Motionless, she gazed down upon him long and earnestly, with gravely sweet, kind eyes; then, stooping low, she embraced the sorrowing woman tenderly, and kissed her on the brow, bidding her be of good cheer and calling her "Sister." Presently, drawing herself erect, she uplifted her heavenly voice again, and there rang forth--as he well remembered her singing it in _life_, one never-to-be-forgotten Christmas morn, in that little Catholic Church in far-off Johannesburg--"In Excelsis Gloria":
"Glory to God in the Highest! And on earth peace, goodwill towards men!"
She bent and kissed the woman a last farewell. Then, raising her arms in holy benediction, she slowly became a _shade_, as before, unfolding her wings and floating away diaphonously into the silvery mists of the early morn.
The kneeling woman then arose and, turning, came towards him swiftly. A tall, stately figure of a woman, with a kind, strong, sweet face; the tumbled masses of her glossy, raven-hued hair all floating and rippling about her regal shoulders and white columnar throat.
Near she drew to him--nearer. She stretched out her bare rounded arms to him with a little happy loving cry as she smiled into his eyes, and he saw the splendor and glory of the world in hers.
While, far away in his ears, rang the echo of his own voice calling upon a woman's name--wonderingly, passionately--"Mary!... Mary!... Mary!..."
The wild hawk to the wind-swept sky, The deer to the wholesome wold, And the heart of a man to the heart of a maid As it was in the days of old. The heart of a man to the heart of a maid-- Light of my tents, be fleet! Morning waits at the end of the world; And the world is all at our feet.
"Wake up, Johnny, yu' old fool!... don't yu' start in to lazy on me or I'll--"
Here Ellis shrewdly pinched his mount's withers, causing that animal to flatten his ears and nip playfully at his rider's knee.
"Look out, doggone it! If _I_ happen to get a bit absent-minded at times, yu' needn't follow suit!" he exclaimed sharply, as he jerked his horse away from the edge of a small, but wicked muskeg, around which the trail that led to the Trainors' ranch circled. "I sure don't want to be getting in the soup like Jim McCloud did that time, on _this_ day of all days. I'll hand yu' over to Mary, begad!... she'll teach yu' to 'soldier,' yu' old sucker!"