Emily would not eat until at noon that day Lavelle commanded her to do
so. Watching him, she saw that he ate hardly as much as the little that
passed her lips. She did not see him drink at all. Neither had he drunk
at the morning meal. As she recalled this his words as he had given her
the water in the night came back: "I will straighten it out." This was
the way he was "straightening it out." The thought brought tears to her
eyes and made her ashamed.
The sense of loneliness that was borne of Elsie's passing had grown upon
her with the hours. She was yearning for sympathy and she would have
turned to Lavelle, but she sensed that somehow a new barrier had arisen
between them--a wall not of her building, but of his. When he spoke to
her his voice was very gentle, but neither his manner nor his speech
invited her to say anything.
As Lavelle lay down at Chang's feet, shortly after luncheon, to take the
sleep which he must have to meet the night, Emily remarked in a tone of
anxiety that he had removed the bandage from his head.
"Yes," he answered simply. "It is all right. The clean salt air is a
good physician. The sea hurts, but it also heals--if one will only let
it."
His face might have been a mask. The gray eyes closed wearily as he
spoke and he buried his face in his arm and away from the sun's glare.
The years had taught Paul Lavelle how to suffer alone. He was suffering
now. When he looked up from Elsie's dead face that morning into the gold
woman's he thought he saw something in her eyes to make him pause. He
had surprised the glance again, he imagined, as he turned round from the
burial. He knew life too well not to understand whither a woman's
sympathy might carry her.
Emily, looking down at the long, lithe body stretched in the bottom of
the boat, kept repeating to herself: "The sea hurts, but it also heals."
She sought a meaning in the words which she felt she had missed.
Rowgowskii, drawing near, interrupted her thoughts with a pleasant
salutation in French. This big dark man had a finish and poise familiar
to her world and he could talk with a brilliance which made it possible
for her to forget momentarily the unpleasant familiarity of his black
eyes, and the pendulous underlip which signaled the sensuous animal in
him. During the morning he had made an effort to be sincerely comforting
and reassuring and she was thankful to him. After a few idle words
Rowgowskii's gaze wandered down to Lavelle.
"He feels badly over the death of that woman?" he asked, looking up at
her with a strange directness. Emily answered with a nod of
acquiescence. A smile passed over his face. With a significant shrug, he
added: "I understood aboard the ship--the _Cambodia_--that they
were--_très intimes_." He searched the face of the golden-haired woman
to see if his dart had found a mark. But he mistook Emily Granville. She
was not one who could be read as one ran. She was silent.
"Men of his kind--well, they are a strange, strange lot," he went on.
"I have no desire to discuss Mr. Lavelle," said Emily.
"Of course not. Pardon me, Miss Granville. I was told the painful story
aboard the ship. I understand your feelings. You will pardon me, I hope.
It is because of what this man is that I fear for you. These Chinamen
would do murder at his word. He is armed; I am helpless, but I will find
a way."
Rowgowskii leaned nearer and whispered:
"We should be sailing in the opposite direction. Did you know that, Miss
Granville? Over to the east we should be going."
Emily met his gaze now, with a pallor beginning to overspread her face.
"But do you think he does not know?" she asked, and her voice trembled.
"If you will remember it was he--this man--who changed the course of the
_Yakutat_," answered Rowgowskii. "I have been thinking that you might
induce him to change--to do right."
Consternation seized her at the mention of the _Yakutat_. It bore quick
doubt in her heart; then fear. Her new faith was torn from its moorings.
Her mind lost all sense of its bearings.
"Why have you not spoken to him?" she asked.
"I mentioned it this morning. He ignored me. That Chinaman there"--he
indicated Chang with a glance--"that beast there--told me that I could
walk ashore if I did not like the way things were done here."
Neither had observed Chang for some time, but now Emily looked up at him
and was startled by the steadiness with which his gaze was fixed dead
ahead. He stood tense like a hunting dog at a point, his nostrils
twitching nervously. Rowgowskii followed the direction of the giant's
gaze, but could see nothing. Emily started to speak to Chang, but her
lips opened only to gasp.
"Land ho!" cried Chang.
"Where away?" answered Lavelle, leaping to his feet.
"Two points--starboard bow, master," and Chang pointed one of his
powerful and sinewy arms straight ahead.
Emily, Rowgowskii, and the coolie sailors looked eagerly in the
direction in which he pointed, but could see nothing. They turned toward
Lavelle, who, with his hands shading his eyes, was driving his gaze
toward the southwest. The tensity of the moment was terrific. It
impinged upon him in every glance. He was the commander; his was the
task to bring this boat to land; his was the responsibility. They saw
his lips move as if he counted something. As he finished he dropped his
hands.
"It is land," he said, speaking directly to Emily, and his voice
trembled. "We should be up with it before sunset, Miss Granville. God
grant it means your succor--your deliverance."
"What land is it?" she asked eagerly.
"I don't know. It puzzles me."
"I saw you counting--what was that?"
"Trees--I was able to make out three." Turning to Chang he said: "Haul
her up until you bring the land two points off the lee bow and then let
her go."
Emily noted that Lavelle's voice rang with genuine happiness.
With the enthusiasm of a boy Lavelle next ordered a drink of water for
all hands in celebration of Chang's discovery. Never was a health in
rare wine drunk with finer appreciation than the simple tepid draught
which these waifs quaffed from a tin cup.
Lavelle took the helm himself and a half-hour before sundown fetched a
low-lying island which appeared to be between three-quarters of a mile
and a mile long from north to south and about half a mile broad. It had
a rise in its center like a camel's hump. The northern side of this and
the lower land abutting upon it were sprinkled sparsely with cocoanut
palms. There was not a visible sign of life.
Emily, standing alongside of Lavelle as they came within sound of the
sea breaking against the island's weather shore, saw the happiness which
had come into the commander's eyes suddenly depart. It was replaced by
an intense seriousness. She could not help asking what was the matter.
"Nothing," said he simply, but the felt that he was withholding
something from her.
Lavelle was reading signs which made him pause. First he had noticed the
absence of any reefs--an invariable and natural formation of islands in
that region of the world. The shore rose abruptly and sheer from the
sea. The land was brown and raw-looking.
The wind was heightening, and this fact, in combination with the swift
approach of darkness and the unweatherly qualities of the boat,
determined him to abandon a momentary impulse to seek the lee side of
the island.
Just to the southward of the hump or camel's back Chang sighted what
seemed to be a beach. With the coolies and Rowgowskii at the oars
Lavelle laid the boat toward this point, bow on, taking the precaution
to drag the sea anchor astern so as to prevent her from broaching to in
the heavy sea that was making.
Chang, with the painter in his hand, leaped ashore as the boat grounded.
One of the coolies followed him. He heaved on the painter with Chang and
then ran hack toward the boat to keep her from slewing round. Lavelle
saw him reach the side of the boat. The next instant he had
disappeared--straight down in the twinkling of an eye.
Everybody in the boat, looked on with dumbness. Not even Emily cried
out. They sat in their places appalled.
Lavelle took a running leap from the bow of the boat and landed beside
the laboring Chang. With their combined strength they pulled the craft
safely clear of the water. Then, he ran back and, before he would permit
the others to leave the boat, handed Emily ashore.
As Lavelle released the precious weight he felt the ground under him
wobble. Emily staggered where she stood and reeled against him.
"I have forgotten how to walk on land," she said in innocent
embarrassment and with an attempt at a smile.
Lavelle made no answer. His worst fears were true. They had landed on a
floating island. Any moment might see it engulfed.