“He—he made me—cook that—dinner! He did. He said that he wanted to see
me in the rôle of a real woman. I thought I’d better do it, to keep
the peace. He sat and watched me and talked. He said that that was as
things should be; said I’d be a real woman in time. I wasn’t
frightened, but it was—oh, thrilling, you know. Funny, too. I laughed
a little at myself, because I’d always fancied I’d like to live the
adventurous life, and here I had, and it wasn’t nice at all.”
“How come you weren’t frightened?” interrupted George.
“I don’t know; I wasn’t, though. Well, maybe I was once, when I asked
him when we were going back to the yacht and he said for me to put the
yacht out of my thoughts. Then I had a wild idea of making a sprint
for the boat and getting away, but I remembered they’d pulled it up in
the brush. Then I thought of running down the bay and swimming out to
the yacht, but I knew I couldn’t outrun him and outswim him. It was
dark then, too, and I knew some of you would soon be up looking for
me.”
“You knew? How? You didn’t know that Gardy,” began George, but I cut
him short.
“Of course,” I said. “It was certain that somebody would be up soon
after dark since you didn’t return. Then what?”
“Then we sat down to eat. With tears and woe in my tones I must admit
it, I wouldn’t like to subsist on my own cooking. But Captain Brack
has a better appetite. He fairly reveled in the fruits of my labors.
Then he become personal, and then—then you came in and everything was
lovely.”
We paddled in silence for awhile.
“And so you were rather disappointed in cappy, Betty?” said George
slowly.
“Yes. He wasn’t nice at all, he was common, when he stopped acting.”
“Wonderful chap, though,” mused George. “Must say I enjoyed his
company. Couldn’t put up with him any more, however. Well, we won’t
have to. We’ll leave him here—we’ll sail tonight. Wilson can be
captain. We’ll have to go some place and get a new crew, I suppose.
Then we’ll go on to Petroff Sound. I—I’m really much better, Betty,”
he added softly.
“Of course you are, George. You don’t know how glad I am to see you
yourself again.”
“Really, Betty?”
“Of course.”
“It’s going to be all right now, Betty. I’ll make it all up to you.”
“Of course you will, George,” she said, and I splashed my paddle in
the water so I might not hear.
I was an outsider, an incident. My mission had been to help straighten
out a tangle for which George’s condition had been responsible. I had
succeeded. Good and well. Now Betty would have George’s attention. She
would see him as she had seen him when first she had learned to care
for him; she would care for him again. She would forget Brack. She
would forget this adventure. In her proper sphere back home it would
become an incident; it would be something to laugh over—with George.
So I reasoned as we paddled down Kalmut Fiord, our eyes confidently
searching the darkness ahead for the first flash of the _Wanderer’s_
welcoming lights. So little did I know about women, and especially
about Miss Beatrice Baldwin.
Presently George stopped paddling.
“Gardy,” he said in a strange tone.
“Yes?”
“Doesn’t it seem to you we’re pretty near there?”
I looked around. So absorbed had I been in my thoughts that I had not
paid any attention to the distance we had traveled. Now I saw by the
hills about us that we were nearing the foot of the bay.
“It’s funny we don’t see any lights,” said George. “Let’s sprint a
little, Gardy.”
We paddled at top speed for several minutes, but we fell back to our
former stroke. No lights were in sight.
A sinister silence fell upon us. Our paddles rose and fell
methodically, but in spite of the exercise I felt cold and faint.
“Here we are,” said George anxiously. “Here’s the point just above
where the yacht’s anchored. Soon’s we get around this point we’ll see
her lights, sure.”
Our strokes increased in speed and power. Once around the promontory
which loomed ahead in the darkness and the lights of the _Wanderer_
would gleam out to us a hearty welcome.
“Got to get there soon; got to!” muttered George. “I’m all in. Need
some of the dope the doctor left for me. Need it badly.”
We rounded the promontory. The mouth of the bay, down to the island
which shut it in from the sea, was before us. And it was all dark, as
dark as the bay behind us, with not a pin-prick of light disturbing
the primitive night.
George stopped paddling.
“What—what?” he gasped. “Oh, oh, my God!”
I did not speak. I continued to paddle like an automaton. In five
minutes we were floating over the spot where the _Wanderer_ had lain.
The yacht was gone.