Marianson | Page 4

the world who could so draw her. What was the power? Had women elsewhere felt it? At that thought she had a pang of anguish and rage altogether new to her. Marianson was tender even in her amusements; her benevolence extended to dumb cattle; but in the hidden darkness of her consciousness she found herself choosing the Sioux for him, rather than a woman.
Once he half raised his head, but again let it sink to its rest. Marianson grew faint; and as the light waned at the cave mouth she remembered she had not eaten anything that day. The fast made her seem fit to say prayers, and she said all she knew over his head, like a mother brooding.
He startled her by sitting up, without warning, fully roused and alert.
"What time is it?" inquired the boy.
"Look at the door. The sun has long been behind the trees."
"Have I slept all day?"
"Perhaps."
"And have you heard no sound of battle?"
"It has been still as the village street during mass."
"What, then, have they done, those English? They must have taken the fort without firing a gun. And the Sioux-you have not seen him?"
"Nothing has passed the cave door, not even a chipmunk."
He stretched his arms upward into the hollow, standing tall and well made, his buckskin shirt turned back from his neck.
"I am again hungry."
"I also," said Marianson. "I have not eaten anything to-day."
Her companion dropped on his knees before her and took out of her hands the food she had ready. His face expressed shame and compunction as he fed her himself, offering bites to her mouth with gentle persistence. She laughed the laugh peculiar to herself, and pushed his hand back to his own lips. So they ate together, and afterwards drank from the same cup. Marianson showed him where the drops came down, and he gathered them, smiling at her from the depths of the cave. They heard the evening cawing of crows, and the waters rushing with a wilder wash on the beach.
"I will bring more bread and meat when I come back," promised Marianson--"unless the English have burned the house."
"No. When it is dark I will leave the cave myself," said the voyageur. "Is there any boat near by that I can take to escape in from the island?"
"There is my boat. But it is at the post."
"How far are we from the post?"
"It is not so far if one might cross the island; but to go by the west shore, which would be safest, perhaps, in time of war, that is the greater part of the island's girth."
They drew near together as they murmured, and at intervals he held the cup to her lips, making up for his forgetfulness when benumbed with sleep.
"One has but to follow the shore, however," said the boy. "And where can I find the boat?"
"You cannot find it at all."
"But," he added, with sudden recollection, "I could never return it again."
Marianson saw on the cave's rough wall a vision of her boat carrying him away. Her own little craft, the sail of which she knew how to trim--her bird, her flier, her food-winner--was to become her robber.
"When the war is over," she ventured, "then you might come back."
He began to explain difficulties like an honest lad, and she stopped him. "I do not want to know anything. I want you to take my boat."
He put the cup down and seized her hands and kissed them. She crouched against the cave's side, her eyes closed. If he was only grateful to her for bread and shelter and means of escape, it was little enough she received, but his warm touch and his lips on her palms--for he kissed her palms--made her none the less dizzy.
"Listen to me," said Marianson. "If I give you my boat, you must do exactly as I bid you."
"I promise."
"You must stay here until I bring it to you. I am going at once."
"But you cannot go alone in the dark. You are a woman--you will be afraid."
"Never in my life have I been afraid."
"But there are Indians on the war-path now."
"They will be in camp or drunk at the post. Your Sioux has left this part of the island. He may come back by morning, but he would not camp away from so much plunder. Sioux cannot be unlike our Chippewas. Do you think," demanded Marianson, "that you will be quite, quite safe in the cave?"
Her companion laughed.
"If I find the cave unsafe I can leave it; but you in the dark alone--you must let me go with you."
"No; the risk is too great. It is better for me to go alone. I know every rock, every bend of the shore. The pull back around the island will be hardest, if there is not enough wind."
"I go