Their Mariposa Legend | Page 9

did but use my eyes during their everlasting pow-wow. Surely ye would not grudge me that! And the maid is comely, well worth a trinket from thy store. Besides," he laughed slyly, "I saw e'en more to thine interest, for methinks the princess is as much in love with thy looks as art thou with hers."
"Silence, fool! Thou hast said more than enough already. Think'st thou the son of a duke royal would look at a brown-skinned savage, an unbelieving pagan, no matter how comely, as thou call'st it, she might be!"
But the flush remained, nevertheless, on the dark cheek of the young nobleman as he strode angrily from the deck.

The moonlight had laid a quivering path of light across the water before Wildenai raised her bowed head from the ground. But, at length, drawing her blanket more closely about her, for into the night air the chill of the ocean had crept, she was about to leave the cave when a sudden sound from the beach below arrested her. For a moment she listened in silence while the shout was repeated, then stood dumb with amazement. A third time it came to her, borne on the rising wind, the terrified cry of a man in dire distress. Nor was it one of her own people who thus called out of the darkness for help. Swiftly she ran to an overhanging ledge of rock from which, by lying flat and peeping over, she could, without exposing herself, command a wide view of the sea.
At the first glance there appeared to be nothing amiss. Far beneath her the noisy breakers spilled in liquid silver on the beach. Above their musical booming no other sound could be heard. Then suddenly she saw him. A tiny boat it was, tossing dangerously close to the great rounded boulder which, together with a still larger one from which it had at some distant time been broken off, formed the outermost boundary of the curving Beach of Moons. The dark figure standing erect in the boat strove with the aid of an oar to keep it from being dashed to pieces against the giant rock. Again there floated up to her the desperate call for help. The voice was that of the English noble!
Instantly the girl sprang to her feet, and without the slightest hesitation ran lightly down the perilous incline, leaping fearlessly from rock to rock, until, within a few seconds, she stood poised above the seething surf on the top of the larger boulder. Here, balancing herself as easily and securely as a wild antelope, she raised her arms to dive. But now from the shadows below the white man called once more.
"Attempt it not, oh Wildenai! 'Tis death to leap from there!"
But without waiting even to reply, the Indian girl sprang into the waves. An instant later and he saw her arms gleam in the moonlight as, with the strong slow strokes of an experienced swimmer, she struck out for the boat. In spite of the perilous rocking of the little craft he rested on his oar to watch her for a moment in sheer admiration of her skill. But the maid knew well the danger of every instant's delay. In the very nick of time she seemed almost to throw herself between him and the rocks while, with a strength he would have believed impossible in one so small, she pulled the boat around. Then, still swimming and without a word to him, she began to push it ahead of her toward the shore. It was but a few minutes before they stood together on the beach.
And now the young noble, overcome with gratitude, fell on his knees before her and caught her hand between his own. He would have kissed it in sheer joy at his escape, but the Indian girl drew sharply back.
"Quick!" she whispered, yet remembering to speak in Spanish, "You must hide yourself at once. My father will kill you if he should find you here!"
Swiftly she concealed the boat in a tiny cove behind the boulder, a hiding place he would never have seen though it was apparently perfectly familiar to her.
"Sometimes my own canoe I keep there too," she whispered. "Now come!" and she hurried him along the beach and up an easier trail beyond the rocks to her cavern bower above.
Nor did she pause for an instant's rest until they had passed safely behind the manzanita branches which concealed the entrance. Here, motioning him to do the same, she dropped upon a pile of skins. But instead, in real concern, the young Englishman knelt again beside her.
"Thou art so wet and cold," he began anxiously, "Will it not make thee ill? Yet 'twas a wondrous feat," he added admiringly, "well conceived and carried out with