Yseulte Santorex was slowly wending her way homeward through the now
leafless oak woods which overhung Elmcote.
The lonely ride looked ghostly and drear in the early dusk of the
November afternoon. A chill and biting wind moaned through the covert,
and now and again a pheasant or rabbit scuttling among the undergrowth,
raised a stealthy rustling sound that would have been somewhat startling
to any other of her sex who should find herself belated in that lonely
place. But in this solitary pedestrian it inspired no fear, only a
sweet, sad recollection--albeit reminding her of the most perilous
moment in her whole life. For it brought back vividly, by an
association of sound and surroundings, the shadowy timber belt, and the
stealthy tread of the grim painted savages advancing to seize her on the
lonely river-bank in the far Wild West.
But what a change had befallen her! The happy, even-tempered girl who
had so gleefully left her home in keen anticipation of a period of
adventurous travel amid new and stirring scenes had disappeared, and
this pale, wistful-eyed woman walking here seemed but the mere ghost of
the Yseulte Santorex of yore.
Often in her dreams she again goes through those terrible experiences--
the perilous flight with the scout across the rugged ranges, momentarily
expecting the volley of the lurking Sioux ambushed in the dense timber.
Often in her dreams she is once more fleeing for dear life across those
wild plains, the war-whoops of the painted fiends ringing in her ears,
the thunder of their pursuing steeds shaking the ground. Often in her
dreams she is again entering the frowning portals of that dread
Thermopylae, where one man had unhesitatingly laid down his life in
order that she might reach a place of safety. Often, too, she is once
more amid her genial, kindly, travelling companions, only to wake up
with a start and a shiver to the remembrance of their horrible fate.
But never as long as she lives will she forget the moment when her
brother, finding her out at Fort Vigilance, brought the news which had
confirmed her fears to the uttermost. He who had offered his life for
her was dead--dead amid the horrid torments of the Indian stake, as the
savages themselves affirmed--and to her, thenceforward, life seemed a
grey and valueless thing. There was nothing further to be gained by
opposing her brother's wish that she should at once accompany him home
to Lant-Hanger. Travelling through the British possessions safe beyond
the reach of the hostile Sioux, who still carried terror and pillage
over the plains of Dakota and Wyoming, they had set forth on their
journey and had reached home in due course.
Shocked out of even his philosophy by the change, nothing could exceed
the affectionate consideration her father had show for her since her
return. Even her mother forgot to grumble and scold in her relief at
having the girl back again safe and sound, for George had judiciously
put them up to the real state of affairs. It was not in the nature of
things that her parents should be well pleased that she had buried her
heart in the grave of an unknown adventurer, who had, moreover, met with
a horrible death, but time, they hoped, would work a gradual cure, and
she was young yet. Then, too, apart from this unfortunate affair, her
experiences had been terrible for a refined and luxuriously-nurtured
English girl. So no care or trouble was spared to induce her to forget
them.
But Yseulte herself was the last to second these well-meant efforts.
She would brace herself up to appear cheerful and at ease, but seemed
never so happy as when alone, rambling for hours through the fields and
woods, to her parents' concern and alarm. But any expression of the
latter would be met by a wan smile and a remark that one who had heard
the war-whoop and shots fired in grim earnest, and had twice been chased
by red Indians on the war-path, felt pretty secure among the peaceful
lanes and meadows of tame Old England. And one other thing noteworthy
was that she avoided Lant Hall and its denizens with a horror and a
persistency that was little short of feverish. She had never divulged
poor Geoffry's presence with the waggon train, and shrank morbidly from
doing so now. He might have escaped, but that he had fallen in the
general massacre which overtook the unfortunate emigrants she could
hardly doubt.
This evening she was returning from a long walk, having gone out to join
at luncheon her father and brother, who were shooting some distant
coverts, and who would drive home by the road. She, preferring her
solitary ramble through the fields and plantations, had left them early
in the afternoon.
The sharp air had brought a tinge of colour to her pale cheeks, as,
defying its rigours in her warm winter dress and toque, she stepped
along the woodland ride with the easy grace of a perfect physical
organisation. An owl dropped softly from overhead, hooting as it glided
along on noiseless pinions, the bark of a fox echoed from the depths of
the brake; but these weird sounds amid the gathering mists of night
caused her no uneasiness, let alone fear. She even stopped to listen to
them with a wistful yearning, for in the cry of the wild creatures of
the woods, and the swirl of the wind through the denuded branches, she
seemed to feel once more borne back to those nights of peril and of
fear--but oh! how sweet the recollection--in the wild and blood-stained
West, to walk alone in the spirit presence of him whom her mortal eyes
should never more behold.
"Would to God we had died together!" she exclaimed aloud, her eyes
dimmed with a rush of blinding tears. "Ah, why did I not die with him
when it was still in my power to do so? Ah, why?"
And the owl flitting ghostly through the brake, answered:
"Tu-whoo--whoo-whoo!"
A sound smote upon her ear as she turned the bend of the path--a sound
as of the footfall and snort of a horse. She looked up, and the sight
that met her eyes rooted her to the ground, while the blood at her very
heart stood still. But not with fear. Yet--what was that but a
phantom--a phantom horseman--advancing towards her at scarce thirty
paces? For the noble proportions of the coal-black steed there was no
mistaking--and his rider--ah!--through many a night of horror and
anguish she had seen in her dreams that towering frame, mangled and
mutilated by the barbarous vengeance of the red demons, that splendid
face, drawn and livid in the throes of an agonising death. Rider and
steed had been parted in life--here in the lonely woods, in the glooming
twilight, they were together again.
Her eyes met those of the phantom. An ecstasy shook her frame, and she
was powerless to articulate. A sweet smile played on her lips; her gaze
was strained upon the apparition, as though in the very strength of her
yearning she could constrain it to remain with her, could retard its
return to the shadowy unknown.
"Yseulte--love--I am no spectre," said the voice she knew so well. "I
have come straight to you as soon as I learned where to find you. Come
to me, darling!"
He had sprung to the ground, and stood awaiting her. The spell was
broken. A loud cry rang through the wood, and then she was in his
arms--laughing, weeping, sobbing, then laughing again. Words were out
of the question.
The wintry night fell black upon the glooming oakwoods, weirdly musical
with the mournful hooting of the owls. But there was no gloom in the
hearts of these two who now stepped from those thickening shades.
A crunch of wheels on the gravel, a flash of lamps, and the dog-cart
deposited the two shooters at the front door.
"Hallo, Chickie! What's in the wind, now?" exclaimed Mr Santorex,
staring in amazement, as his daughter, hardly giving him time to alight,
had flown at him and flung her arms around his neck, her face all aglow
with more than the happiness of former days.
"Father! _He's_ in there. Go in and see him!"
"_He_? What the deuce! In where? Give a fellow a chance! Who's
_he_?"
"Mr Vipan."
"Oh, ah--I remember. The champion scalp-hunter. Come to life again,
has he? Let's have a look at him."
As the door opened a tall figure rose from a chair, advancing with
outstretched hand.
"How do, Santorex?"
He thus unceremoniously addressed stared, as well he might. This was
Western brusquerie with a vengeance, he thought.
"Confound it! am I altered so dead out of all recognition?" said the
other with a careless laugh, standing full in the light.
"Why, no--that is, yes. We none of us grow younger in twenty years.
Well, well, Ralph. I'm heartily glad to see you, heartily glad." And
the two men grasped hands in thorough ratification of the sentiment.
"No, by George! I should never have known you," went on Mr Santorex.
"And Chickie, here, called you something else just now--what the deuce
was it?"
"Vipan? Yes, it was an old name in the family at one time. I've
revived it lately for my own convenience. That's how I was known out
West."
"Think you'd have known the child here?" went on "the child's" father,
turning to Yseulte, who had followed him into the room, and was now
staring in amazement at this new revelation.
"Well, I've had rather the advantage of her; a mean advantage she'll
say."
"She" was incapable of saying anything just then. That photograph of
the disinherited Ralph Vallance, which, since her return home, she had
managed to conjure out of her father's boxes of old correspondence, and
had treasured because it bore some slight resemblance to her dead lover,
now turned out to be nothing less than his actual portrait. Yet during
all their daily intercourse, so well had he guarded his secret, that not
a shadow of a passing instinct had ever warned her of his identity. It
was astounding.
"Been to call on Dudley yet, Ralph?" said Mr Santorex, with a twinkle
in his eye.
"Oh, yes. We had a talk over old times. By the way, that's another
misnomer. My real name's Rupert. They used to call me the other for
short. Heaven knows why, but they did, and I dropped it when I went
West. Shan't revive it."
If ever there was a snug family party gathered together, it was that at
the Elmcote dinner-table that night, when Rupert Vallance, as we must
now call him, yielding to general request, but especially to an
appealing glance from Yseulte's blue eyes, narrated his experiences from
the time of his capture to his escape from the camp of the hostiles,
only generalising however as to the agency of this latter event, and
omitting for the present all mention of poor Geoffry's horrible death.
But when it came to the narrator literally tucking himself in with the
grisly denizen of the Indian grave, in the ghostly silence of the
darkling forest, Mrs Santorex shivered and announced her intention of
fainting; however, this effect was soon dispelled by the more pleasing
_denouement_ of the stirring tale, how just in the nick of time, when
alone, dismounted, barely half armed, and the savages still in search of
him, he had been found by Smokestack Bill, who all this while, in hourly
peril himself, had unweariedly watched his chances of coming to the aid
of his friend. Smokestack Bill, too, with no less a companion than old
Satanta, who had been wandering the country ever since his escape from
the Ogallalla war-party, defying white or red to capture him, until,
seeming to recognise his master's friend, he ran whinnying to the latter
of his own accord.
"He's a grand fellow, that scout," said Mr Santorex. "Why didn't you
bring him over with you, Rupert?"
"Wouldn't come. He's going as chief scout to an expedition just about
to be sent against the hostiles. I made him promise, though, to come
over directly after the war."
But the acme of this marvellous and stirring life's romance was reached
when later--after the ladies had retired to bed--Rupert Vallance
recounted, in strict confidence, the circumstances of his meeting in the
Sioux camp, the unfortunate woman who had ruined his career hitherto by
allowing him to suffer for another's intrigue.
"By Jove!" said George Santorex, junior. "I've heard of that party.
Always supposed, though, she was a common sort of woman. A lady! and
prefers to live among a lot of dirty redskins! Why, the tallest yarn of
old Mayne Reid's is skim-milk to this. But I guess she pretty well
wiped out old scores by chousing the reds out of your scalp in that
clever way, eh, Rupert!"