XXXV
The night passed without disturbance, the morning found them swathed in dense white mist which hid one side of the ship from the other.
"He did not come again?" asked The Girl when they met. "I am ashamed to have slept so soundly. I intended to take my fair share of the watching."
"There was no need. I bolted the doors and slept at the foot of the stairs. It's all cotton-wool outside. You can't see a couple of feet. He won't venture out in that, if I know him. But we need water. I'll go across after breakfast and get some."
"I shall come too. I wouldn't stop here alone for anything."
"All right. Our only difficulty will be in finding the shore and getting back to the ship. Fog is terribly bewildering."
"If you can find the shore we can get back all right," she said, after thinking it over.
"How?"
"We have that heap of rope you brought over. Could we not untwist some and make a cord? Then if we tied one end to the ship and carried the other ashore we could feel our way back by it."
"It will take a lot of untwisting. We're quite two hundred yards from the shore. But it's worth trying."
So they untwisted rope till their fingers were sore, and tied the pieces together till he judged they had enough, and presently they embarked noiselessly on their raft and paddled in the direction in which he believed the shore lay, The Girl paying out the string as they went.
This weird envelopment of dense white mist was a new experience for her. She could barely see the water a foot or two away. The string slipped through her fingers and vanished into the fog-wall. Dale, sweeping the water with his oar, loomed dim and large just above her.
They went on and on, but found no shore.
"The string is nearly all done," she said at last.
"Then we're going wrong," he whispered. "Don't speak loud, we don't know how near we may be to——" and, as if to confirm his fears, a great black bulk appeared in the clammy white above them, and Wulfrey hurriedly checked their way and backed off into the fog again.
"'The Jane and Mary,'" he whispered, when they had put a space between them and it. "We've been circling round. The shore must be this way, I think——" and the cord slacked in The Girl's fingers as he struck off to the right, and in due course they made the beach with cord to spare.
They tied the precious guiding-line to the raft and set off with their buckets, Wulfrey trailing his oar behind him so that by its mark in the sand they might grope their way back. In his belt he carried the only weapon he possessed, his axe, which, as matters stood with the mate, he deemed it advisable always to have at hand.
Keeping along the edge of the lake till he judged they were opposite the ponds, they struck inland, and managing to keep a straighter course than on the water, came at last to their goal.
They filled their buckets and were returning on their trail, bending every now and again to make sure they were right, when, with an abruptness that startled the buckets out of their hands, a dark figure loomed up on them out of the fog and they found themselves face to face with the mate.
He had heard them coming and was ready. Wulfrey had barely time to drop his oar and pluck out his axe when the other sprang at him with his weapon swung up for the blow.
It was very grim. Of all fighting-tools the axe is the most brutal—after, perhaps, the spiked club and the scythe-blade tied on a pole, which are only fit for savages. It is cumbersome and ungainly. It admits of little skill either in attack or defence. Its arguments are final and convincing, and its wounds are very ghastly.
The Girl could barely make out which was which, so thick was the veiling fog. But that did not matter. She sprang in between the two dark figures with arms outspread, at imminent risk of receiving both their blows, crying, "No!—You shall not! You shall not!"
The mate hurled oaths at her. She thought he was going to strike her down. And past her, at Wulfrey,—"—— ye! It's like ye. Steal her first, then hide behind her!"
With one big black hand he gripped her blanket cloak and whirled her away into the mist, and came plunging at Wulfrey, who stood with poised axe and eyes that watched his every movement.
The mate played round him for an opening. Out of the corner of his eye he saw The Girl groping about for the oar. He rushed in to end it with one crushing blow.
But Wulf was ready for him and he was the cooler man. As the mate's axe came swooshing down straight for his shoulder and neck, his own swung round, caught the other full in the blade with its own stout back, and with a ringing click sent it flying, with such a shock to the arm that had held it that the mate believed it was broken. He ducked with an oath and disappeared into the fog.
The Girl came panting up, her face all sanded with her fall, her eyes ablaze. "Did it reach you?"
"Not at all. I'm all right."
"The brute! I feared he would kill you."
"He did his worst.... What were you going to do with that?"—the oar she had picked up.
"I was going to smash him on the head with it, but I couldn't find it at first."
"Two to one!"
"I don't care. I'd have killed him if I could."
"What about our water?"
"It's all spilled."
"We'll go back for more. He won't come back. I doubt if he'll find his axe in this fog. Which way now?" and he stood puzzling, for force of circumstance and much trampling of the sand had lost them their clue. "You cast round that way for the mark of the oar, but don't go far. I'll try this side. Call if you find."
"Here!" she cried, almost at once, and he followed her voice into the fog and found her standing on the line.
But so confused were they that even then they had not an idea which way to follow it.
"Which way?" she asked, staring down at the groove under her feet.
"This, I think.... I don't know," and he stood perplexed, "There is nothing for it but following it up and seeing where we come to."
So they picked up their buckets, and he took the oar, and they set off again,—and came out at last, not on the green undergrowth which flourished round the ponds, but on the bare shore of the lake.
"Now we know where we are at all events. Dare you stop here while I go back?"
"No," she said with a shiver.
"Come along, then!" and they turned and went back, and he discoursed of fogs as they went. "Nothing like a fog for absolutely confusing one's sense of direction. I've known people wander for hours on a common, round and round, quite unable to get anywhere. And one soon gets into a panic and common sense goes overboard."
She had not had much experience of fogs, but expressed herself vehemently on the subject, and so they came to the ponds, and back, in time, to their raft. And Wulfrey was mightily glad to see it again, for the idea had been troubling him that Macro might have found it, and set it adrift, or gone off to their ship to find solace there for his discomfiture ashore.
"I wonder where he's got to?" he said anxiously.
"I don't care. I wish he'd get lost in the fog and never come back."
"You feel strongly," he said, with a smile at her vehemence.
"Yes, I like or I dislike, and both to the full."
The guiding-line led them safely home, and glad they were to get there, for the chill of the fog and the treacheries it held were enough to weigh down the staunchest of spirits.
XXXVI
Their experiences in the fog had occupied many hours, and the unusual strain had left them both somewhat lax and weary. By the time they had prepared and eaten their much-delayed meal, and were enjoying the after-rest, the thick whiteness outside had turned to chiller gray, and the comfort of a blazing fire was eminently agreeable.
Wulfrey closed the companion-doors and hatch, all except the narrowest crack through which the smoke could escape, lit his pipe, and lay at ease, watching the many-coloured tongues of the dancing flames and The Girl who sat gazing dreamily into them on the other side, and wondered how it would have been with them all if Macro's vicious blow had got home on his neck.
She was very good to look upon as she sat there in the flickering half-darkness. The gracious curves of her supple young figure transformed the bare little cabin into a Temple of Youth and Beauty.
The dusky glamour of her hair, the shadowy beauty of her dark soft eyes, the level brows and wide white forehead which gave such strength and dignity to her face—they all held for him an arrest and an appeal such as he had never before experienced.
She had made herself a robe out of a piece of the crimson silk they had brought over from the pile. It was hardly a dress, for it swathed about her in flowing folds rather than fitted to her. But he thought he had never seen so becoming a garment. It was sheer delight to lie and look at her.
But it was a sufficiently difficult problem that faced him. In his present state of mind, the mate seemed determined to make an end of him the first chance that offered. Was there any reasonable hope of a change for the better in him? Were they to live in a perpetual state of defence till one of them went under?—all the advantages of unscrupulous attack being left to the enemy. Was it reasonable? If not, what was to be done, and how?
The man had suddenly become a deadly menace. He was no better, in his unprincipled cravings, than a wild beast. If that girl fell helpless into his coarse hands.... And she knew it and looked to him for protection.
And protection to the utmost of his powers she should have.... Was he justified in slaying the man? ... In view of the deadly intent of this latest attack he thought he was. But whether he could bring himself to it, if the chance offered, he was not by any means sure.... The deliberate killing of one's fellow was a serious matter.... In self-defence of course one was justified.... As to the law—it seemed as though the mate was right in his belief that they were destined to spend the rest of their lives—some of them at all events—on this bare bank of sand, where none ever came who could help it, and where no law but that of Nature obtained.... But there was a higher law. "Thou shalt not kill." ... Yes, it would be very much against the grain of his life and conscience, but it might have to be....
He sat up suddenly, listening intently.
"What is it?" asked The Girl, startled out of her own reverie.
He raised his hand for silence.
"I thought I heard a cry," and he got up, and went up the steps, and opened the door and stood there straining his ears into the clammy darkness. The fog lay thicker than ever. It was like listening into the side of a bale of raw cotton. The faint glow of the fire below died against the opaque wall in front. It could not have been seen a yard away.
The Girl stood on the stairs close behind him.
"I must have been mistaken," he murmured, "or perhaps it was a seagull,"—when, just below and almost alongside them, there came the violent sweep of an oar used as a paddle, and a wild spate of curses like the furious outburst of a panic-stricken brain.
Wulf slipped noiselessly down for his axe and stepped up on deck. If he went past, well and good. If he ran into them——
There came a sudden bump against the side of their ship and the sound of a fall on the raft.
"—— —— —— —— ye, ye —— —— rotten old coffin! I've got ye at last, —— —— ——!" and right up out of the fog under Wulfrey's nose came two clammy black hands clawing nervously at the bulwark.
"You can't come aboard here, Macro," he said quietly. The grimy hands loosed with a startled oath and the mate dropped back on to his raft.
"——! That you again? —— —— —— —— you! I thought.... Then my —— craft must be over there. —— —— ——! I'll do for you yet, my cully!" and the oar dashed into the water again and he cursed himself off into the darkness.
"You could have killed him," gasped The Girl at his side, through her chattering teeth.
"I could—but I couldn't."
"We shall have no peace while he lives."
"I fear not. Still—I couldn't cut him down in cold blood like that. What would you have thought of me if I had done so?"
"I should have said you had done well."
"I know you better."
At which she shook her head. "You don't know what horrid thoughts whirl about in my mind. No man really knows what a woman thinks," and the frank dark eyes regarded him solemnly.
"I know you better than you do yourself."
"I doubt it," with another shake of the head. "But, even then, it might have been best,"—with a shiver—"It sounds horrible—but——"
He could understand all her feeling in the matter. In her place he would have felt just the same. The man was a hideous menace—to her especially—and there would be no security for them while he lived. But all the same....
"Let us get back to the fire," he said quietly. "He won't come back tonight. Poor wretch, he's probably been paddling about all day looking for his ship and he's half crazed with it."
"I don't think I am bloodthirsty by nature," she said, with her hands pressed tight to her eyes, when she had sunk down before the fire again. "But I fear that man with all my soul, both for myself and you. He will kill you if he gets the chance. If he kills you I shall kill myself. It is better that one should die than two."
"I agree, but I don't want to have the killing of him if I can help it."
"Killing is horrible," and she shivered again, "But being killed is worse ... and to fall into the hands of a man like that would be even worse still. What will be the end of it all?"
But that was beyond him, and their hearts were heavy over it.
XXXVII
"Is it often like this?" asked The Girl depressedly, on the third day of mist.
"I'm afraid there's a good deal of it. We've had it three or four times since we came. It may be worse in the winter."
"I wish we could get away."
"I wish so too, but I don't see how we're to manage it ... unless, sometime, a boat washes ashore among the wreckage. And even then ... without Macro to manage it..." and he shook his head unhopefully. "... In the meantime I count it marvellous gain that you should have come——"
And at that it was her turn to shake her head. "I don't know. I seem to have brought more harm than good."
"It has made all the difference in the world."
"Yes, it has set you two by the ears and put you in peril of your life. That is not a good work."
"Your company more than compensates. Besides, we should probably have got to loggerheads in any case, and without anything like so good a reason."
"It would have been better, I think, if you had let me go when I was so nearly gone, and not rubbed me back to life."
"I thank God that you came," he said weightily. "Without you we might have sunk into savages, caring only for the lower things. You lift me without knowing it."
"You couldn't sink into a savage. He is one naturally. And I am becoming one, for I am all the time wishing he were dead."
"He must be having a bad time, unless he brought over provisions that last time, and I doubt if he did. He's probably living chiefly on rum. And that won't bring him to any better frame of mind, I'm afraid."
"To think," she mused, "that three people cannot live on an island big enough to hold thousands, without quarrelling to the death!"
"The trouble is not of our making, so we need not blame ourselves."
"Yes, it is. I began it by coming ashore. You ought to have let me stop out there——"
"You are very much better here."
"——And you continued it by bringing me back to life. You ought to have let me die."
"Very well. I accept all the blame and rejoice in it," he said, with a smile. "It is just the fog getting into you. You'll feel differently about it when the sun comes out again."
"Sun? I don't believe we are going to see it again. I don't believe it ever shines here or ever has done since the world began. It is an island of mist ... and we are just vapours——"
"Macro's not anyway. I wish he were. He wouldn't trouble me in the slightest then. He's a solid strong mixture of Spanish buccaneer and Highland robber, with a touch of volcano to keep the mixture boiling."
But the chill of the mist was upon her and nothing he could say availed to cheer her. So he hauled out the rolls of silk they had brought over, and set to work decorating the cabin with them, and interested her out of her depression by the purposed mistakes he made.
It was the ravelling off of a long thread from one of the pieces of silk he was cutting, that showed him the way to a new employment for her and the possibilities of a welcome addition to their meagre larder.
"Do you think you could twist two or three of these into a fishing-line?" he asked her. "I've seen heaps of fish in the lake. We might try for some."
"And hooks?"
"If you could spare me one of your big needles I think I could make something that might do."
She went at once and got him one, and then set to work on the line, and he could hardly get on with his own job for watching her.
She was so eminently graceful in all her movements. Her tall slender figure, supple, shapely, and all softly rounded curves without a discoverable abruptness or angularity anywhere about it, lent itself with singular charm to her present occupation. After thoughtful consideration of the matter, she unrolled one of the pieces of silk the whole width of the cabin, then picking out a thread, she fastened the end of it to the woodwork and travelled along the side of the piece, bending and releasing it as she went. The same with two more threads.
"Three ply will be strong enough?" she asked, straightening up and looking across at him.
"Let me see what three ply feel like," and he went across and watched her while she twisted the threads tightly together with deft soft fingers.
"I should think that would do," he said, running it between his finger and thumb. Their hands met, and the touch of hers sent a quite unexpected thrill of physical delight tingling through his veins. He did not dare to look full at her for the moment, lest she should see it in his eyes. But he was conscious to the point of pain of her close proximity,—somehow conscious too—and that quite unconsciously and without any reasoning on the matter—that, in the twinkling of an eye, she was no longer simply a beautiful and charming girl, but had become for him the most beautiful and charming girl in all the world.
His heart felt suddenly too big for his body. He could have taken her in his arms then and there, and crushed her to him, and smothered her with hot kisses. And he could no more have done it than he could have brained her with his axe. For she trusted him implicitly, and he was himself.
He took a deep breath to give his heart more room, and bent to examine her twist.
"It will do splendidly," he said, and she glanced quickly at him and wondered what had made that curious change in his voice. "How will you keep it rolled tight like that?"
"I've been thinking. If I greased my fingers with some of that pork fat as I roll it, and roll it very tight, it will probably keep so. How long will you want it?"
"As long as you can make it without too much trouble."
"I can make it the full length of that silk as far as I see."
"That will do admirably.... If I can make as good a hook as you have made a line we will have fish for dinner," and he went back to the fire, where, with his axe and his knife and two rusty nails lashed together at the top to act as tweezers, he was endeavouring to bend a portion of her needle into a hook.
At the cost of some burns and cuts he managed at last to make something distantly resembling one.
"It looks horrid," said The Girl when he showed it to her. "I shall be sorry for the fishes if they get that into them."
"So shall I. But we'll not let them suffer long if they give us the chance."
She was as eager as a child with a new toy to put their work to the test. So he cut some small pieces of pork and embedded his hook in one, and dropped it into the bed of mist over the side.
And she leaned over, with her shoulder unconsciously against his,—but he felt it, and rejoiced in the feel as keenly as ever Macro did in his treasure-trove—and peered anxiously down at the line, of which she could see but a couple of feet, and waited impatiently for results.
He put it into her hand, saying,
"If anything comes of it you shall have the honour of catching our first fish," but he held on to the slack behind.
"It's jerking," she whispered breathlessly, "Oh, I'm sure there's something on it..." and as she let go the line he gave it a jerk on his own account, then drew it quickly in and a plump astonished fish lay jumping and twisting on the deck. It was over a foot in length, very prettily coloured, dark blue with many cross-streaks and silvery below.
"Mackerel, I think," he said, and promptly knocked it on the head, to end its troubles and allow him the further use of his hook.
"The poor little thing! I'm so sorry," she said, looking mournfully down at the iridescent beauty. "I don't think I like fishing."
"You'll think better of it when it's fried."
"I couldn't touch it," with a vigorous shake of the head.
So he asked her to go down and make some cakes, and then caught another fish of a different kind the moment the bait reached the water, and a couple more for breakfast next day, and was thereby much reassured as to the future of their larder. He cleaned two of his fish and fried them with some pork fat as soon as she had made her cakes, and proceeded to reason her out of her prejudice.
"You have eaten fish all your life, haven't you?" he asked.
"Ye-es."
"Well, every fish has had to be caught before you could eat it. They generally leave them to die. But even that is probably only similar to our drowning, which is said to be about as pleasant a way as there is of going."
"It's horribly cold if you're lashed to a mast,"—with a reminiscent shiver. "And being rubbed back to life is just as bad."
"And we are more merciful, because we kill them at once."
"It's horrible to think that everything we eat, except things that grow of course, has got to suffer death for us."
"But you have always eaten these things without being troubled about it."
"The killing has never been brought home to me so closely before."
"It's Nature's law, you see. Everything feeds on something else. These fishes feed on smaller things. And how do you know that when you cut a cabbage or a potato——"
"How I wish I had the chance!"
"So do I, most heartily. But how do you know they don't feel it just as much, in their own dull way, as the pig did from which we get our pork?"
She shook her head and sighed. "We can't get away from it, I suppose," and tasted the fish and found it good, and ate quite heartily though with an appearance of protest.
"You see," he said. "Some fishes lay millions of eggs at a time. If they all grew up the sea would be choked with them, as the earth would be with animals if they weren't killed off. Besides, unless I am mistaken in my recollection of our old parson's reading, all these things were expressly provided for man's sustenance, so we are only doing our duty in eating them."
"All the same, I think I will let you do all the catching and killing."
"Of course. That is the man's proper part in the family economy. He is the bread-and-meat winner. And the wife's—the woman's, I mean—is to see to the cooking," and he occupied himself busily with fish-bones, and felt like biting his tongue off for its involuntary slip.
"If you had lived on pork and rabbits for months you would find this fish delicious," he said presently, to break the odd little silence that had fallen on them.
"It is very good. I wonder you never caught any before."
"I did try, but my tackle was too rough. The fish would have none of it. It is your clever line that has done the trick."
"I am glad to be of some use, though I can't help being sorry for the fish."
And if he had dared he would have delighted to tell her of what infinitely greater use she was to him in other and higher ways.
XXXVIII
Wulfrey was awakened in the night by the sounds he had come to recognise as the accompaniments of bad weather. The ship was humming in the wind and straining and jerking restively at the rusty cable which he was always expecting to give way. He wondered sleepily what would happen to them if it did. Wondered also if The Girl was frightened at the changed conditions, or whether she would understand. He slipped on some clothes and went into the cabin, to reassure her if necessary.
The fire was a bed of white ashes and a rose-gold core in the centre. He piled on some chips and the flames broke out with a cheerful crackle. The door of The Girl's little passage way opened an inch or two, and he caught a glimpse of her startled eyes shining in the fire-light.
"I was afraid you might be disturbed by the storm," he said.
She went back for a moment, and then came out with her blanket skirt and cloak swathed about her, and sat down by the fire.
"It woke me, and I cannot get to sleep again. Oh ... what is that?"—as a shrill scream pealed out just above the opening in the companion-hatch.
"It's only those infernal birds. They always come screeching round us in bad weather."
"I had just been dreaming that that horrid man came across in the night and murdered us both. It was such a relief to see you alive again."
"No fear of his venturing out in this weather. Those screaming birds get on his nerves. He'll be sitting drinking, and cursing them in the most awful Gaelic he can twist his tongue to. This weather will probably last a couple of days. Then it will slack up, and just when you're thinking it's all gone it will come back worse than ever. Fortunately we've got—— By Jove!"—and he ran hastily up the companion, unbolted the door and ran out on deck. The gale came whuffling down on the fire and scattered the white ashes in a cloud, and set the silken drapery of the walls rustling wildly. The shrill clamour of the birds sounded very close, and The Girl sat anxiously wondering.
He came back in a minute, empty-handed and disconsolate. "I just remembered my fish. I left two up there for breakfast, but the birds have had them. They're as thick on the deck as bees on a comb, hoping for more."
"Is that all? I was afraid that man was coming and you'd heard him."
"It means living on pork till the storm passes."
"That is nothing. We shall enjoy the other things all the more later on."
"I'm wondering all the time how Macro is getting on——" he said, pulling out his pipe and filling it.
"Why trouble about him? He would not trouble about us if we were starving."
"I don't suppose he would.... I suppose it comes of my being so in the habit of helping people through their bodily troubles."
"It is wasted on him. He would not let you help him if you could."
"I don't believe he would, unless he were helpless.... I wish he'd never come ashore."
"But in that case I would not be here either, and you would have been all alone for the rest of your life."
"Then, after all, I'm glad he came ashore."
"I wonder if you would have gone mad in time with the loneliness of it," she said musingly.
"It would be horrible to be all alone for all the rest of one's life, but I don't think I would have gone mad. I've no doubt there are books to be found among the wreckage out there. Still ... for the rest of one's life!"—and he shook his head doubtfully. "As things are, however...."
"As things are?" she queried, after waiting for him to finish.
"As things are, I am quite content to stop here for the rest of my life, if that has to be. But that won't stop my doing my best to get away if the chance offers.... And you?"
"If we were delivered from that man I could be content here also.... But I do not say for all my life. That sounds terribly long.... But for that man it would be a welcome retreat from a world of which I had had a surfeit."
He wondered much if she were heart-whole. It seemed almost incredible to him that she could have lived that strange life of hers without some man wanting and touching it. So fair a prize, to go wholly unclaimed and undesired! But never, in all her talk, had she said one word that pointed to anything of the kind. Rather had she held up the men she had met to derogation and contempt. Surely, if there had been anyone to whom her heart turned and clung, some evidence of it would have shown itself.
From all she had said, from all her little unconscious self-revelations, and the wholesome judgment he had formed of her in his own mind, he could well believe that, in that whirlpool of a world in which she had lived, she had come to hold most men in doubt and all at arm's length. And the thought was agreeable to him.
When the slow day broke, dim and clangorous with the gale, they dallied over a meal, talking of many things to pass the time, and then went up on deck, and with a brandished stick he ridded the ship of the clustering birds. They shrieked threateningly and came swooping at him on the wings of the wind, with hungry beaks and merciless eyes. But here he was at home and would not suffer their invasion, and finally they gave it up and fled to the sandhills, cursing him shrilly as they went.
"Oh, there's one gone downstairs," cried The Girl; and running down after it, he found a great black cormorant squawking fearfully round the cabin and dashing itself against the walls in its wild attempts at escape. At sight of him it grew frantic, but finally found its way out of the hatch again, almost upsetting The Girl in its passage, and then tore away to tell its fellows of the awful place it had been in, which smelt so good but was so much easier to get into than out of. Wulfrey had to open one of the lee ports and let the gale blow through to get rid of the smell of it, and then he went up again to The Girl.
They watched the great rollers thundering on the beach beyond the spit, rocketing their white spume high into the grim black sky, and lashing over at times into the lake. And when he called to her to look the other way she watched with amazement sandhills of size melt away before her eyes and re-form themselves in quite different places.
"But it is past words!" she cried into his ear.
They stared long too at the 'Jane and Mary' of Boston, but saw no sign of life aboard of her except the birds that clustered there unmolested.
"It is a most amazing place," she said, when they went down again, as she dusted the saltness out of her hair with her hand. "Is it often like this?"
"Very often in the winter, I should fear. We've had our best weather since you came."
"I don't think I want to live all my life here," she said dejectedly. "I love the sun."
And he would dearly have liked to tell her that he did the same, but that for him she made more sunshine even than the sun itself.
Instead, he prosaically set her to the making of more fishing-lines, in case of accident to the one they had, and he himself hammered away at more hooks, burning and ragging his fingers out of knowledge, but producing hooks of a kind somehow.
XXXIX
The gale slackened on the third day, and Wulfrey was actually relieved in his mind at the sight of Macro hurrying ashore on his raft, after fresh meat, and, from the fact of his buckets, water, which he had probably been too careless, or too drunk, to secure during the storm. For the thought of his possibly lying there alone and foodless had not been a pleasant one, good reason as he had for disliking the man.
For themselves, he baited and cast his hooks, and landed half a dozen fish as fast as he could haul them out. Their fresh meat supply would have to wait until Macro went out to the wreckage and their minds could be at ease as to the safety of their headquarters. The sea outside was still too high for any possibility of his going that day, and fortunately, thanks to their new source of supply, they could wait with equanimity. Water they had caught in plenty in the buckets slung under the scuppers.
"He's alive at any rate," said Wulfrey, when he went down to breakfast.
"So much the worse for us," said The Girl.
"He's been fasting, I should say, by the way he has gone off after rabbits. We ate our first ones raw, I remember."
"Savages!"
"Savage with hunger. We had had nothing to eat but shell-fish and sea-weed for days."
"Horrible!—raw rabbit and sea-weed!"
"We had no means of making fire, no shelter. We slept out on the sands, and were glad to be simply alive."
"I'm truly thankful you had risen to a higher state before I came."
"So am I. We were not good to look at. We were as men who had died out there among the dead ships' bones and been born again on this sandbank, lacking everything. Fortunately for us the years that had gone before had been unconsciously making provision for us, and here were houses ready-made and waiting, and out there more than we could use in a lifetime."
They saw the mate return after a time with his supplies, and he never showed head again all day. Wulfrey let The Girl keep a look-out, and tried himself to get some sleep, in anticipation of the night-watch which he saw would be necessary.
"He will probably go out to the pile tomorrow," he said. "He must be out of flour and probably of rum. Then we can take a run ashore ourselves. When he gets back he will probably be too tired to be up to any mischief."
"I wish he would tame down and let us have peace, or else go and get himself killed," she said anxiously. "We can't go on like this for ever."
"I'm afraid he won't oblige us either way. We can only hang on and hope for the best, and keep our eyes open."
His watch that night passed undisturbed. In the morning, as he expected, Macro set off for the wreckage; and, taking some food with them, they went ashore for a long day's ramble.
"It is good to feel the width of land under one again," said The Girl, fairly dancing with delight. "I am very grateful for the ship, but truly it is small and cramping."
"Sandhills are good for play-time, but you'd miss the ship when bed-time came. It's cold work sleeping on the sand."
"Almost as bad as sleeping on a broken mast. Which way shall we go? You are quite sure he has gone to the wreckage?"
"Quite sure. I watched him out of sight. Besides, I am sure he had to go."
"Then let us go the opposite way, as far as we can, and we'll stop out all day long and behave like children. I'm going to walk in the water," and she kicked off her shoes and lifted her blanket skirt and tripped along in the lip of the tide, and he did the same, enjoying her enjoyment.
A watery sun shone feebly through a thin gray sky, the air was still heavy with moisture, the water in which they were walking was warmer than that of the lake. On that side, the island curved like the concave side of a great half-moon. The pale yellow sand stretched on and on as far as their eyes could reach.
"I would like to bathe," said she exuberantly.
"Wait till we get beyond the end of our lake, then you can take this side and I'll go across to the other. You won't go out too far? There may be under-currents that would carry you out."
"I'll be very careful. And you must not come back for an hour... Oh, what are those? ... Dead men?"
In a tiny dent in the long sweep of the curve, made by the sandhills running almost down to the water, were half a dozen dark objects lying on the dry sand and looking for all the world like dead bodies. He had never seen any jetsam of size on that side. The drive of the storms and drift of the currents landed everything on the western spits and banks. Still there was no knowing.
"Wait here!" he said, and set off towards them. And she followed close at his heels.
But before they had gone many paces, one of the bodies set itself suddenly in motion and began to shuffle towards the water.
"Seals," said Wulf, who had never set eyes on a live one in his life, but had a general idea of what they were like.
Before they could reach them, all had flopped away except one, which, when they drew near, raised its head and eyed them piteously and made an effort to rise.
"It is sick or wounded," said Wulf. "Poor beast! Its eyes are like a woman's in——" He bethought himself and bit it off short. He had seen just such a look in many a woman's eyes.
"We won't disturb her," he said, and led the way round to give her wide berth.
"Oh—look! Oh, the little darling! How I would love to cuddle it!" whispered The Girl, for there, on the other side of Mrs Seal, with her front fins clasping it protectingly, was a late-born baby sucking away for dear life.
The Girl's face was transfigured,—ablaze with intensest sympathy and the wonderful light of mother-love. The mother's eyes followed them anxiously, the fear in them died out as they backed slowly away, and she bent her head to her baby and seemed to say, "Thank you so much! You understand, and I am very grateful to you."
"Iamso glad we saw them. I like the island better than ever I did before," said The Girl. "What a dear little thing it was! And she was just delightful," and all day long she kept referring to them and to her joy at the sight of them.
They went on again, mile after mile, and whenever he glanced at her, her face was still alight with happiness, and unconscious smiles rippled over it in tune with her thoughts. So inborn and unfailing is the mother-feeling in all true women.
"Now, if you wish to bathe, here is a good place. I will strike across to the other shore and will come back in about an hour. Don't go too far out!" and he strode away across the hummocks.
Under cover of the nearest sandhill she loosed her slender garments, and sped like a sunbeam across the beach and into the water; and her face, as it came up from the kiss of the sea, was like a sweet blush-rose all beaded with morning dew, than which no fairer thing will you find. And as she swam and dived and splashed in the lucent green water, like a lovely white seal, her bodily enjoyment and her mental exhilaration flung wide her arms at times, as though she would clasp all Nature's joys to her white breast, and her eyes shone with a brighter light than had the mother-seal's, and a seal's eyes are deeply, beautifully tender and bright.
She laughed aloud at times, though none but herself could hear it, in the pure physical joy of living and being so very much alive. She was happier than she had ever been in all her life before. And one time, as she lay afloat with her arms outspread, she looked up at the pale sun in the thin gray sky, and all inconsequently said, "Yes—he is good. He is good. He is good," and her face was golden-rosier than ever when she was conscious that she had said it aloud.
She was sitting in the side of the sandhill, combing her hair with her fingers, when she heard his distant hail. And she climbed the hill and waved to him that he might come.
"I don't need to ask if you enjoyed your bathe," he said, as he came up. "I can see it in your face."
"It was delightful. I would like to bathe every day."
"Two days ago?" he laughed.
"No, days like this. Oh, itwasso good! And now I am hungry. Let us eat."
So they sat in the wire grass of the hill-top and ate their frugal meal, she with her wonderful hair all astream, the ends spread wide to dry on the sand; and he, clean, and strong, and brown, as fine a figure of a man as she had ever met, though his raiment was nothing to boast of. And he said to himself, "She is the most wonderful girl I have ever seen. I would like to kiss her hair, her hands, her feet."
And she, to herself,—"He is good. He is good. He is good."
And, buried deep in both their minds, yet fully alive, was the thought that it might be that all their lives would have to be passed on that lean bank of sand—together.