A Princess of the Balkans/Chapter 9

Dallas was awakened by a thin sunbeam which had found its way through a crevice in the shutters and was shining directly into his eyes. He blinked and sat up, dazed and bewildered.

A stab of pain in his arm brought him quickly back to a sense of his surroundings. The wound of his head did not bother him, but his side was very sore. Otherwise he felt himself quite fit and with no indication of fever.

Resting on one elbow, he looked about him with a smile. Outside, the jay birds were protesting violently at the late opening hours of their restaurant, and the goats were bleating expectantly. From the brightness of the sunshine, Dallas guessed that the day must be well advanced, but as door and shutters were closed, the light in the cabin was still deeply subdued.

Snuggled up against the young man lay the yellow cat. In front of the fire slept the Lady Thalia; and Dallas, glancing with a smile from one to the other of his companions, found it impossible to determine which appeared to be the more at ease. Thalia's face was turned toward him; her cheek was on one palm, her lips slightly parted, and her wavy hair tumbled about her face, which was a little flushed and dewy with sleep. Her heavy, double-breasted tunic of homespun wool was loosened at the neck, and her soft throat looked very white and delicate against the rough fabric. In spite of her hard bed, she appeared to be sleeping as easily as a child tucked up in its crib.

As Dallas looked at her, his eyes grew tender. "Dear little girl," he thought. "No wonder James is crazy about her! Not many women could go through such an ordeal as yesterday and come out of it as fresh and undismayed."

He could not take his eyes from her, and perhaps the girl felt in her sleep the intensity of his gaze, for presently she sighed, yawned, straightened out her limbs like a pussycat, and sleepily pushed the hair back from her face with one small hand; then the long, dark lashes slowly lifted, and her tawny eyes looked straight into his. Wider they opened, and wider still, with an expression of such hopeless bewilderment that Dallas laughed outright. Then intelligence came flooding back, and her face turned rosy pink.

"Oh!" she gasped, and sat up, gathering her tumbled hair in both hands. Her lips parted with a smile of embarrassment.

"How do you feel?" she asked, a trifle breathlessly.

"Like a fighting cock. Did you have a good sleep?"

"Delicious! This mountain air! It got rather cold in the night, and I built up the fire. How do the wounds feel?"

"Wouldn't know that I had 'em! I think that they are going to close without making any trouble. There can't be much infection in this climate, and, besides, I always heal quickly."

Thalia leaned forward and began to lace up her sandals, then she rose and crossed the room.

"What are you up to now?" asked Dallas.

She threw him a saucy look. "I must give the baby his milk. Then I am going down for a dip in the river."

"You'll freeze!"

"I like cold water. Then I must milk the goats, and see if I can find some eggs for your breakfast. You are to lie still."

"It can't hurt me to get up."

"Yes, it can. You are to keep still."

"All right."

She threw him a suspicious glance, then went to the fire and heated some of the goats' milk, which Dallas drank with a wry face. Thalia laughed, then walked to the door of the cabin and threw it wide, letting in a flood of sunlight. On the threshold, she paused.

"Now I am going to bathe. Be good!" She blew him a little kiss.

"Stop it!" said Dallas.

"Stop what?"

"Throwing me kisses."

Thalia raised her eyebrows mockingly.

"What would James say?" growled Dallas.

"I hadn't thought."

"Well, you must think! What if I were to throw a kiss back to you?"

"Dreadful! What would Paula say?"

"Oh, bosh! Run along and take your bath, and be careful."

When she had gone, Dallas got up and went out into the fresh, fragrant morning. Rather to his surprise, he found himself a little unsteady on his feet; also he discovered that moving about gave him considerable pain in his wounded side. When Thalia returned, fresh and glowing, she found him sitting on the threshold, basking in the warm sunlight.

"This is very naughty of you," said the girl. "Go straight back and lie down!" And Dallas was forced to obey.

Upon the man's repeated refusals to allow her to sleep another night on the floor, the Lady Thalia collected some loose willow boughs and made for herself a rough, but effectual, screen around the platform corner. She consented to this arrangement only after she had moved the sheepskins over in front of the fire, so that Dallas could rest there in comparative comfort.

The day wore on, and the two remained in undisturbed possession of the little cabin. When the late shadows began to lengthen, Dallas was permitted to get up, and the two sat upon the threshold and watched the crimson afterglow flaming the skies over the dim hills to the westward. From the valley beneath, came the deep, caressing murmur of the river, and a faint breeze brought to them the night smells of the forest, sweet with the odors of balsam and fern. Soon the darkness came, and the ruddy light from the fire began to dance and flicker on the walls of the cabin. Then Dallas was sent to bed again and fed more milk and a vegetable soup, thickened with cornmeal. For a while the two discussed the continued absence of their host, and what it might portend, and why it was that nobody came near the little cabin.

"He is probably a holy man," said Thalia, "and no doubt does miracles, and the herders are afraid to come near. There was once such a santon who lived on the top of a mountain not far from my father's castle. He was a very holy man, and very kind, but all the people were afraid of him because he used to talk with the dead and bring messages to the families of some of the Shkipetari from people who had been killed in feuds or perhaps murdered. Nobody would go near his hut when he was away or in a trance. Perhaps this man is like that."

"Are you afraid of such things, Thalia?"

"A little." She threw an apprehensive glance about the cabin.

"Afraid of the dead?" asked Dallas, amused.

"I like live people better." She moved a little closer. "We Shkipetari are rather superstitious. But I have lived so much in England that I am not like the others."

"How did you come to live so much in England?"

"My father was a very enlightened man, and a great student. He sent me to Paris to school, and there I made the acquaintance of an English girl and used to visit at her home in England. Up here in these mountains it is different. But I am not afraid when I am with you."