She bit her lip to refrain from smiling, and drew back beyond the circle of firelight. Taking Frazer’s poniard in his right hand and still holding the bottle in his left, Towaye hesitated. Yet suddenly an inborn passion, until to-day latent in him, but common to all the human race, predominated. His mouth watered; he must taste the forbidden fruit. The women heard a little crash, and the glass neck fell off under a blow from the poniard’s blade. Frazer’s own weapon, left as a precaution with the Indian, had turned against him. Towaye drank, and drank again. Gyll peered out and saw his head fall back slowly as, gradually inverting the bottle until it stood bottom up, he drained its contents to the dregs. At this moment Gyll Croyden did an unaccountable thing. Raising her bound hands to the crown of her head, she surprised Eleanor by untying a short scarlet ribbon that confined her hair, and instantly a radiant cascade of gold rippled and rioted downward, completely enveloping her. “Watch now a piece of play-acting. ’Twould delight Kyt’s heart.” Towaye rose and entered the arbor. His features were distinctly visible, for the fire, being on the ground partly to one side of the opening, cast its gleam up even to the roof of grapes and obliquely athwart the intruder’s face. His hands, now empty, were half outstretched, palms forward, fingers bent as though to grasp something. Eleanor drew back with a cry of terror. For a moment the dark form, naked save for an apron of deerskin, stood motionless. Then, with a guttural monosyllable in his own tongue, Towaye started forward. Slowly Gyll arose and faced him. The fire, with a final high flare, lit up her hair. The long tresses, falling in ripples below her knees and completely veiling her face, shone like a flood of sunlight. But for the minute his savage eyes and heavy steps were directed to Eleanor. Gyll spoke, and the Indian stopped short to look at her. “Towaye,” she said, in a voice that sounded far away behind the golden curtain of her hair, “hark! You stand before the Daughter of the Sun. Advance no farther, or the fire that inflames your brain shall burn your body also.” She paused. Her knowledge of Indian theology was hopelessly scant and indefinite. She had heard that somewhere, in some part of this vast America, there was a people who worshipped the sun. Might not a like heliolatry be induced here, even though the Hatteras tribe acknowledged no such deity? “I, the Daughter of the Sun, command you! Leave me!” She thrust her hands through the shining locks and held them aloft as though to weave a spell. “See, Towaye. Even now the spell of the Sun enthralls thee. Thy legs tremble and waver.” She swayed slightly to and fro to increase his own unsteadiness. “Thy brain whirls as the flame of a camp-fire. Thy thoughts clutch at dreams. In an instant thou shalt be consumed.”