And now the young noble, overcome with gratitude, fell on his knees before her and caught her hand between his own.  He would have kissed it in sheer joy at his escape, but the Indian girl drew sharply back.

“Quick!” she whispered, yet remembering to speak in Spanish, “You must hide yourself at once.  My father will kill you if he should find you here!”

Swiftly she concealed the boat in a tiny cove behind the boulder, a hiding place he would never have seen though it was apparently perfectly familiar to her.

“Sometimes my own canoe I keep there too,” she whispered.  “Now come!” and she hurried him along the beach and up an easier trail beyond the rocks to her cavern bower above.

Nor did she pause for an instant’s rest until they had passed safely behind the manzanita branches which concealed the entrance.  Here, motioning him to do the same, she dropped upon a pile of skins.  But instead, in real concern, the young Englishman knelt again beside her.

“Thou art so wet and cold,” he began anxiously, “Will it not make thee ill?  Yet ’twas a wondrous feat,” he added admiringly, “well conceived and carried out with skill such as any man might envy!”

The princess laughed.

’Twas nothing,” she answered briefly.  “I do it almost every day.”

“I came to bring to thee the gift I promised,” explained Lord Harold then, and from his belt he drew the little case.  Eagerly he flung the gleaming string of garnets about her slim brown throat.

“Jewels brought by my father to my mother on the morning of their marriage,” he told her.  “When she lay dying she gave them me and told me never to part with them except I gave them to my — " He paused suddenly, “But thou hast saved my life!” he added as quickly, “Who else could ever deserve them more?  Well know I my mother would wish thee to have them.”

Silently, though her eyes were bright with, pleasure, the princess lifted the beautiful necklace.

“Wildenai will wear them always, senor lord,” she answered softly, “for now she knows that truly you did mean to keep your word!”

And so, his mission accomplished, her guest rose hastily to his feet.  He must return immediately to the ship.

“Know you not, then, that it is gone?” exclaimed the girl, amazed.

“Gone?” echoed young Harold, and stared at her astounded.  He seemed not to have grasped her meaning.  “Gone, said’st thou?”

“The ship was out of sight a full hour or more ere ever I heard you call,” she explained.

Still he continued to gaze at her fixedly as if totally unable to comprehend what she would have him know.  Then it was plain to be seen that, for the moment at least, blank despair took hold upon him.  Up and down the length of the cave he strode like some imprisoned wild thing.  At length, standing quite still with folded arms, he seemed to lose himself in thought.