Page:Gaston Leroux--The bride of the sun.djvu/88

74 on her narrow camp-bed. Suddenly, in the dead of night, she sat up, listening. A familiar voice seemed to be speaking. She slipped noiselessly to the canvas flap covering the entrance to the tent, and peeped out.

There were two shadows out there, moving away in the moonlight. One she recognized immediately for the Indian bank-clerk. Who was the other? They stopped, and half turned toward the tent It was Huascar!

What was Huascar doing there, at that time of night, with that strange Indian? Why were they pointing at her tent? What did it all mean?... The two shadows were walking again.... Then the peace of the night was broken by a neigh, and the young girl saw a picketed horse stamping in the shadow beyond. Huascar vaulted into the saddle, while his companion loosed the picket-rope, still talking and occasionally nodding toward the tent. Then both disappeared, and silence descended again on the sleeping camp.

Maria-Teresa could not sleep all night. Huascar's unexpected reappearance was in no way calculated to calm the half-expressed terror which haunted her, and which she refused to acknowledge, stifling what she called her cowardice. Had she anything to fear from Huascar? She could not believe it. She knew quite