Marianson | Page 4

a girl. Under the spell of his unconscious domination,
she did not care about his past. Her own past was nothing. She had
arrived in the present. Time stood still. His face was turned towards her,
and she studied all its curves, yet knew if he had other features he
would still be the one person in 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