Part 28 (1/2)
He threw his tomahawk at her feet
”His blood is on it You are Snoqualmie's squaash it off”
Dead, dead, her lover was dead! That was all she could grasp
Snoqual at the Indian with bright, dazed eyes that saw nothing All the world seemed blotted out
”I tell you that he is dead, and I slew him Are you asleep that you stare at me so? Awaken and do as I bid you; wash your lover's blood off my tomahawk”
At first she had been stunned by the terrible shock, and she could realize only that Cecil was dead Now it came to her, dimly at first, then like a flash of fire, that Snoqualmie had slain him All her spirit leaped up in uncontrollable hatred For once, she was the war-chief's daughter She drew her skirts away from the tomahawk in unutterable horror; her eyes blazed into Snoqualmie's a defiance and scorn before which his own sunk for the instant
”You killed him! I hate you I will never be your wife You have thrown the tomahawk between us; it shall be between us forever
Murderer! You have killed the one I love Yes, I loved him; and I hate you and will hate you till I die”
The passion in her voice thrilled even the canoe-men, and their paddle strokes fell confusedly for an instant, though they did not understand; for both Wallulah and Snoqualue of the Willamettes He sat abashed for an instant, taken utterly by surprise
Then the wild impulse of defiance passed, and the awful sense of bereave flaone for all ti the furs like one stricken down
Snoqual from his momentary rebuff, heaped bitter epithets and scornful words upon her; but she neither saw nor heard, and lay ide, bright, staring eyes Her see indifference maddened him still more, and he hurled at her the fiercest abuse She looked at hiuely He saw that she did not even knohat he was saying, and relapsed into sullen silence She lay mute and still, with a strained expression of pain in her eyes The canoe sped swiftly on
One desolating thought repeated itself again and again,--the thought of hopeless and irreparable loss By it past and present were blotted out By and by, when she awoke from the stupor of despair and realized her future, destined to be passed with the murderer of her lover, what then? But now she was stunned with the shock of a grief that wasthat must come
They were in the heart of the Cascade Mountains, and a low deep roar began to reach their ears, rousing and startling all but Wallulah It was the sound of the cascades, of the new cataract for a bend in the river they ca lowup the waters of the Colu over the sunkenvolume Above, the river, raised by the enor the trees that still stood along the former bank Below the new falls the river was comparatively shallow, its rocky bed half exposed by the sudden stoppage of the waters
The Indians gazed with superstitious awe on the vast barrier over which the white and foa The unwonted roar of the falls, a roar that see waters rushed over the rocks; the sight of the wreck of thethe direst calamities,--all this awed the wild children of the desert They approached the falls slowly and cautiously
A brief command from Snoqualmie, and they landed on the northern side of the river, not far from the foot of the falls There they must disembark, and the canoes be carried around the falls on the shoulders of Indians and launched above
The roar of the Cascades roused Wallulah from her stupor She stepped ashore and looked in dazed wonder on the strange neorld around her
Snoqualmie told her briefly that she must walk up the bank to the place where the canoe was to be launched again above the falls She listened o But the as steep and rocky; the bank was streith the debris of the ruined bridge; and she was unused to such exertion Snoqualmie saw her stumble and almost fall
Itforward to help her She pushed his hand from her as if it had been the touch of a serpent, and went on alone His eyes flashed: for all this the reckoning should coh rocks bruised her delicately shod feet, the steep ascent took away her breath Again and again she felt as if shethat Snoqualth, and at last she completed the ascent
Above the falls and close to theure, whose dejected pose told of a broken heart
Before her, almost at her feet, the pent-up river idened to a vast flood Here and there a half-subed pine lifted its crown above it; the surface was ruffled by the wind, and white-crested waves were rolling areen tree-tops She looked with indifference upon the scene She had not heard that the Bridge had fallen, and was, of course, ignorant of these new cascades; and they did not ie
Her whole life was broken up; all the world appeared shattered by the blow that had fallen on her, and nothing could startle her now She felt dimly that some stupendous catastrophe had taken place; yet it did not appear unnatural A strange sense of unreality possessed her; everything seemed an illusion, as if she were a shadow in a land of shadows The thought ca over the dihost trail to the shadow-land She tried to shake off the fancy, but all was so vague and dreamlike that she hardly knehere or what she was; yet over it all brooded the consciousness of dull, heavy, torturing pain, like the du our dreaht of horror
Her hand, hanging listlessly at her side, touched her flute, which was still suspended froolden chain She raised it to her lips, but only a faint inharone froht nerves, it was the last oers; she covered her face with her hands, and the hot tears coursed slowly down her cheeks
Soently, and she looked up One of the canoe-men stood beside her He pointed to the canoe, now launched near by Snoqual the removal of the other