Brave
little girl! She would have risked her life willingly to save me.
But some time after she reached our cave she heard voices from
the far recesses within, and immediately concluded that we had but
found another entrance to the caves which the Band-lu occupied upon
the other face of the cliff. Then she had set out through those
winding passages and in total darkness had groped her way, guided
solely by a marvelous sense of direction, to where I lay. She had
had to proceed with utmost caution lest she fall into some abyss
in the darkness and in truth she had thrice come upon sheer drops
and had been forced to take the most frightful risks to pass them.
I shudder even now as I contemplate what this girl passed through
for my sake and how she enhanced her peril in loading herself down
with the weight of my arms and ammunition and the awkwardness of
the long rifle which she was unaccustomed to bearing.
I could have knelt and kissed her hand in reverence and gratitude;
nor am I ashamed to say that that is precisely what I did after
I had been freed from my bonds and heard the story of her trials.
Brave little Ajor! Wonder-girl out of the dim, unthinkable past!
Never before had she been kissed; but she seemed to sense something
of the meaning of the new caress, for she leaned forward in the
dark and pressed her own lips to my forehead.
Pages:
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80