United States or Laos ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Little Jamie, while he possessed much of his mother in his face, in body was under-sized and weakly, and his mind and speech, backward of development, smacked of his father. He was absolutely dominated by his sister, and followed her lead in everything with adoring rapture. Vada reached her father and scrambled agilely up into his work-soiled arms.
His intelligence determined Belisarius to hasten his operations, and his wise impatience was seconded by the winds. The fleet lost sight of Sicily, passed before the Isle of Malta, discovered the capes of Africa, ran along the coast with a strong gale from the north-east, and finally cast anchor at the promontory of Caput Vada, about five days' journey to the south of Carthage.
Perhaps, somewhere in his savage composition, he had a grain of humor; perhaps it was only the foolish smile of a man whose wits are not equal to so incongruous a situation. "They're most ev'ry color," piped Vada, with added excitement. "Uh!" grunted Jamie in agreement. "An' the bugs has horns." But the man had recovered himself.
But this very power was maddening to a man of his nature, and the two must not come into too frequent conflict. He suddenly laughed, and the woman turned in alarm at the note that sounded in it. "Yes," he said tensely. "I'll fulfill my promise. It'll amuse me, sure, getting back at that Sufferin' Creek lay-out. I owe them something for keepin' back the gold-stages. You shall have Vada, sure."
"Then I'll have done everything," he said "all that a man can do to make you happy. I'll have fulfilled all my promises. I'll And you?" he went on, coming close up to her. This time she did not repulse him. Instinct told her that she must not. Before all things she wanted Vada. So his arms closed about her, and a shower of hot, passionate kisses fell upon her face, her hair, her lips.
"Wher' you goin'?" demanded Vada, her childish curiosity roused, and all her beautiful spiders forgotten for the moment. Her question remained unanswered, leaving the room in ominous silence. Then Jamie's treble blundered into its midst, dutifully echoing his sister's inquiry. "'Es, wher' you doin'?" The man's eyes were narrowly watching the woman's face.
"I tho't you was a fairy," protested Vada. "Fairies ken do most anything. You're jest an ugly ole man." Sunny stood up and drew the back of his hand across his perspiring forehead. He was worried. The fairy business was played out, and he felt that he must begin again. Children were by no means as easy to handle as he had thought. He racked his brains, and suddenly bethought him of another move.
And suddenly the merry smile died out of the young faces, and an odd contraction of their brows suggested a dawning sympathy which came wholly from the heart. "You'se cryin', poppa," cried Vada impulsively. "Uh," nodded the boy. And thereupon great tears welled up into their sympathetic eyes, and the twins wept in chorus.
And it was a period of catastrophe. Little Vada scalded her hand and had to be petted back to her normal condition of sunny smiles. Jamie broke one of the few plates, and his tears had to be banished by assurances that it did not matter, and that he had done his father a kindness by ridding him of such an ugly plate.
Vada had forgotten her journey of that morning, it had quite passed out of her little head in the usual way of such trifling unpleasantnesses which go so frequently to make up the tally of childhood's days. Jamie had no understanding of it. His Vada was with him again, hectoring, guiding him as was her wont, and, in his babyish way, he was satisfied. As for Scipio he gave no sign of anything.
Word Of The Day