She struggled to release herself.  “All right,” she said stiffly.  “I not think you tak’ me.  Only maybe.”

“By God!” swore Ambrose.  “If I live through my troubles I’ll find a way of getting you out of yours!”

“Ah, come back!” she murmured, clinging to his arm.

“Good-by,” he said.

“Wait!” she said, clinging to him.  She lifted her face.  “Kiss me once, lak’ white people kiss!”

He kissed her fairly.

“Goo’-by,” she whispered.  “I always be think of you.  Goo’-by, Angleysman!”

CHAPTER XXX.

FREE!

Ambrose put off with a heart big with compassion for the piteous little figure he was leaving behind him.  His impotence to aid her poisoned the joy of his escape.

The worst of it was that it was impossible for him to return the feeling she had for him—­even though Colina were lost to him forever.  Her unlucky passion almost forbade him to be the one to aid her.

Yet he had profited by that passion to make his escape.  He must find some way.

As he drove his paddle into the breast of the dark river, and put one point of willows after another between him and danger, it must be confessed that his spirits rose steadily.

Never had his nostrils tasted anything sweeter than the smell of warm river water on the chill air, nor his eyes beheld a friendlier sight than the cheery stars.  The one who fares forth does not repine.

After all he had only known Nesis for two days; she was fine and plucky—­but he could not love her, and that was all there was to it.  He had matters nearer his heart than the sad fate of an Indian maiden.

Master of his actions once more it was time for him to consider what to do to get out of the coil he was in.  Nesis passed into the back of his mind.

No desire for sleep hampered him.  He had had enough of sleeping the past two weeks.  His arms had ached for this exercise.  There was a fair current, and the willows moved by at a respectable rate.

He estimated that he could put forty miles between him and the Kakisa village by morning.  The pleasant taste of freedom was heightened by the spice of heading into the unknown, and by night.

Night returns a rare sympathy to those who cultivate her.  Ambrose, so far as he knew, was the first white man ever to travel this way.  This river had no voice.  The night was so still one could almost fancy one heard the stars.

Sometimes the looming shapes of islands confused him as to his course, but if he held his paddle the canoe would of itself choose the main current.

He had no apprehension as to what each bend in the stream would reveal, for with the experienced riverman’s intuition he looked for a change in the character of the shores to warn him of any interruption of the current’s smooth flow.