long before I heard your footsteps."

"How is that?" said Cecil, holding her hands and looking down into her radiant eyes. Something of the wild Indian mysticism flashed in them as she replied:

"I cannot tell; I knew it! my spirit heard your steps long before my ears could catch the sound. But oh!" she cried in sudden transition, her face darkening, her eyes growing large and pathetic, "why did you not come yesterday? I so longed for you and you did not come. It seemed as if the day would never end. I thought that perhaps the Indians had killed you; I thought it might be that I should never see you again; and all the world grew dark as night, I felt so terribly alone. Promise me you will never stay away so long again!"

"Never!" exclaimed Cecil, on the impulse of the moment. An instant later he would have given the world to have recalled the word.

"I am so glad!" she cried, clapping her hands in girlish delight; and he could not pain her by an explanation.

"After a while I will tell her how impossible it is for me to come again," he thought. "I cannot tell her now." And he seized upon every word and look of the lovely unconscious girl, with a hunger of heart born of eight years' starvation.

"Now you must come with me to my lodge; you are my guest, and I shall entertain you. I want you to look at my treasures."

Cecil went with her, wondering if they would meet Multnomah at her lodge, and if so, what he would say. He felt that he was doing wrong, yet so sweet was it to be in her presence, so much did her beauty fill the mighty craving of his nature, that it was not possible for him to tear himself away.

Some fifteen minutes' walk brought them to Wallulah's lodge. It was a large building, made of bark set upright against a frame-work of poles, and roofed with cedar boards,--in its external appearance like all Willamette lodges. Several Indian girls, neatly dressed and of more than ordinary intelligence, were busied in various employments about the yard. They looked in surprise at the white man and their mistress, but said nothing. The two entered the lodge. Cecil muttered an exclamation of amazement as he crossed the threshold.

The interior was a glow of color, a bower of richness. Silken tapestries draped and concealed the bark walls; the floor of trodden earth was covered with a superbly figured carpet. It was like the hall of some Asiatic palace. Cecil looked at Wallulah, and her eyes sparkled with merriment at his bewildered expression. "I knew you would be astonished," she cried. "Is not this as fair as anything in your own land? No, wait till I show you another room!"

She led the way to an inner apartment, drew back the tapestry that hung over the doorway, and bade him enter.

Never, not even at St. James or at Versailles, had he seen such magnificence. The rich many-hued products of Oriental looms covered the rough walls; the carpet was like a cus.h.i.+on; mirrors sparkling with gems reflected his figure; luxurious divans invited to repose.

Everywhere his eye met graceful draperies and artistically blended colors. Silk and gold combined to make up a scene that was like a dream of fable. Cecil's dazzled eyes wandered over all this splendor, then came back to Wallulah's face again.

"I have seen nothing like this in my own land, not even in the King's palace. How came such beautiful things here among the Indians?"

"They were saved from the vessel that was wrecked. They were my mother's, and she had them arranged thus. This was her lodge. It is mine now. I have never entered any other. I have never been inside an Indian wigwam. My mother forbade it, for fear that I might grow like the savage occupants."

Cecil knew now how she had preserved her grace and refinement amid her fierce and squalid surroundings. Again her face changed and the wistful look came back. Her wild delicate nature seemed to change every moment, to break out in a hundred varying impulses.

"I love beautiful things," she said, drawing a fold of tapestry against her cheek. "They seem half human. I love to be among them and feel their influence. These were my mother's, and it seems as if part of her life was in them. Sometimes, after she died, I used to shut my eyes and put my cheek against the soft hangings and try to think it was the touch of her hand; or I would read from her favorite poets and try to think that I heard her repeating them to me again!"

"Read!" exclaimed Cecil; "then you have books?"

"Oh, yes, I will show you all my treasures."

She went into another apartment and returned with a velvet case and a richly enchased casket. She opened the case and took out several rolls of parchment.

"Here they are, my dear old friends, that have told me so many beautiful things."

Cecil unrolled them with a scholar's tenderness. Their touch thrilled him; it was touching again some familiar hand parted from years ago.

The parchments were covered with strange characters, in a language entirely unknown to him. The initial letters were splendidly illuminated, the margins ornamented with elaborate designs. Cecil gazed on the scrolls, as one who loves music but who is ignorant of its technicalities might look at a sonata of Beethoven or an opera of Wagner, and be moved by its suggested melodies.

"I cannot read it," he said a little sadly.

"Sometime I will teach you," she replied; "and you shall teach me your own language, and we will talk in it instead of this wretched Indian tongue."

"Tell me something about it now," asked Cecil, still gazing at the unknown lines.

"Not now, there is so much else to talk about; but I will to-morrow."

To-morrow! The word pierced him like a knife. For him, a missionary among barbarians, for her, the betrothed of a savage chief, the morrow could bring only parting and woe; the sweet, fleeting present was all they could hope for. For them there could be no to-morrow. Wallulah, however, did not observe his dejection. She had opened the casket, and now placed it between them as they sat together on the divan. One by one, she took out the contents and displayed them. A magnificent necklace of diamonds, another of pearls; rings, brooches, jewelled bracelets, flashed their splendor on him. Totally ignorant of their great value, she showed them only with a true woman's love of beautiful things, showed them as artlessly as if they were but pretty sh.e.l.ls or flowers.

"Are they not bright?" she would say, holding them up to catch the light. "How they sparkle!"

One she took up a little reluctantly. It was an opal, a very fine one.

She held it out, turning it in the light, so that he might see the splendid jewel glow and pale.

"Is it not lovely?" she said; "like sun-tints on the snow. But my mother said that in her land it is called the stone of misfortune. It is beautiful, but it brings trouble with it."

He saw her fingers tremble nervously as they held it, and she dropped it from them hurriedly into the casket, as if it were some bright poisonous thing she dreaded to touch.

After a while, when Cecil had sufficiently admired the stones, she put them back into the casket and took it and the parchments away. She came back with her flute, and seating herself, looked at him closely.

"You are sad; there are heavy thoughts on your mind. How is that? He who brings me suns.h.i.+ne must not carry a shadow on his own brow. Why are you troubled?"

The trouble was that he realized now, and was compelled to acknowledge to himself, that he loved this gentle, clinging girl, with a pa.s.sionate love; that he yearned to take her in his arms and shelter her from the terrible savagery before her; and that he felt it could not, must not be.

"It is but little," he replied. "Every heart has its burden, and perhaps I have mine. It is the lot of man."

She looked at him with a vague uneasiness; her susceptible nature responded dimly to the tumultuous emotions that he was trying by force of will to shut up in his own heart.

"Trouble? Oh, do I not know how bitter it is! Tell me, what do your people do when they have trouble? Do they cut off their hair and blacken their faces, as the Indians do, when they lose one they love?"

"No, they would scorn to do anything so degrading. He is counted bravest who makes the least display of grief and yet always cherishes a tender remembrance of the dead."

"So would I. My mother forbade me to cut off my hair or blacken my face when she died, and so I did not, though some of the Indians thought me bad for not doing so. And your people are not afraid to talk of the dead?"