"Steady, steady, my masters all! If this turn out a wrong scent after all, his wits will crack. Mr. Yeo, can't you think of any other token?"
Yeo stamped impatiently. "What need then? It's her, I tell ye, and that's enough! What a beauty she's grown! Oh dear! where were my eyes all this time, to behold her, and not to see her! 'Tis her very mortal self, it is! And don't you mind me, my dear, now? Don't you mind Salvation Yeo, that taught you to sing 'Heave my mariners all, O!' a-sitting on a log by the boat upon the sand, and there was a sight of red lilies grew on it in the moss, dear, now, wasn't there? and we made posies of them to put in your hair, now?"—And the poor old man ran on in a supplicating, suggestive tone, as if he could persuade the girl into becoming the person whom he sought.
Ayacanora had watched him, first angry, then amused, then attentive, and at last with the most intense earnestness. Suddenly she grew crimson, and snatching her hands from the old man's, hid her face in them, and stood.
"Do you remember anything of all this, my child?" asked Amyas gently.
She lifted up her eyes suddenly to his, with a look of imploring agony, as if beseeching him to spare her. The death of a whole old life, the birth of a whole new life, was struggling in that beautiful face, choking in that magnificent throat, as she threw back her small head, and drew in her breath, and dashed her locks back from her temples, as if seeking for fresh air. She shuddered, reeled, then fell weeping on the bosom, not of Salvation Yeo, but of Amyas Leigh.
He stood still a minute or two, bearing that fair burden, ere he could recollect himself. Then,—
"Ayacanora, you are not yet mistress of yourself, my child. You were better to go down, and see after poor Lucy, and we will talk about it all to-morrow."
She gathered herself up instantly, and with eyes fixed on the deck slid through the group, and disappeared below.
"Ah!" said Yeo, with a tone of exquisite sadness; "the young to the young! Over land and sea, in the forests and in the galleys, in battle and prison, I have sought her! And now!"
"My good friend," said Amyas, "neither are you master of yourself yet. When she comes round again, whom will she love and thank but you?"
"You, sir! She owes all to you; and so do I. Let me go below, sir. My old wits are shaky. Bless you, sir, and thank you forever and ever!"
And Yeo grasped Amyas's hand, and went down to his cabin, from which he did not reappear for many hours.
From that day Ayacanora was a new creature. The thought that she was an Englishwoman; that she, the wild Indian, was really one of the ^reat white people whom she had learned to worship, carried in it some regenerating change: she regained all
