Prisoners of Hope Part 49

He took her hands from her breast and laid them against his own. "No,"

he said with a smile, "I love you too well for that."

From the woods across the river came the crying of wolves, then a silence as of the grave; then a whisper arose in the long dry gra.s.s and the leafless vines, and a cold breeze lifted the hair from their foreheads. The whisper grew into a murmur, prolonged and deep, a sound as of a distant cataract, or of the dash of surf upon a far away sh.o.r.e--the voice of the wind in the world of trees. A star shot, leaving a stream of white fire to fade out of the dark blue sky. From the forest came again the cry of the wolves. In the camp below there seemed some stir, and the figure seated on the rock turned its head towards them and lifted a warning hand.

"You must go," said Landless. "It was madness for you to venture here.

See, the light is growing in the east."

With a low, desolate moaning sound she wrung the hands he released and raised her face to his. He kissed her upon the brow, the eyes and the mouth. "Good-by, my life, my love, my heart," he said. "We were happy for an hour. Good-by!"

"I will be brave," she answered. "I will live my life out. I will pray to G.o.d. And, G.o.dfrey, I will be ever true to you. I shall never see you again, my dear, never hear of you more, never know till my latest day whether you are of this world still, or whether you have waited for me a long time, up there beyond those lights. If it--if death--should come Boon, wait for me--beyond--in perfect trust, my dear, for I will come to you--I will come to you as I am, G.o.dfrey."

He bowed his face upon her hands.

The breeze freshened, and the sound of the surf became the sound of breakers. In the east the pale light strengthened. The figure below them stood up and beckoned.

"The moon is coming," said Patricia. "Once before I watched for it--in terror, with pride and anger in my heart. Then, when I thought of you, I hated you. It is strange to think of that now. Kiss me good-by."

"I too will be strong," he said. "I will await the pleasure of the Lord.

Until His good time, my bride!"

Rising to his feet he held her in his arms, then kissed her upon the lips and put her gently from him. For a moment she stood like a statue, then with a lifted face and hands clasped at her bosom, she turned, and slowly, but without a backward look, left the circle of rocks. Through the opening he saw the slave come up to her, and saw her motion to him to fall behind--another moment, and both dark figures had sunk below the brow of the hill.

Stronger and stronger blew the wind, louder and louder swelled the voice of the forest. Below, the wash of the river in its reeds, the dull groaning of branch grating against branch, the fall of leaf and acorn, the loud sighing of the pines, the cries of the owl, the panther, and the wolf--above, the vast dome of the heavens and the fading stars. An effulgence in the east; a silver crest, like the white rim of a giant wave, upon the eastern hills; a pale splendor mounting slowly and calmly upward--a dead world,--all her pa.s.sion, all her pain, all toil and strife over and done with,--shining down upon a sadder earth.

From beneath the shadowy banks there shot out into the middle of the broad moonlit stream a long canoe, followed by a second and a third, and turning, went swiftly down that long, bright, shimmering, rippling path.

In the last and smallest of the three boats a man rose from his seat in the stern, and with his eyes upon the line of moon-whitened cliffs above him, raised his plumed hat with a courteous gesture, then bent and spoke to a cloaked and hooded figure sitting, still and silent, between him and a burlier form. This canoe was rowed by negroes, and as they rowed they sang. The wild chant--half dirge, half frenzy--that they raised was suited to that waste which they were leaving.

The black lines upon the silver flood became mere dots, and the wailing notes came up the stream faintly and more faintly still. For a while the echoes rolled among the folded hills and the tall gray crags, but at length they died away forever.