The woman had not been taught to pray, that is, not meaningly. She knew of few material things for which to ask in that island so bountifully provided by nature, and the spiritual was still vague and voiceless in her heart; but for one thing she could petition whatever power there was above her, who somehow to her untutored mind seemed present and about her. She prayed that the man she loved might love her and use her well--the natural prayer of woman!
After a little time Beekman rose in better heart than he had been since he had been cast upon the island. He drew Truda to her feet, and there before the altar, confronting the cross, he kissed her, not with the passion and fire of the night before, or of the warm, languorous afternoons when they wandered amid flowers and blossoms ’neath groves of palm. There was something sacramental in the touch of his lips. There, that night, at that hour, in that temple so sacred to her, the girl became a woman. With quick apprehension she felt the difference which she could not explain.
"Your God is a very great God,", she whispered, breaking the seal of that kiss. "He shall be my God." She laid his hand upon her heart under the soft, sweet round of her immature, innocent breast. "I feel here that He has spoken."
"May His blessing be upon you, and may He deal with me as I with you," said Beekman, deeply moved.
"We must go," said the girl at last, her heart voicing the "amen" she knew not how to speak.
"Wait, I must examine these," returned the man, releasing her.
He bent toward the dark objects on the altar. The first touch of his hand told him what they were--books! The light was too dim for him to make out what books, yet as he lifted the cover and turned the leaves of the one on the right he decided that it was a printed volume. He examined the one on the left in the same way and decided that it was a manuscript volume. One would be the Bible, of course; the other, longer and thinner, less bulky, the manuscript volume that would tell the story.
He picked them both up and tucked them under his arm. Truda had told him that the church would not be entered until another month had passed and the full moon came again. He could replace them in good time. He must examine them at his leisure.