The young officer gazed anxiously and irresolutely at the speaker. True, he told himself that she would be safe; even if she met his pursuers no one would suspect whence she came or where she was going, and a pretext was easily found. If she remained with him she must share his fate and perhaps be the first victim of her tribe's revenge, yet it was unspeakably difficult for him to part from the happiness he had scarcely won.
"I will not leave the spring," he answered. "Do you think I want to die now? I never so loved life as at this moment when my Danira is its prize, and I am ready to fight for it--I shall be fighting for my happiness and future."
His glance again sought hers, which no longer shunned it, but the large dark eyes rested on his features with a strange expression--a look at once gentle, yet gloomy and fraught with pain; it had not a ray of the happiness so brightly evident in his words.
"The price[1] of your life!" she repeated. "Yes, Gerald, I will be that with my whole heart, and now--farewell!"
"Farewell! God grant that you may reach the fort safely; once there my comrades will know how to protect my preserver from the vengeance of her people."
He spoke unsuspiciously and tenderly, but he must have unwittingly stirred those dark depths in the girl's nature, which were mysterious even to him. Danira started as though an insult had been hurled in her face; the old fierceness seemed about to break forth again, but it was only a moment ere the emotion was suppressed.
"I need their protection as little as I fear the vengeance directed against myself alone! Farewell, Gerald; once more--farewell!"
The young officer again clasped her in his arms. He did not hear the pain of parting in the words, only the deep, devoted love, still so new to him from Danira. But she scarcely allowed him a moment for his leave-taking, but tore herself away, as if she feared to prolong it.
He saw her bend over the spring, while her lips moved as though she were commending her lover to its protection. Then she hastily climbed the cliff, and vanished through the dark rock gateway.
At the top of the height Danira paused. Only one moment's rest after this mute, torturing conflict! She alone knew what this parting meant. Gerald did not suspect that it was an eternal farewell, or he never would have permitted her to quit his side.