Page:Cy Warman--The express messenger and other tales of the rail.djvu/109

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father's tent and waited to be welcomed home. The old scout was pacing his tent, for he had not ceased to grieve for his daughter, but now that she had returned to him, as one from the grave, her coming served only to augment his misery. At sight of her he had taken a step or two toward the tent door, and then pausing to look upon her for the last time, his face grew grave as he pointed a long arm down the darkness. In a hoarse voice he uttered those ominous words, 'The shadows lie upon the shore,—to the river begone.' With a despairing look, the Princess turned back into the rain-swept night, and now a new danger confronted her. The guards had seen her at the tent door, by the dim light of a grease-lamp, and now they seized and bound her. Her father had left to her the one chance of flight, the guards had shown less pity. And while she sat bound and guarded in a darkly lighted tent her lover slept and dreamed of her coming, not a hundred yards away. The day dawned grudgingly, the darkness seemed reluctantly to leave the earth, the sun remained behind the dark clouds, from which the rain continued to fall in torrents. At