hance of a mistake was past did the
old chief rise, trembling with rage, to his feet.

"See'st thou now what I meant, my daughter? The English pale-faces know
not the meaning of honor,--no, nor of gratitude either!"

He lifted his long spear from the ground and shook it fiercely.

"The words of the Mariposa are few," he cried, "but their revenge is
sure. Let but an Englishman set foot again on Punagwandah and, swifter
than the arrow leaves the bowstring, he dies!"

And at once, without answer, in the silence of suffering which only the
wild things of the earth understand, Wildenai crept from the lodge, her
heart heavy with its own bitter disappointment. Noiselessly she passed
among the tepees where her father's people slept. Not one of them should
ever know how far dwelt slumber from her own eyes that night. Up the
steep trail beyond the Bay of Moons she climbed and flung herself
weeping on the bed of skins within the cavern.

"Oh, thou false one," she moaned, "why did'st thou promise then, when
never did'st thou mean to keep it?"

Yet nothing had been farther from the young Englishman's thoughts when
he left her than faithlessness to his word. On reaching the ship again
he had gone directly to his cabin. Here he took from its small but
richly embroidered case a slender chain of gold, threaded so closely
with garnets that even in the dim light of the one flaring lantern, the
only illumination the room could boast, it glowed, a glancing stream of
crimson, in his hand. This he carried to the light and as he examined it
under the lantern he smiled.

"Never saw the little maid such jewels before, I'll warrant me! Yet,
beshrew my heart, but she deserves them. Indian though she be, still is
she, nevertheless, the loveliest woman that ever mine eyes have looked
upon!"

Then, stowing the necklace carefully away in his belt, he went at once
in search of the commander.

But at this point an unexpected difficulty had presented itself. He
found Sir Francis in close conversation with his pilot.

"Marry, Sir, an it fit n'er so ill with thy wish," the keen-eyed old
mariner was saying. "I still maintain it were a shame to lose this wind.
Gift or no gift, I've sailed these latitudes before, my lord, and by
heaven I swear we're not like to have such another breeze, no, not
till the change of the moon, and that you know yourself, sir, is a good
fortnight hence."

Sir Francis, striding back and forth within the narrow conf