Page:The Bondman; A New Saga (IA bondmannewsaga00cain).djvu/70

 shouted after her, and down came another thwack on the donkey, and away he sped across the meadow. But before he had ridden far he drew rein and twisted about, and now his blue eyes were swimming once more.

"Greeba," he called, and his little voice broke, but no answer came back to him.

"Greeba," he called again, more loudly, but Greeba did not stop.

"Greeba!" he shouted with all his strength. "Greeba! Greeba!"

But the little maid had gone, and there was no response. The bees were humming in the gold of the gorse, and the flies were buzzing about the donkey's ears, while the mountains were fading away into a dim wet haze.

Half an hour later the carriage of the Duchess drove out through the iron gates of Government House, and the little maiden seated in it by the side of the stately lady was crying in a voice of childlike grief, "Sunlocks! Sunlocks! Little Sunlocks!"

The advantage which the Governors wife proposed to herself in parting with her daughter she never gained, and one of the secret ends of her life was thereby not only disappointed but defeated; for while the Duchess did nothing for Greeba, the girl's absence from home led Adam to do the more for Michael Sunlocks. Deprived of his immediate object of affection, his own little maiden, Adam lavished his love on the stranger whom chance had brought to his door; being first prompted thereto by the thought, which came only when it was too late, that in sending Greeba away to be company to some other child, he had left poor little Sunlocks at home to be sole company to himself.

But Michael Sunlocks soon won for himself the caresses that were once due merely to pity of his loneliness, and Adam's heart went out to him with the strong affection of a father. He throve, he grew—a tall, lithe, round-limbed lad, with a smack of the man in his speech and ways, and all the strong beauty of a vigorous woman in his face. Year followed year, his schooldays came and went, he became more and yet more the Governor's quick right hand, his pen and his memory, even his judgment and the staff he leaned on. It was "Michael Sunlocks" here, and "Michael Sunlocks" there, and "Michael Sunlocks will see to that," and "You may safely leave it to Michael Sunlocks." And meantime the comely and winsome