Now the days began to run more swiftly than the tide along the tawny
beach; and the nights, star-dusted and blue, came and vanished and
returned, only to exhale at dawn like perfume from a violet.
They counted hours as they counted the golden bubbles, winking with
a million eyes along the foam-flecked shore; and the hours ended, and
began, and glimmered, iridescent, and ended as bubbles end in a tiny
rainbow haze.
There was still fire in the world; it flashed up at her touch and where
she chose. A bow strung with the silk of her own hair, an arrow winged
like a sea bird and tipped with shell, a line from the silver tendon of
a deer, a hook of polished bone--these were the mysteries he learned,
and learned them laughing, her silken head bent close to his.
The first night that the bow was wrought and the glossy string attuned,
she stole into the moonlit forest to the brook; and there they stood,
whispering, listening, and whispering, though neither understood the
voice they loved.
In the deeper woods, Kaug, the porcupine, scraped and snuffed. They
heard Wabóse, the rabbit, pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat, loping across dead
leaves in the moonlight. Skeé-skah, the wood-duck, sailed past,
noiseless, gorgeous as a floating blossom.
Out on the ocean's placid silver, Shinge-bis, the diver, shook the
scented silence with his idle laughter, till Kay-óshk, the gray gull,
stirred in his slumber. There came a sudden ripple in the stream, a
mellow splash, a soft sound on the sand.
"Ihó! Behold!"
"I see nothing."
The beloved voice was only a wordless melody to her.
"Ihó! Ta-hinca, the red deer! E-hó! The buck will follow!"
"Ta-hinca," he repeated, notching the arrow.
"E-tó! Ta-mdóka!"
So he drew the arrow to the head, and the gray gull feathers brushed
his ear, and the darkness hummed with the harmony of the singing
string.
Thus died Ta-mdóka, the buck deer of seven prongs.