Their Mariposa Legend Part 4

That day, perhaps, from among them all, lived longest within the memory of young Harold,--the porpoises playing fearlessly around her canoe as the princess, with graceful, effortless strokes, paddled around one after another of the pointed tongues of rock; the flying fish, skimming the surface of the ocean until, by virtue of their speed alone, they rose like gleaming bows of silver from the foam. Intent to show him all her treasures, Wildenai guided him to a quiet stretch of water lying close to sh.o.r.e within the shadow of tall cliffs which rose at that point with precipitous abruptness from the sea itself.

"Here are my gardens that grow under the water," she explained, as they glided above the spot. "Look well at them. They are most beautiful."

And gazing down at her command through the clear green into the luminous depths below, he caught glimpses of these gardens of the sea where goldfish darted like tropical birds among the branches of tall tree-like stalks of swaying seaweed, and strange shapes of jade and blue floated in the shadows.

"Is it not wonderful?" she asked.

"It is indeed, my Wildenai," he answered earnestly. "Never in all my travels, methinks, have I seen aught before like this your island here!

It seems to me indeed a charmed land, a kind of magic isle!"

One day it rained, the last belated rain of winter. But even the storm brought pleasures of its own, for, seated on the pile of skins beside him, the little gray fox curled contentedly at her feet, Wildenai worked at her loom. Within its dull-colored warp a blanket, woven in a strange design of mingled red, and black, and white, grew slowly beneath her busy fingers.

For hours the maiden drew the short woolen threads in and out while the young man, stretched lazily upon the ground, told her many a tale of the England he had left. Then, quite without warning, she ceased her work and sat pensively watching through the opening in the rocks the long gray swell of the sea.

"And what is it now, my princess?" laughed young Harold. "The pattern is not yet finished, nor is the rain abated."

"Ah, senor Harold lord," wistfully replied the girl, "I was but wishing I had been born one of those same fair English maids with the eyes of blue and golden hair you tell about. Then would you love me even as you do them!" she added artlessly, and leaned her chin upon her hand, considering. A secret trembled on her lips.

"And how if I were Spanish born?" she questioned, and lifted hesitating, frightened eyes to his, "dark to look at, that I know well, but even so, the white man's kind of princess, who also has a throne?"

And all unwitting Lord Harold answered scornfully, "Spanish! Say no such word to me! The English hate the Spanish!" Fiercely he caught up a pebble and sent it whirling out across the water. "Even now their robber king plans his huge armada to take our queen and rule our land, but that, by the holy virgin herself, shall never be! Sooner will every drop of blood in bonny England be spilt. Never could I make thee understand how much I hope to be at home before he comes! Spanish indeed! Nay, never let me hear the hateful word again!"

Then, noting her puzzled, downcast face, with the impulsive changeableness which had so endeared him to her, he caught one little brown hand and raised it to his lips.

"But I do love thee even as thou art, my Wildenai," he told her with the careless a.s.surance of one much older speaking to a child. "Is not a wild rose sweet as any garden bloom? Nay, methinks 'tis often sweeter!"

Again he laughed and the little princess laughed with him now, for into her heart at his words had come a happiness so unlooked for and so wildly sweet as wholly to bewilder her. Quickly she rose, struck by a sudden thought, and running to the farthermost corner of the cavern she brushed aside a pile of leaves and lifted some stones, disclosing at length a box fashioned from the choicest cedar. Out of it, while the Englishman watched with wondering eyes, she drew a garment made of creamy doeskin, deeply fringed and trimmed besides with strings of wampum, the polished fragments of abalone sh.e.l.ls and many-colored beads.

Silently she brought it to him and when he touched it admiringly, for the dress was beautiful. "It is my marriage robe," she told him gravely.

That night, while the rain tapped softly at her tepee, the princess dreamed of a wondrous land beyond the sea where proudly she walked by her white chief's side and fair women with braided, golden hair spoke kind words of welcome, smiling at her out of sweet blue eyes.

Then, without warning, came the end of all her dreams. Hurrying along the beach at sunset only a few days later, Wildenai caught the first glimpse of the returning vessel as it stole around a distant point. For the s.p.a.ce of a second her heart stood still, then throbbed wildly, but whether with joy or pain she could not herself have told. One question only demanded all her thought. Should she let Lord Harold know? Perhaps the great white captain would not remember their bay. Perhaps,--her breath came fast,--perhaps the ship, unseen by anyone, would pa.s.s and Lord Harold remain behind content. With hands tight-clenched she watched the distant sail, fear growing in her eyes. Yet she knew that she would tell him. Nothing else was honorable. This, surely, he must decide for himself.

But tidings of such moment outran even her swift feet. She found him buckling on his swordbelt, in his eyes the glad light of some trapped bird which sees the door of its cage suddenly open.

"The ship--" she began with sinking heart.

"Yes, yes, I know! I saw it!" he answered, a fever of impatience in his voice. "'Tis Drake. I knew he dared not leave me! 'Twill soon be too close in. Needs not he risk his safety. I must go before he gains the sh.o.r.e."

The princess hesitated. What meant that strange heaviness at her heart?

Was he not still her brave, true warrior,--her great white chief? Had he not told her that he loved her? Crossing to where he stood she bowed herself before him until her silver fillet touched his feet.

"I, too!" she whispered, "I shall go to England with thee!"

And at her words, within the little cavern there came a silence to be felt. In undisguised dismay the Englishman gazed at her where she knelt.

Then:

"By the holyrood!" he muttered aghast, "She must have thought,--G.o.d only knows what she must have thought!"

He glanced hurriedly toward the doorway and back again, ashamed. Then even such impatience as was his gave way, for the moment at least, to something more chivalric. He stooped and patted awkwardly the smooth black head.

"Come, Wildenai, little wild rose, look up and speak to me. I must be going!"

But still the maid lay prostrate, clasping close his rough buskins in her little brown hands. Never in all his life had Lord Harold been so sorely uncomfortable. How was it possible she had ever imagined that he could take her with him,--that he had meant so much? Resentment grew within him at the thought, yet strangely mingled always with something far more tender. Hastily he considered, his heart torn between the desire not to wound her and dread of what he knew she wanted. To be sure the maid was beautiful, with the softened beauty of a moonlit night in summer, her eyes beneath her dusky hair like stars between the branches of dark trees, her voice that of the forest stream when it sings itself to sleep. Yet past all doubt he knew that not one among the gorgeous throng that crowded about Elizabeth would ever see that beauty, no English ear take heed to hear the music of her voice. Nay, he could even, as he thought of it, picture the amazement of the great queen, could hear her scornful laughter, should he present, to help adorn her court, a savage Indian girl! No, a thousand times no! Such disgrace he could not suffer. Nor was the maid herself, so he defended himself, fitted for such a life. Soon would she be as unhappy in England as he would be to have her there. Besides, she was but a child. Else had she never so far forgot all womanly dignity as to force herself upon him, and being but a child she would soon forget. Gently he made to raise her to her feet.

"Wildenai, little wild rose," he began again, "what thou hast asked of me thou dost well know thyself is an unheard of thing. Much as I owe to thee, and well know I that 'tis so much I never can repay it; still for thine own sweet sake 'tis not in this way thy reward must come. The long journey and the strange new life would kill thee, Wildenai." Having once begun he stumbled on, but half aware of how each word he uttered hurt her, eager only to have done with the whole sorry scene. "Thou art but a little wild flower. Thou couldst not live away from this, thy sunny island. Can'st thou not understand, my Wildenai?"

He paused, waiting for a reply; but the maiden answered nothing. Silent she lay as though in very truth she were a wild flower tossed to earth and trampled upon by some uncaring foot.

At last the man could bear it no longer. Forcibly he loosed her hands and stepped back. For a moment longer he lingered, looking down upon her in mingled impatience and regret; then, turning abruptly, he pa.s.sed hastily out of the cavern and down the trail to the beach.

Still the girl lay motionless. It was as if every sense were stunned, all power of thought suspended except to grasp the one fact that made her whole world empty,--he was gone! As in a dream she heard the grating of the pebbles when he pushed his boat into the water, heard the clank of the oars as they dropped into the oar-locks. Even yet she did not move. Then, after many minutes, she crept to the opening and searched the sea with eyes almost, too dim with tears to find that for which she sought. But yes, there it was,--a black speck against the golden sunset.

She watched until she had seen the distant vessel put about, making for the open sea. Ah, now she knew that he was safe aboard,--no need had they to come farther into sh.o.r.e. Yet still she waited, straining her eyes to see the ship sink slowly beneath the horizon. One last glint of sunlight against a white sail, and it was gone.

Then at once she rose, and moving quietly about the little cavern, she put all in perfect order with touch as tender as that of a mother preparing for its last sleep some little child. Here was the basket he had helped to weave, here the mat on which he had lain. Her fingers lingered caressingly on each thing that he had touched. There in the corner still stood the olla in which she had brought him water. How amused he had been that she could carry it on her head all the way up the hill from the spring without so much as spilling one drop! But that was all past now.

When at last everything was finished she gave the little rock-walled room one long, lingering look, the look of one who would carry in his heart the image of what he beholds all the rest of his life. Then she, too, made her way through the doorway into the deepening dusk.

On the beach below, squatted within the opened flap of his tepee, Torquam, mighty chief of the Mariposa, smoked his evening pipe. A wonderful pipe it was, long and delicately fashioned, inlaid with iridescent fragments of sh.e.l.l. Yet instantly he laid it aside as the slender form of his daughter darkened the doorway.

"Ah, Wildenai, little wild rose, welcome art thou as sunshine after rain!" His eyes lighted with the tenderness never seen there by any other than this motherless girl. He stretched his hand to her and the princess came silently and knelt before him.

"My father," she said firmly, though in so low a tone that Torquam bent to hear. "Oh, father, thou art always wise! Thou only knowest best.

I come to thee to tell that I will wed Cabrillo. I will wed with him whenever thou dost choose!"

Taking her face between his hands, Torquam gazed long and searchingly into the sorrowful eyes of his daughter.

"And thou art wise to do so, my beloved one," he said at last. "He will make to thee a good husband." In his voice was the keen understanding of a father. "He will be kind to thee and heal thy wounded heart, my daughter. Don Cabrillo is a good man," he repeated solemnly.

Part II. Miss Hastings Brings It to an End

Centuries pa.s.sed, and again, with the same sweet suddenness as in the days gone by, spring came to Catalina. Guests of the St. Catherine, lounging on its wide verandahs, gazed across a sunlit sea to where the faint cloud that was San Jacinto hovered, the merest ghost of a mountain, above the misty mainland. Along the broad board-walk leading down to Avalon benches, shaded by brightstriped awnings, flaunted an invitation to every pa.s.sing tourist. Strings of j.a.panese lanterns bobbed merrily above the narrow village streets. Everywhere were laughter and movement and color from the bathing beaches, dotted with gay umbrellas--even to the last yacht anch.o.r.ed round the point.

To the man making slow progress down the crowded wharf from the afternoon boat this holiday world into which he thus suddenly stepped, presented an appearance so different from that he had pictured as almost to bewilder him. At sight of the jaunty little motorbus waiting to haul him up the winding grade to the hotel, he actually hesitated. Yet seldom before, to his knowledge, had he found it difficult to adapt himself to an unexpected situation.

"Hotel St. Catherine! Bus to the hotel, sir?"

Other guests, more certain of their intentions, pushed impatiently against him, and presently he found himself, wedged well toward the middle of the long seat, chugging comfortably up the hill. Still half-daunted, he gazed about him. It was all of it charming to be sure, fascinating even; yet, could this festive summering place be the Avalon of his dreams? Was this the quaint village of Spanish times, reaching back still further through dimly remembered Indian lore to a world lost now except to legend? Yet it was for the sake of a mere legend, a fanciful tale handed down in his family through many a generation, that he had made the long journey from New York to California, nor--and here he set his lips with dogged determination, did he intend to return until he had found that for which he searched.

It was now something over two years since Harrison Blair, then fresh from Yale, had astonished both those who wished him well and those who, for various envious reasons, did not, with the wholly unreasonable success of his first book. For, to those who did not understand, his sudden fame had seemed all the more surprising in that it rested upon nothing more substantial than a slender volume of Indian verse. So unusual, however, had been his treatment of this well-worn subject as to call forth more than a little comment from even the most conservative of critics. The Brush and Pen had hastened to confer upon him an honorary membership. Cadmon, magic weaver of Indian music, had written a warm letter of appreciation. And, most precious tribute of all, the Atlantic Monthly had become interested in his career.