Part 93 (1/2)
Well, G.o.d's will must obtain on earth; none can thwart it; none foretell----
At the thought I looked down at Penelope, where I held her clasped; and I told her of the vision of Thiohero.
She remained very still when she learned what the Little Maid of Askalege had seen there beside me in the cannon-cloud, where the German foresters of Hainau, in their outlandish dress, were shouting and shooting.
For Penelope had seen the same white shape; and had been, she said, afeard that it was my own weird she saw,--so white it seemed to her, she said,--so still and shrouded in its misty veil.
”Was it I?” she whispered in an awed voice. ”Was it truly I that the Oneida virgin saw? And did she know my features in the shroud?”
”She saw you all in white and flowers, floating there near me like mist at sunrise.”
”She told you it was I?”
”Dying, she so told me. And, 'Yellow Hair,' she gasped, 'is quite a witch!' And then she died between my arms.”
”I am no witch,” she whispered.
”Nor was the Little Maid of Askalege. Both of you, I think, saw at times things that we others can not perceive until they happen;--the shadow of events to come.”
”Yes.”
After a silence: ”Have you, perhaps, discovered other shadows since we last met, Penelope?”
”Yes; shadows.”
”What coming event cast them?”
After a long pause: ”Will it make his mind more tranquil if I tell him?”
she murmured to herself; and I saw her dark eyes fixed absently on the dusty ray of sunlight slanting athwart the room.
Then she looked up at me; blushed to her hair: ”I saw children--with _yellow_ hair--and _your_ eyes----”
”With _your_ hair!”
”And _your_ eyes--John Drogue--John Drogue----”
The stillness of Paradise grew all around us, filling my soul with a great and heavenly silence.
We could not die--we two who stood here so closely clasped--until this vision had been fulfilled.
And so, presently, her hands fell into mine, and our lips joined slowly, and rested.
We said no word. I left her standing there in the golden twilight of the curtains, and got to my saddle,--G.o.d knows how,--and rode away beside the quiet river to the certain destiny that no man ever can hope to hinder or escape.
CHAPTER x.x.xI