She looked at the tiny camp-fire, dying down now, to red embers, so that the group of men who were crouched upon the ground about it showed in the pale moonlight with no glow of flame upon their faces. Dyke was standing by them, still talking to them. It was a lengthy jollying to-night.
There stood her man. She had got him now, for her very own. These hired followers did not count; he and she were alone now, with no human being to come between them. They had travelled far in their great love--away from etiquette books, beyond the reach of laws--backward through the ages to forgotten codes and outworn ceremonies--back, almost, to the elements of life and the rule of nature. She was half dreaming; and she thought, as she dropped her curtain and lay down beneath the rugs, that Aconcagua had married them; these mountains had confirmed the bond, making them one under the cold stars, mingling their limbs by the pressure of iron frosts, moulding their embrace to the uneven surface of their bed of stone; and now the shadowy stately ghosts of the Incas had gathered round the nuptial tent, to put a mystic seal upon their union.
She was asleep, but she woke to the murmur of his voice at her ear. Lying beside her, he continued to whisper.
“Emmie, there’s something wrong with the men.”
“I can’t understand, myself. I’ve been at them for hours, and I can’t make anything of them. It’s as though they had become suspicious--or as though they were all sickening for some infernal disease.”
“No. I believe he’s been somehow upset too, but he won’t own it. He was helping me with them, seeming to back me up, and yet I had the feeling that he would let me down if he dared. It struck me they might have taken alarm because I made them fill the water skins yesterday. You know--they might have supposed we were going where there’d be no water. But it wasn’t that. Emmie, I had to tell you this. Don’t worry about it.”
“No--only because you are worried yourself, Tony.”
“Well, it would be too damnably disappointing if they lost heart now, or shirked the work I have to give them. But I don’t believe they will. No, it is some ridiculous and absurd fancy that has taken possession of them. One must be prepared for anything--in the Andes. Whatever it is, I’ll put it right to-morrow.”