If you had only been alone in that yacht going about the seas!"
"Yes," she struck in, "but I was not alone."
Lingard dropped his chin on his breast. Already a foretaste of noonday
heat staled the sparkling freshness of the morning. The smile had
vanished from Edith Travers' lips and her eyes rested on Lingard's bowed
head with an expression no longer curious but which might have appeared
enigmatic to Jorgenson if he had looked at her. But Jorgenson looked at
nothing. He asked from the remoteness of his dead past, "What have you
left outside, Tom? What is there now?"
"There's the yacht on the shoals, my brig at anchor, and about a hundred
of the worst kind of Illanun vagabonds under three chiefs and with two
war-praus moored to the edge of the bank. Maybe Daman is with them, too,
out there."
"No," said Jorgenson, positively.
"He has come in," cried Lingard. "He brought his prisoners in himself
then."
"Landed by torchlight," uttered precisely the shade of Captain
Jorgenson, late of the Barque Wild Rose. He swung his arm pointing
across the lagoon and Mrs. Travers turned about in that direction.
All the scene was but a great light and a great solitude. Her gaze
travelled over the lustrous, dark sheet of empty water to a shore
bordered by a white beach empty, too, and showing no sign of human life.
Pages:
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300