CHAPTER XXXIX
UNDER THE WILD MARCH MOON
Southward under the watery moon and the wild, dark clouds rode theIndian girl, following a trail blazed only for Indian eyes. Theaquatic world about them had grown steadily wilder, more remote fromthe haunts of men. Fording miry creeks, silver-streaked withmoon-light, trampling through dense, dark, tangled brakes and on, underthe wild March moon, followed Carl, a prey to the memory of the Indiangirl as he had seen her that night at Sherrill's.
Keela's face, vividly dark and lovely, had mocked his restless slumbersthis many a day. Keela's eyes, black like a starless night or thecloud-black waters of Okeechobee had lured and lured to sensualconquest.
But a great shame was adding its torment to the terrible pain in hishead and the fevered singing of his pulses. In the torture of hisself-abasement, the over-strung ligament in his head fell ominously todroning again. Everything seemed remote and unreal. He hated theawful silence about him--the crash of his horse's feet through thematted brush and the twist of palmetto, resolved itself into dancingciphers.
Ahead Keela stopped. Motionless, like a beautiful sculptured thing,she sat listening as Carl rode up beside her.
"What is it?" he asked.
"I fancied some one followed," said Keela soberly. "It may not be."She rode forward, glancing keenly at the trail behind her.
Thus they rode onward until the east grew pale and gray. A bleak dawnwas breaking in melancholy mists over the Everglades. The lonelyexpanse of swamp and metallic water, of grass-flats and tangled wilds,loomed indistinctly out of the half light in sinister skeleton.
Keela glanced with furtive compassion at the haggard face of the riderbehind her. Since midnight he had ridden in utter silence, growingwhiter it seemed as the night waned.
"Another hour!" said Keela in her soft, clear voice. "Be of courage.When the sun rises there behind the cypress, we shall be at ourjourney's end."
"I--I am all right," stammered Carl courageously, but he bit his lipsuntil they bled, and swayed so violently in the saddle that Keela slidto the ground in alarm.
"Put your arms about my shoulders--so!" she commanded imperiously."You will fall! Philip surely could not know how ill you are. Can youget down?"
With an effort Carl dismounted and fell forward on his knees.
"You must sleep for a while," said Keela. "I will build a fire. Wecan breakfast here and rest as long as you like." She took a blanketfrom his saddle and spread it on the ground.
Carl crept on hands and knees to the Indian blanket and lay very still.A drowsiness numbed his senses. When he awoke after a brief intervalof restless slumber, it was not yet daylight, though the sky in theeast was softly streaked with color. The moon hung low.
A fire crackled in the center of a clearing. The horses were tetheredto a tree. Keela was off somewhere with bow and arrow to hunt theirbreakfast.
Now suddenly as he lay there, tired and apathetic, Carl was consciousof a face leering from among the trees close at hand, a dark,thin-lipped foreign face with eyes black with hate and malicioustriumph. There was a horse hitched to a tree in the thicket beyond.In that instant Carl knew that the Houdanian had furtively followed thecamp of the traders into the wilds of the Everglades, spurred on by thefierce command of Ronador. But he did not move. A terrible apathymade him indifferent to the knife of the assassin. He had had his dayof masterful torment back there in the attic of the farm, he toldhimself. Now he must pay. The knife would quiet this unbearable agonyin his head.
Themar met his eyes, smiled evilly and raised his knife. But theweapon fell suddenly from his hand. With an ominous hum an arrowwhizzed fiercely through the trees and anchored in the flesh above hisheart.
Themar stumbled and fell forward on his face. Like the stricken moosewho seeks to press his wound against the earth, he drove the arrow hometo his heart. He sobbed, and choked and lay very still, a scarletwound dying his flannel shirt.
Carl's horrified eyes turned slowly to the west.
Keela was coming through the trees, proud eyes fierce with terribleanger; halting beside the dead man, she spurned him with moccasinedfoot.
The tense, droning string in Carl's head whirred again--and snapped.He lay in a heavy stupor, dozing fitfully until the moon climbed highagain above the Glades.