CHAPTER II. THE WHISPER FROM BEYOND
Ingolby had a will of his own, but it had never been really triedagainst a woman's will. It was, however, tried sorely when Fleda cameto consciousness again in his arms and realized that a man's face wasnearer to hers than any man's had ever been except that of her ownfather. Her eyes opened slowly, and for the instant she did notunderstand, but when she did, the blood stole swiftly back to her neckand face and forehead, and she started in dismay.
"Put me down," she whispered faintly.
"I'm taking you to my buggy," he replied. "I'll drive you back toLebanon." He spoke as calmly as he could, for there was a strangefluttering of his nerves, and the crowd was pressing him.
"Put me down at once," she said peremptorily. She trembled on her feet,and swayed, and would have fallen but that Ingolby and a woman in black,who had pushed her way through the crowd with white, anxious face,caught her.
"Give her air, and stand back!" called the sharp voice of the constableof Carillon, and he heaved the people back with his powerful shoulders.
A space was cleared round the place where Fleda sat with her headagainst the shoulder of the stately woman in black who had come to herassistance. A dipper of water was brought, and when she had drunk it sheraised her head slowly and her eyes sought those of Ingolby.
"One cannot pay for such things," she said to him, meeting his lookfirmly and steeling herself to thank him. Though deeply grateful, it wasa trial beyond telling to be obliged to owe the debt of a life to anyone, and in particular to a man of the sort to whom material gifts couldnot be given.
"Such things are paid for just by accepting them," he answered quickly,trying to feel that he had never held her in his arms, as she evidentlydesired him to feel. He had intuition, if not enough of it, for theregions where the mind of Fleda Druse dwelt.
"I couldn't very well decline, could I?" she rejoined, quick humourshooting into her eyes. "I was helpless. I never fainted before in mylife."
"I am sure you will never faint again," he remarked. "We only do suchthings when we are very young."
She was about to reply, but paused reflectively. Her half-opened lipsdid not frame the words she had been impelled to speak.
Admiration was alive in his eyes. He had never seen this type ofwomanhood before--such energy and grace, so amply yet so lithelyframed; such darkness and fairness in one living composition; suchindividuality, yet such intimate simplicity. Her hair was a very lightbrown, sweeping over a broad, low forehead, and lying, as though witha sense of modesty, on the tips of the ears, veiling them slightly. Theforehead was classic in its intellectual fulness; but the skin was sofresh, even when pale as now, and with such an underglow of vitality,that the woman in her, sex and the possibilities of sex, cast a glamourover the intellect and temperament showing in every line of her contour.In contrast to the light brown of the hair was the very dark brown ofthe eyes and the still darker brown of the eyelashes. The face shone,the eyes burned, and the piquancy of the contrast between the softilluminating whiteness of the skin and the flame in the eyes hadfascinated many more than Ingolby.
Her figure was straight yet supple, somewhat fuller than is modernbeauty, with hints of Juno-like stateliness to come; and the curvesof her bust, the long lines of her limbs, were not obscured by herabsolutely plain gown of soft, light-brown linen. She was tall, but nottoo commanding, and, as her hand was raised to fasten back a wisp ofhair, there was the motion of as small a wrist and as tapering a barearm as ever made prisoner of a man's neck.
Impulse was written in every feature, in the passionate eagerness ofher body; yet the line from the forehead to the chin, and the firmshapeliness of the chin itself, gave promise of great strength of will.From the glory of the crown of hair to the curve of the high instep ofa slim foot it was altogether a personality which hinted at history--attragedy, maybe.
"She'll have a history," Madame Bulteel, who now stood beside the girl,herself a figure out of a picture by Velasquez, had said of her sadly;for she saw in Fleda's rare qualities, in her strange beauty, happeningswhich had nothing to do with the life she was living. So this duenna ofGabriel Druse's household, this aristocratic, silent woman was everon the watch for some sudden revelation of a being which had not founditself, and which must find itself through perils and convulsions.
That was why, to-day, she had hesitated to leave Fleda alone and cometo Carillon, to be at the bedside of a dying, friendless woman whom bychance she had come to know. In the street she had heard of what washappening on the river, and had come in time to receive Fleda from thearms of her rescuer.
"How did you get here?" Fleda asked her.
"How am I always with you when I am needed, truant?" said the other witha reproachful look. "Did you fly? You are so light, so thin, you couldbreathe yourself here," rejoined the girl, with a gentle, quizzicalsmile. "But, no," she added, "I remember, you were to be here atCarillon."
"Are you able to walk now?" asked Madame Bulteel.
"To Manitou--but of course," Fleda answered almost sharply.
After the first few minutes the crowd had fallen back. They watched herwith respectful admiration from a decent distance. They had the chivalrytowards woman so characteristic of the West. There was no vulgarity intheir curiosity, though most of them had never seen her before. All,however, had heard of her and her father, the giant greybeard who movedand lived in an air of mystery, and apparently secret wealth, formore than once he had given large sums--large in the eyes of folks ofmoderate means, when charity was needed; as in the case of the floodsthe year before, and in the prairie-fire the year before that, when somany people were made homeless, and also when fifty men had been injuredin one railway accident. On these occasions he gave disproportionatelyto his mode of life.
Now, when they saw that Fleda was about to move away, they drew justa little nearer, and presently one of the crowd could contain hisadmiration no longer. He raised a cheer.
"Three cheers for Her," he shouted, and loud hurrahs followed.
"Three cheers for Ingolby," another cried, and the noise was boisterousbut not so general.
"Who shot Carillon Rapids?" another called in the formula of the West.
"She shot the Rapids," was the choral reply. "Who is she?" came theantiphon.
"Druse is her name," was the gay response. "What did she do?"
"She shot Carillon Rapids--shot 'em dead. Hooray!"
In the middle of the cheering, Osterhaut and Jowett arrived in a wagonwhich they had commandeered, and, about the same time, from across thebridge, came running Tekewani and his braves.
"She done it like a kingfisher," cried Osterhaut. "Manitou's got thebelt."
Fleda Druse's friendly eyes were given only for one instant to Osterhautand his friend. Her gaze became fixed on Tekewani who, silent, and withimmobile face, stole towards her. In spite of the civilization whichcontrolled him, he wore Indian moccasins and deerskin breeches, thoughhis coat was rather like a shortened workman's blouse. He did not belongto the life about him; he was a being apart, the spirit of vanished andvanishing days.
"Tekewani--ah, Tekewani, you have come," the girl said, and her eyessmiled at him as they had not smiled at Ingolby or even at the woman inblack beside her.
"How!" the chief replied, and looked at her with searching, worshippingeyes.
"Don't look at me that way, Tekewani," she said, coming close to him. "Ihad to do it, and I did it."
"The teeth of rock everywhere!" he rejoined reproachfully, with agesture of awe.
"I remembered all--all. You were my master, Tekewani."
"But only once with me it was, Summer Song," he persisted. Summer Songwas his name for her.
"I saw it--saw it, every foot of the way," she insisted. "I thoughthard, oh, hard as the soul thinks. And I saw it all." There wassomething singularly akin in the nature of the girl and the Indian. Shespoke to him as she never spoke to any other.
"Too much seeing, it is death," he answered. "Men die with too much
seeing. I have seen them die. To look hard through deerskin curtains,to see through the rock, to behold the water beneath the earth, and therocks beneath the black waters, it is for man to see if he has a soul,but the seeing--behold, so those die who should live!"
"I live, Tekewani, though I saw the teeth of rocks beneath the blackwater," she urged gently.
"Yet the half-death came--"
"I fainted, but I was not to die--it was not my time."
He shook his head gloomily. "Once it may be, but the evil spirits temptus to death. It matters not what comes to Tekewani; he is as the leafthat falls from the stem; but for Summer Song that has far to go, it isthe madness from beyond the Hills of Life."
She took his hand. "I will not do it again, Tekewani."
"How!" he said, with hand upraised, as one who greets the great in thisworld.
"I don't know why I did it," she added meaningly. "It was selfish. Ifeel that now."
The woman in black pressed her hand timidly.
"It is so for ever with the great," Tekewani answered. "It comes, also,from beyond the Hills--the will to do it. It is the spirit that whispersover the earth out of the Other Earth. No one hears it but the great.The whisper only is for this one here and that one there who is of theFew. It whispers, and the whisper must be obeyed. So it was from thebeginning."
"Yes, you understand, Tekewani," she answered softly. "I did it becausesomething whispered from the Other Earth to me."
Her head drooped a little, her eyes had a sudden shadow.
"He will understand," answered the Indian; "your father willunderstand," as though reading her thoughts. He had clearly read herthought, this dispossessed, illiterate Indian chieftain. Yet, was he soilliterate? Had he not read in books which so few have learned to read?His life had been broken on the rock of civilization, but his simplesoul had learned some elemental truths--not many, but the essentialones, without which there is no philosophy, no understanding. Heknew Fleda Druse was thinking of her father, wondering if he wouldunderstand, half-fearing, hardly hoping, dreading the moment when shemust meet him face to face. She knew she had been selfish, but wouldGabriel Druse understand? She raised her eyes in gratitude to theBlackfeet chief.
"I must go home," she said.
She turned to go, but as she did so, a man came swaggering down thestreet, broke through the crowd, and made towards her with an armraised, a hand waving, and a leer on his face. He was a thin, ratherhandsome, dissolute-looking fellow of middle height and about forty, indandified dress. His glossy black hair fell carelessly over his smoothforehead from under a soft, wide-awake hat.
"Manitou for ever!" he cried, with a flourish of his hand. "I salute thebrave. I escort the brave to the gates of Manitou. I escort the brave.I escort the brave. Salut! Salut! Salut! Well done, BeautyBeauty--Beauty--Beauty, well done again!"
He held out his hand to Fleda, but she drew back with disgust. FelixMarchand, the son of old Hector Marchand, money-lender and capitalist ofManitou, had pressed his attentions upon her during the last year sincehe had returned from the East, bringing dissoluteness and vulgar pridewith him. Women had spoiled him, money had corrupted and degraded him.
"Come, beautiful brave, it's Salut! Salut! Salut!" he said, bendingtowards her familiarly.
Her face flushed with anger.
"Let me pass, monsieur," she said sharply.
"Pride of Manitou--" he apostrophized, but got no farther.
Ingolby caught him by the shoulders, wheeled him round, and then flunghim at the feet of Tekewani and his braves.
At this moment Tekewani's eyes had such a fire as might burn inWotan's smithy. He was ready enough to defy the penalty of the law forassaulting a white man, but Felix Marchand was in the dust, and thatwould do for the moment.
With grim face Ingolby stood over the begrimed figure. "There's theriver if you want more," he said. "Tekewani knows where the water'sdeepest." Then he turned and followed Fleda and the woman in black.Felix Marchand's face was twisted with hate as he got slowly to hisfeet.
"You'll eat dust before I'm done," he called after Ingolby. Then, amidthe jeers of the crowd, he went back to the tavern where he had beencarousing.