United States or Benin ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Melisse staggered back, clutching with her hands at her breast, her face as white as the snow. "You have killed him!" Jean looked into Dixon's eyes. "He is not dead," he said, rising and going to her side. "Come, ma chere, run home to Iowaka. I will not kill him." Her slender form shook with agonized sobs as he led her to the turn in the trail. "Run home to Iowaka," he repeated gently.
The woman laughed into Jean's face. "Did I not say that Jan had waited too long?" Jean's face was black with disapprobation. "Then you would have taken up with some foreigner if I had remained in the Athabasca country another year or two?" he demanded questioningly. "Very likely," retorted Iowaka mischievously, running into the cabin.
There is one other whom I love in another way, whose voice is the sweetest music in the world, whose heart beats with mine, whose soul leads me day and night through the forests, and who whispers to me of our sweet love in my dreams Iowaka, my wife! Come, M'sieur; I will take you to her." "It is late too late," voiced Philip wonderingly. But as he spoke he followed Jean.
"A clear half-inch of the rarest wool from London," added the cheery voice of Jean de Gravois, whose moccasins had made no sound behind him. He always spoke in French to Jan. "There is but one person in the world who looks better in it than your Melisse, Jan Thoreau, and that is Iowaka, my wife. Blessed saints, man, but is she not growing more beautiful every day?" "Yes," said Jan.
"You are a brave boy, Jan Thoreau!" "You did not see it?" asked Jan. Unconsciously the words came from him in French. Jean caught one of his thin hands and laughed joyfully, for the spirit of him was French to the bottom of his soul. "I see it? No, neither I nor Iowaka; but there it was in the snow, as plain as the eyes in your face.
Do brothers love their sisters less as they grow older?" "Sometimes they love the SISTER less and the OTHER GIRL more, ma belle Melisse," came a quick voice from the door, and Jean de Gravois bounded in like a playful cat, scraping and bowing before Melisse until his head nearly touched the floor. "Lovely saints, Jan Thoreau, but she IS a woman, just as my Iowaka told me!
Jean leaped and ran, cracked his caribou whip, and shouted and sang until he was panting and red in the face. Just as Iowaka had called upon him to stop and get a second wind, the Malemutes dropped back upon their haunches where Jan Thoreau lay, twisted and bleeding, in the snow. "What is this?" cried Jean.
"Believe in him always, my Iowaka, and Jean de Gravois will cut the throat of any missioner who says you will not go to Paradise! But this other. You are sure that you would break oath for none but me?" "And the children. They are a part of you, Jean." A fierce snarling and barking of dogs brought Gravois to the door. They could hear Croisset's raucous voice and the loud cracking of his big whip.
"Mon Dieu!" gasped Jean when she had gone. "What if Iowaka had been here then?" The day following the fight in the forest, Dixon found Jean de Gravois alone, and came up to him. "Gravois, will you shake hands with me?" he said. "I want to thank you for what you did to me yesterday. I deserved it. I have asked Miss Melisse to forgive me and I want to shake hands with you." Jean was thunderstruck.
She went to the door of her room, hesitating for a moment, with her back to him. "You will come to supper, Jan?" "Surely, Melisse, if you are prepared." He hung up the violin as she closed the door, and went from the cabin. Jean de Gravois and Iowaka were watching for him, and Jean hurried across the open to meet him. "I am coming to offer you the loan of my razor," he cried gaily.
Word Of The Day