CHAPTER XXXV
THE WIND OF THE OKEECHOBEE
Southward along the beautiful Kissimmee river, where the fabled younggrandee of Spain kissed the plaintive Seminole maid, rumbled the greatgreen van and the camp of Keela. Southward, unremittingly protective,followed the silent music-machine. For though the dear folly and humorwere things of the past, like Arcadia, a true knight may surely seethat his willful lady comes to no harm though he must worship fromafar. And at length they came to the final fringe of civilizationedging the Everglades where, despite repeated protests, Johnny muststay behind with the cumbrous van.
And now the Southern woods were gloriously a-riot with blossoms; withdogwood and magnolia, with wild tropical blossoms of orange andscarlet; and the moon hung wild and beautiful above the Everglades.
"Little Spring Moon!" said Keela softly in Seminole.
Diane thought suddenly of a late moon above a marsh.
"He--he can not follow me into those terrible wilds ahead," she thoughtwith sudden bitterness. "I shall be free at last from his dreadfulspying."
At sunrise one morning they bade Johnny adieu and struck off boldlywith the Indian wagon into the melancholy world of the Everglades.
"It is better," said Keela gravely, "if you wear the Seminole clothesyou wore at Sherrill's. They are in the wagon. My people love not thewhite man."
"But--" stammered Diane.
"They will think," explained Keela shyly, "that you are a beautifuldaughter of the sun from the wilderness of O-kee-fee-ne-kee. You arebrown and beautiful. Such, they tell, was my grandmother. It is alegend of my mother's people, but I do not think," added Keelamajestically, "that the wild and beautiful tribe of mystery who weresons and daughters of the Sun, are half so beautiful as you!"
To the dull baying of the alligators in the saw grass, and themelancholy croak of the great blue herons, Keela's wagon penetrated theweird and terrible wilds of the Everglades, winding by the gloomyborder of swamps where the deadly moccasin dwelt beneath the darklingshadow of cypress, on by ponds thick with lilies and tall ghostlygrasses, over tangled underbrush, past water-dark jungles of dead treeswhere the savage cascade of brush and vine and fallen branches hadwoven a weird, wild lacery among the trees, through mud and saw grass,past fertile islands and lagoons of rush and flag--a tracklesswater-prairie of uninhabitable wilds which to Keela's keen andbeautiful eyes held the mysteriously blazed home-trail of the Seminole.
As Keela knew the trail, so surely from the rank, tropical vegetationof the great Southern marshland she knew the art of wresting food.Bitter wild oranges, pawpaws, oily palmetto cabbage, wild cassava,starred gorgeously now with orange colored blossoms, and guavas; these,with the wild turkeys and mallard ducks, turtles and squirrels and thedark little Florida quail with which the wild abounded, gave themvaried choice.
Cheerfully fording miles of mud and water, his discomforts not a few,came Philip, greatly disturbed by the incomprehensible whims of hislady. By day he followed close upon the trail of the canvas wagon,patterning his conquest of the aquatic wilderness about him after thatof Keela, hunting the wild duck and the turkey and discarding thebitter orange with aggrieved disgust. And if Keela occasionally founda brace of ducks by the camp fire or a bass in a nest of greenpalmetto, she wisely said nothing, sensing the barrier between thesetwo and wondering greatly.
By night when the great morass lay in white and sinister tangle underthe wild spring moon, when the dark and dreadful swamps were rife withhorrible croaks and snaps, the whirring of the wings of waterfowl orthe noise of a disturbed puff adder, Philip stretched himself upon theseat of the music-machine and slept through the twilight and the earlyevening. When the camp ahead, glimmering brightly through the liveoaks, was silent, Philip awoke and watched and smoked, a solitarysentinel in the terrible melancholy of the moonlit waste of ooze anddead leaf and sinister crawling life.
So they came in time to the plains of Okeechobee and thence to thewild, dark waters of the great inland sea--a wild, bleak sea, mirroringcloud and the night-lamp of the Everglades. The wind wafting across onnight-tipped wings rippled the great water shield and brought itsmessage to the silent figure on the shore.
"So," sighed the wind of the Okeechobee, "he still follows!"
"Yes," said Diane, shuddering at the howl of a cat owl, "he has daredeven that!"
"Brave and resolute to plunge into the wilds with a music-machine!Would he, think you, dare all this for the sake of--spying?"
"I--I do not know. I have wondered greatly. Still he has dared muchfor it before."
"He asked you to remember--his love--"
"I--I dare not think of it. For every admission he made that night bythe marsh tallied with the terrible tale of Ronador. I had thought hefollowed and watched by night for another reason."
"What reason?"
"I--do not know. A finer, holier reason--"
The wind fluttered and fell, and rose again with a plaintive sigh.
"You know, but you will not tell!"
"It--it may be so. He is false--he is false!" cried the voice of thegirl's sore heart; "a false sentry and a false protector. I can notbear it. Philip! Philip! It was Themar's knife--and the bullet washis--and all that seemed fine and noble was black and false!"
"You will not trust him as he begged!"
"I can not. For he will not tell me the reason for all these things!"
"You will wed Prince Ronador?"
"Yes. It is the one way out."
"Why?"
"He is a gallant lover and the victim of much that is vile and unfair."
"Yes--he has said so."
"He has suffered much through me."
"Yes."
"And he is honorable and devoted."
"It may be."
"He told me all, though he found it difficult."
"He was not bound by a pledge."
"No."
"Well, there is wisdom, the wisdom of the world, in your choice.Flashing jewels, robes of state, maids of honor--"
"These things," spurned Diane with beautiful insolence, "I may buy withgold."
"Ah!" crooned the wind, "but the vassalage of this elfin nation thatplays at empire, the romance and adventure of an imperial court! Andwhen the mad King dies and the Prince Regent, then Ronador will beking--"
"I have thought of it all. I can not go back to the old shallow lifewith Aunt Agatha. No! No! And I am very lonely. If in the days tocome wind and moon and the call of the wilderness stir my gypsy bloodto rebellion--if I am ever to forget--"
"What must you forget?"
"It was foolish to speak so. I do not know. Then when the call of thewildwood comes I must have crowded days and fevered gayety to hush it.And surely this will come to me in the court of Ronador."
The wild moon drifted behind a cloud, the sea darkened, something hugeand shadowy lumbered down to the water and splashed heavily away, thecat owl hooted. A mist drooped trailing fingers over the water as thewind died away.
A profoundly dreary setting for a dream of empire!