"The Feathered People are singing their war chant," he said, and his
gesture seemed to ask them to listen. They started apart, and it was
not Elsie alone who blushed. Courtenay crimsoned beneath the tan on
his face, and pretended a mighty interest in the doings of the savages.
The girl recovered her self-control more rapidly. She half whispered
the meaning of the miner's cry, whereon Courtenay tried to laugh.
"They will be singing a dirge next," said he with a jaunty confidence.
"Now, Elsie, off with you! Be sure I shall come and tell you when you
may appear on deck."
She hurried away. She recked naught of the Alaculof challenge. Though
the raucous notes of the tuneless lay could be heard plainly enough,
they did not reach her ears. When she raced down the saloon companion
she found Christobal bending over the small case of instruments he
always carried. He straightened himself in his peculiarly stiff way.
"What did the captain want?" he asked, with a suspicious peevishness
which, for once, detracted from his habitual courtesy. The note of
distrust jarred Elsie back into her senses.
"He wished me to translate Señor Suarez's explanation of another smoke
signal," she answered.
"Oh, was that all?"
"Practically all."
"He told you himself, I suppose, that he wished you to stay here."
"He did more. He drove me away."
"Against your will?"
"No. Am I not one of the ship's company? Is he not the centurion? He
says to this woman, Go, and she goeth, nor does she stand upon the
order of her going. Oh, please don't look at me as if I were cracked.
Surely one may mingle the Bible and Shakespeare in an emergency?"
"One may also tear linen sheets into strips," said Christobal, gravely.
Elsie's quip had saved the situation. He attributed her flushed cheeks
and sparkling eyes to the fever of the threatened fight.
She applied herself eagerly to the task. Already the fume and agony of
vain regret were striving to conquer the ecstasy which had flooded her
whole being. She remembered that passionate longing to be clasped in
Courtenay's arms which she experienced when she saw him in the canoe,
and now, after draining to the dregs the cup of bitterness she had
forced on herself during these later days, here she was, ready as ever
to quaff the love potion. Poor Elsie! She longed for the waters of
Lethe; haply they are denied to young women with live blood in their
veins.
Courtenay, meanwhile, was examining the advancing flotilla. His brain
was conning each detail of the Alaculof array, but his heart was
whispering gladly: "In another moment you would have kissed her and told her you loved
her. You know you would, so don't deny it! Ah! kissed her, and held
her to your breast!"