CHAPTER III.
LELIA’S INGRATITUDE.
Laurie had closed his eyes in despair to meet inevitable death, but at that sound they flashed quickly open again, and he saw something he could never forget to his dying day.
Was it a dream, or was that a girl’s slight figure that sprang upward at the horses’ heads, clutching their bits with small, fragile hands, while her clear voice rang out again in stern command:
“Whoa, Saint and Satan, whoa!”
It was not her strength, it was her voice that instantly quelled their fury of fear and rage.
What was the power of those small, weak hands to the force of steel that dwelt in those magnificent blooded animals?
But like frightened children Saint and Satan yielded obedience alike to a familiar voice, and came down upon their haunches, as if yielding to her gentle touch in humble, slavish submission.
In their instant obedience the girl’s clasp was loosened, and she fell heavily to the wet ground, but she was up again in a moment, patting their necks, wet with rain and foam, and murmuring encouragingly:
“Poor boys, were you so frightened? But now that Gipsy is with you, I know you will be good. She will not let anything hurt you, you nervous Satan, and you silly Saint, following your brother’s lead into foolish adventures!”
All the while she soothed and calmed them, Laurie Willoughby, with the unconscious Lelia across his breast, stared like one in a dream.
He realized that he and Lelia were saved from a terrible death and restored to the beautiful, bright world they loved so well; but there was something so strange about it all that he could not move or speak from sheer agitation and bewilderment.
For the girl who had stopped the plunging horses in their frenzied career, as they were about to topple over the steep declivity into the river, was Gipsy Darke.
Gipsy Darke, whom not fifteen minutes ago he had seen up yonder on the beetling cliff two hundred feet above them, silhouetted against the golden sunlight that had changed so suddenly into gloom and tempest. How did she come here so quickly? How was it possible for her to descend in that space of time to their relief? There was something uncanny in her swift appearance on the scene of their peril. Had a miracle been wrought in their favor?
While he stared at her in seemingly stupid wonder, the girl standing at the horses’ heads in the drenching rain looked back at him, saying calmly:
“They are all right now, Mr. Willoughby, and you can drive straight on; but if you feel nervous lest they bolt again, you can go very slowly, and I will walk along in front to give them confidence. You see, they know me.”
“I know you, too, Miss Darke, and may Heaven punish me if I ever forget you! Lelia and I are indebted to you for our very lives!” Laurie answered huskily, recovering himself.
A smile like sunlight curved the girl’s red lips, and she answered earnestly:
“I am glad that I have been of service to you both. I have often wondered why I was ever born into a world that seemed to have no place for me, but now that I have been enabled to do such an act of real service to my kind, I will not question Heaven’s will again.”
“You are a noble girl!” he cried impulsively, and at thought of the past a lump of shame seemed to rise in his throat.
“Oh, I have not done so much, after all,” she answered lightly. “You see, Saint and Satan are twin brothers, and were raised at The Crags, so I have been sort of ‘hail fellow well met’ with them all my life. They would always obey my voice, just as you saw them just now.”
“It was wonderful the way they yielded to you!” he exclaimed admiringly. “But for that obedience we must have lost our lives. But how did you get so quickly to our relief? I saw you on the cliff just before the storm broke with such sudden violence. I cannot conceive how you came so quickly to our assistance. Did you fly through the air? I am grateful enough to credit you with angelic wings!”
A slightly roguish smile dawned on the red lips, extending to the long-lashed, Oriental, dark eyes.
“No, I didn’t fly quite, though I found a speedy means of reaching you just in the nick of time!” she answered lightly, adding: “But I’ll explain all that another time. Just now I am very anxious about Miss Ritchie. How cold and white she lies in your arms. And there is blood on her brow and on her golden hair. May I wipe it away?” and leaning inside the carriage, she pressed a damp, snowy handkerchief against the crimson stains.
But at her touch Lelia stirred in Laurie’s clasp, and her blue eyes opened dreamily.
When she saw the lovely, compassionate face so close to her own, instant recognition shone in her glance, and she cried out, just as of old:
“Get away, you black gipsy. I hate you!”
Laurie saw the hot blood mantle the girl’s cheek as she recoiled from the insult, and he trembled with quick shame at Lelia’s discourtesy as he said, gently:
“I must beg your pardon for Miss Ritchie’s rudeness. When she learns that you saved both our lives by leaping at the horses’ heads and stopping them, she will feel as grateful to you as I do.”
Lelia, straightening up to a sitting posture, snapped scornfully:
“I would rather have been killed than to owe my life to a wretched waif like Gipsy Darke!”
“Lelia!” he expostulated in shame and entreaty.
“Drive on, Mr. Willoughby, if you please, and as the worst of the storm seems almost over, I do not believe there will be any more danger, so I will return by the short cut I took to come,” interposed Gipsy, suddenly turning aside and disappearing as if she had entered a fissure in the cliff.
Laurie stared in wonder, exclaiming:
“Why, she has vanished as strangely as she appeared when she came to our relief! Has the earth opened and swallowed the poor girl up, I wonder? It is very strange.”
“Do drive on, Laurie, and don’t sit there staring at the rocks and trees as if you had gone daft! It’s easy enough to hide under some of those great boulders, if she chooses, and for my part, I wish she would fall into a deep cave, and never get out again!” exclaimed Lelia, in a violent rage.
“Oh, my dear, how can you be so cruel and ungrateful? Did I not tell you that by her superb bravery she has just saved both our lives?”
She answered with bitter ingratitude.
“That is no reason I should be falling in love with her, as you are doing, Laurie Willoughby! I can pay my debt of gratitude more acceptably, no doubt, with some of my cast-off clothes and old hats.”