Page:War Drums (1928).pdf/286

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
XXXIV

THAT day passed much as their other days on Sani'gilagi had passed. Yet for two of them it was such a day as had never been seen before. For Jolie Stanwicke and Lachlan McDonald the world that they had known had been blotted out and a new world had begun. From the valley below, as they sat together near the edge of the cliff, the faint insistent throbbing of the war drums floated upward on the evening air; but if they heard the sound and remembered for a brief moment the peril that surrounded them, that peril mattered little.

Only once Jolie spoke of Gilbert Barradell; and it was then that Lachlan made known to her what Almayne had learned from Aganuntsi the Conjurer.

She listened calmly while Lachlan told her of Barradell's marriage to Concha's daughter. Then she kissed him and held his face between her hands and smiled into his eyes.

"I am glad that Gilbert is happy," she said, and sat for some minutes in silence, her head against Lachlan's shoulder.

Presently she laughed aloud. "Do you remember," she asked, "how I quizzed you about this Indian girl, this daughter of Chief Concha, and how I hoped