been--that she was still the Amazon as of old--that the woman who had
been trained to battle in her early youth the same as the men of her
people had been trained, regarded as mere pastime that which they
considered one of the heights of earthly attainment. The woman who at
sunrise had listened daily to the song of the Memnon, who had
experienced the shock of battle, whose life lived close to nature had
taught her the meaning of the ethics of the dust and instilled into her
veins the rippling laughter of water and sunshine and the song of the
winds, and whose every breath had been the rapturous breath of freedom,
viewed life from a different standpoint than that of men debased by
centuries of servitude. The world of their creation was trifling in
comparison to that of God's which to her was all sufficing and enabled
her to look upon their doings with the same equanimity and indulgence as
that with which the parent regards the frolicsome gambols of the child.

Twenty years of almost uninterrupted practice had kept her body and
limbs supple and pliant, but this Blanch did not know.

XXIII

True to his resolve, Dick rose to the exigency of the occasion by laying
stubborn siege to Miss Van Ashton's heart. During the day he bombarded
her with flowers and books and bonbons, and gentle but passionate
missives; all of which the fair recipient as promptly hurled back into
his face. At night relays of musicians serenaded her uninterruptedly
until the glowing cast announced the coming of a new day. He took the
whole household into his confidence, rendering it impossible for her to
set foot outside her door without meeting him.

The first day she laughed at his eccentricities; on the second, she grew
furious, and on the third, not having closed her eyes for two whole days
and nights, she felt herself on the verge of a nervous collapse. There
being no rest for any one, Colonel Van Ashton suddenly appeared before
his daughter on the morning of the fourth day and gave her to understand
that if the infernal nuisance did not cease instantly he would shoot the
first person who entered the garden that evening after he had retired.
And to back his threat, he displayed a new automatic pistol which he had
purchased in the town the day before; the shopkeeper having assured him
that, for a running fire, it was the most convenient and effective
weapon on the market. The Colonel was in a reckless mood and seemed in
imminent danger o