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"Red-winged blackbird," said Keela. It was eminently fitting, thought Diane, and glanced at Keela's hair and cheeks. There was a wild duck roasting in the hub of coals from the burning spokes came the smell of cedar. The Indian girl majestically broke a segment of koonti bread and proffered it to her companion.
"I am very strong," said Keela simply. "The vultures will get him. It is the Indian way with one who murders." Their eyes met, a great wave of crimson suddenly dyed Keela's throat and face and swept in lovely tide to the brilliant turban. A constrained silence fell between them, broken only by the whir of a great heron flapping by on snowy wings.
To the dull baying of the alligators in the saw grass, and the melancholy croak of the great blue herons, Keela's wagon penetrated the weird and terrible wilds of the Everglades, winding by the gloomy border of swamps where the deadly moccasin dwelt beneath the darkling shadow of cypress, on by ponds thick with lilies and tall ghostly grasses, over tangled underbrush, past water-dark jungles of dead trees where the savage cascade of brush and vine and fallen branches had woven a weird, wild lacery among the trees, through mud and saw grass, past fertile islands and lagoons of rush and flag a trackless water-prairie of uninhabitable wilds which to Keela's keen and beautiful eyes held the mysteriously blazed home-trail of the Seminole.
From her wigwam Diane watched the silent village, wrapped in fog, wake to the busy life of the Glades. Somber-eyed little Indian lads carried water and gathered wood, fires brightened, there was a pleasant smell of pine in the morning air. Later, by Keela's fire, she furtively watched Philip ride forth with a band of hunters.
"And now," said the rain with a soft gust of flying drops, "now there is Sho-caw!" "Yes," said Diane with a sigh, "there is Sho-caw. I am very sorry." "But," warned the rain, "one must not forget. At Keela's teaching you have fallen into the soft, musical tongue of these Indian folk with marvelous ease. And you wear the Seminole dress of a chief " "Yes. After all, that was imprudent "
Keela's face, vividly dark and lovely, had mocked his restless slumbers this many a day. Keela's eyes, black like a starless night or the cloud-black waters of Okeechobee had lured and lured to sensual conquest. But a great shame was adding its torment to the terrible pain in his head and the fevered singing of his pulses.
Trembling violently the girl dropped to her knees with a soft crash of satin and buried her face in her hands. She was crying wildly. Carl gently raised her to her feet again and squarely met her eyes. "Red-winged Blackbird," he said quietly, "there is much that I must tell you before I may honorably face this love of yours and mine " Keela's black eyes blazed in sudden loyalty.
Philip trusted him. He must not forget! Keela's face had made its delicate appeal to his finer side until that appeal had been hushed by the call of his blood. And there were times when Diane had been kind. He must not forget. Like the stirring of a faint shadow, he felt the first dawning sense of self-mastery he had known for days.
Firelight faintly haloed Keela's face and brought mad memories of the soft light of the Venetian lamp at the Sherrill fete. He noted the pure, delicate regularity of feature, the delicate, vivid skin it was paler than Diane's and flaming through his brain went the dangerous reflection that conquest lay now perhaps in the very hollow of his hand. Desire had driven him on to things unspeakable.
"I have been a fool," said Carl steadily, "a very great fool and blind." Keela's lovely, sensitive mouth quivered. "Is it " she raised glistening, glorified eyes to his troubled face, "is it," she whispered naïvely, "that you care like the lovers in Mic-co's books?" "Yes. And you, Keela?" "I I have always cared," she said shyly, "since that night at Sherrill's. I I feared you knew."
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