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Garth was tempted by the opportunity to discover at the same time the plans of his enemy, and Rina's true disposition toward himself. He glanced at Natalie; she had but lately fallen asleep, and was sleeping soundly; there were no animals abroad that could harm her; he need be gone but half an hour.
He had learned enough of Rina's mixed character to be sure that this would have a greater chance of coming about if he let her think of it for herself, so he said nothing to her. He was disappointed. Mabyn, too timid to undertake so long a journey without ample supplies, or perhaps too obstinate to go, they remained on the island; and Rina came every day for food.
He let her hand fall carelessly. "It's damn lonesome!" he grumbled. All the shy boldness of an enamoured girl peeped out of Rina's eyes, as she whispered: "I'm glad it's lonesome! I don' want nobody to come but you!" Mabyn was unimpressed. He struck the ribs of his tired pony with his heels. "Come on," he said; and led the way down the incline.
It was half-past four by Garth's watch when they laboriously climbed up the other side; and set their course by compass again for Rina's camp. It grew colder hourly; and the snowflakes became as hard and sharp as grains of coarse powder. Charley was kept going automatically by frequent small doses of the spirit from the flask. Garth dared not spare any of it for himself.
Overhead the Northern lights flung their ragged pennons across the zenith, with a ghostly echo of rustling. He suddenly became conscious of distant human voices in the void of stillness; and presently distinguished the voice of Mabyn. Rina's answers he could not hear, though he sensed a second voice. The sound was from the neighbourhood of the hut.
"I run against a tree," she hastily volunteered. At the same time her hand stole to her throat to hide certain marks on its dusky roundness. Garth knew instinctively that she was loyally lying. Mabyn had beaten her. He wondered how far the wish to serve the woman she had injured was Rina's own impulse and how far she had been forced to it by Mabyn.
He faced her with a sudden imperiousness she could not ignore. "Then the way is made open for Mabyn to come to her!" he cried. "Where will you be then? thrown on the ground, as you were yesterday!" The shot told. Her arms dropped, she visibly paled. The white man's blood in Rina's cheeks betrayed her at the moments when most she desired to secrete her heart.
"'If they keep on at that pace, they'll soon be at Grossetto, said the captain laughing." This is the unfortunate musician's first essay in horsemanship, and when, after twelve hours' march across the country, with his bass strapped upon his shoulders, he halts at the inn at Chianciano, he is more dead than alive. He remembers, however, to read Mademoiselle Rina's note.
Then, looking to his gun, he set off a second time for the shack. From the circumstance of Rina's pausing at the door, he was well assured that Mabyn was within. He had marked that the door stood open. On his way, he paused to examine the ancient dugout lying at the mouth of the watercourse; and found it in a sufficiently seaworthy condition to answer his purpose. A paddle lay in the bottom.
Utterly worn out by a seeming interminable struggle through the drifts in the bottom of the coulée, at last a misty, pinkish aura blushed in the snowy night. It was Rina's fire warmth and shelter! and before it a little animal was roasting on a spit. Garth's senses slipped away in rapture at the smell it sent forth.
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