The Land of Mystery by Edward Sylvester Ellis (book club reads .txt) 📗
- Author: Edward Sylvester Ellis
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While he debated whether to advance and force the stranger to reveal himself, the outlines of a form were distinguished and a slight figure stepped forth in the moonlight.
Ashman's heart seemed to stop beating and life itself hang in suspense, when he recognized the very being that had taken such full possession of his thoughts.
Ay, Ariel, daughter of King Haffgo, stood before him.
For a moment, neither spoke or moved. It was not strange perhaps that she was the first to recover the power of utterance.
Advancing timidly, she said in a tremulous voice and with an accent just broken enough to make it all the sweeter:
"You are in danger and I could not help coming to tell you."
"Heaven bless you!" he exclaimed, taking a step toward her, but still observing a respectful distance. "You have braved danger yourself to give me the warning."
"I left my home and waited for a chance to speak to you; I dared not go to the door of Ziffak's house for I would have been seen. Then, while I was wondering what to do, I saw you come forth and walk toward the river. I thought you would go to the end of the village, so I hurried on and hid among the bushes until I could speak to you without any one seeing me."
Ashman's head was in a swirl. He was trembling in every limb, while she seemed to be devoid of any agitation whatever.
"Your father King Haffgo was angry this afternoon, because I looked at you; but," added the lover, "I could not have helped doing it, if I knew my life would have paid for the act. Ziffak told me about you, so you see I did not feel that you were a stranger, even though I then saw you for the first time and never heard the music of your voice until now."
"The king is angry," said she, withdrawing a little as the happy fellow took another step; "he says you shall be killed, but Ziffak persuaded him to say your life should be spared if you went away to-night."
Ashman felt another delicious thrill as he reflected that if such were the understanding, there would seem to be no cause for the lovely Ariel to come thus far out of her way to repeat what Ziffak was sure to explain before the departure of the explorers.
Ah, it must have been because of her interest in him that she had sought this perilous stolen interview.
"Well, then," said he mournfully, "I must depart and never see you again. Death would be preferable to that!"
"But you may come back some time," said she in such a tremulous, hesitating voice, that he impulsively sprang forward and caught her dainty hand before she could escape him.
"O don't!" she plead like a timid bird, striving to withdraw the imprisoned fingers which he still held fast.
"Nay, but you must, if I am never to see you again," he exclaimed vehemently; "O, Ariel, I had hoped that I might stay here until I could see and talk with you and tell you that I can never, never leave you; that if I go, you must go with me; I will take you to my home which is many many long miles away, but I will be your slave; I will love you; I will make you happy; you shall never sigh for the land and the people you leave behind you——"
There is no saying when the impetuous lover would have stopped his wooing in this cyclone-like fashion hut for an alarming interruption. He had been smitten profoundly, and the urgency of the case impelled him to an ardor which could not have found expression under any other conditions; but, all the time the frightened maiden was striving to free her imprisoned hand, and the lover felt he ought to release it but could not.
Suddenly she ceased her efforts and looked beyond him with a gasp and such a startled expression, that he knew some unusual cause had produced it.
CHAPTER XXV. — ZIFFAK'S BLOW.
Ziffak, head chieftain of the Murhapas, was a shrewder and more far-seeing man than even his white friends suspected.
He had been the first to observe the significant glances of Fred Ashman at the hanging curtains, as he was the first to detect the presence of his beloved niece behind them.
Although King Haffgo saw not the smile which flitted over the face of his daughter, when her eyes met those of the young American, yet Ziffak observed it, and he could not have translated it wrongly had he wished to do so.
An intimation has been given of the nature of the quarrel between Ziffak and his royal brother. The latter was so infuriated that he declared that every one of the white men should die. Ziffak reminded him of his pledge that they should be safe for two days, a pledge that he had repeated in their presence.
But in his hot anger, Ziffak said, he would break that pledge. One of the explorers had dared to look upon the face of Ariel and smile. Had he detected her returning it, he would have driven his javelin through her body as she stood beside him.
Ziffak gave no hint of what he had observed.
The head chieftain was not afraid to brave his brother to his face; but he wisely forbore carrying the quarrel beyond the point of reconciliation. He told his brother that he was so beside himself that he forgot he was a Murhapa who never broke his word. But if the king insisted, he would see that the white men took their departure before the rising of the morrow's sun.
King Haffgo consented that if that was done, he would permit them to go in peace. It was Ziffak's hope that his brother, after his anger had time to cool, would modify his last declaration still further and allow them to stay their two days, that led him to qualify his remark about the necessity of their withdrawing that night.
The same cunning which stood the head chieftain so well during this stormy interview remained with him to the end. While he and his brother were wrangling, Ariel stood mute and with bowed head. She durst not speak, but withdrew only a minute or two before her parent.
Ziffak was still warmly attached to Ashman, and was willing to risk his life in his behalf. Knowing that Waggaman and Burkhardt had had much to do with stirring the resentment of the king, he was angry enough to slay both of them.
When the most peculiar situation is considered, however, it is hardly safe to believe the head chieftain was ready to go to the length of helping to bring about a meeting between the lovers.
He understood his niece well enough to know that despite the fury
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