Hillary was impatient during the interminable hours that passed ere he
saw Gabrielle again. "Don't worry me, Mango," he said, as the pretty
native girl stood on the verandah and blew kisses from her coral-red
lips.
"He go mad soon; man who no get drunk am no gooder at all!" murmured
Mango Pango as she ran off to obey the orders of her mistress.
It was the next night when Hillary was to reach the zenith of his dreams
and happiness. Gabrielle had promised to meet him at sunset and go off
in a canoe for a paddle round the coral reefs off Felisi beach. He was
on fire with the idea. He could not sleep. His brain teemed with the
thoughts of all he would say to Gabrielle when he declared his love. He
determined to act his part well and be a worthy lover. She should not be
disappointed in him. "I'll paddle her out to that derelict three-masted
ship; that old wreck's the very place. I'll take her on board so that we
shall be quite alone."
He thought of the light in Gabrielle's eyes. "Fancy me being the lucky
one to receive her kisses! Wonderful! I know men get exaggerated ideas
about the _one_ woman who appeals to them--but Gabrielle!--it's
excusable in me." So Hillary reflected as he heard the ocean surfs
beating against the barrier reefs. It pleased him to hear the winds
sighing mournfully through the tracts of coco-palms beyond his bedroom
window. His brain became confused as he thought of the ecstasy of
holding her in his arms. He sat down by the bamboo table and wrote off a
poem. He was so much in love that even the poem was good. He proudly
read the verses over and over again, till they seemed more wonderful
than anything he had read in the works of the great poets. "I'm a poet,"
said he. Then he stared in the mirror at his haggard face, just to see
what the world's greatest lyric poet looked like. Placing his scribbled
lyric amongst his valued property in his sea-chest, he once more
continued to think over all that he would do when the sublime moment
arrived. He thought of how he would hold Gabrielle in his arms. He would
be no ordinary lover. He would rain impassioned kisses on her sweet
mouth as he held her in his strong embrace. She should not escape him:
the very fright that might leap into her eyes through his impassioned
vehemence would only serve to feed the fires of all that he felt for
her. He looked in the corner on his violin--his old love. How
insignificant it seemed when compared to his new love. Yet he felt a
slight pang of remorse as he realised how its strings had always
responded to his moods. Would Gabrielle's heart-strings respond as
readily? Are the heart-strings of women as perfectly in tune with a
lover's ideals as violins are to the touch of the _maestro_? He heard
the faint booming of the far-off seas sounding through his reflections
as they stole across the quiet night. Then he opened his sea-chest and
took out Balzac's _Wild Ass's Skin_. He gazed on the faded flower that
had lain in the pages. Though it was limp and withered, it was glorified
because Gabrielle had worn it in her hair. After that he fell asleep.
Next day the young apprentice became terribly impatient as the hours
slowly passed. He was to meet Gabrielle at sunset by the old lagoon. It
wanted half-an-hour before the sun fell behind the peaks of Yuraka when
he eventually started off. Mango Pango wondered why he was so full of
song, so carefully dressed. He chucked her under the chin, even praised
her eyes, as he said, "Good-bye, O beauteous golden-skinned Mango
Pango," then hurried out under the palms.
"He fool; he go meet dark-skinned, frizzly Papuan girl, I know! O
foolish mans!" murmured pretty Mango as she readjusted the hibiscus
blossoms in her bunched tresses and looked quite spiteful.
As the young apprentice hurried on, his Byronic neckerchief fluttering
from his throat like a flag, his eyes twinkled with delight. The glamour
Gabrielle had created in his head threw a poetic gleam over the rugged
island landscape and on the brooding wealth of nature around him. The
blue lagoons, nestled by the lines of ivory-nut palms, looked like
petrified patches of fallen tropic sky that had been mysteriously frozen
into bright mirrors. Then they seemed to break up into musical ripples
of laughter, for a covey of bronze-hued, pretty native girls had
modestly dived down into their blue depths as he suddenly emerged into
the open. He distinctly saw the bubbles where they had disappeared, and
he knew that they were all standing on the sandy bottom of the lagoon
hastily slipping on their loin-cloths before they boldly reappeared on
the surface.
"Talofa! Papalagi!" said one as her shiny head bobbed on the surface,
her eyes sparkling as she gazed shoreward and blew the apprentice a kiss
as he was passing out of sight. Then he arrived on the lonely shore
tracks. The Papuan birds of paradise looked like fragments of feathered
rainbows haunting old shores as they floated over the sea. The
orange-striped cockatoos, sitting high in the tall flamboyants and
tamuni-trees, seemed to shout "Cockatoo-e whoo! Cock-a-too whoo! Make
haste! Make haste!" as he approached. They rose in a glittering shower
from their roosts, gave dismal muttering as they fluttered over his
head, till, hanging their coral-red feet loosely, they resettled on the
boughs of the tasselled breadfruits. It was a wildly desolate spot; not
a sail specked the horizon as Hillary tramped along, singing to himself.
Except for the solitary dark man who lay fast asleep in his outrigger
canoe, that was becalmed a few yards beyond the coral reefs, he wandered
in a world alone. Only the bright-plumaged birds populated the wooded
promontories, cheeks and slopes.
As the young apprentice walked slowly along, making time, he repeatedly
glanced seaward to see how low the sun was setting. Arriving opposite
the alligator-shaped promontory at Nu-poa, he sighted the scattered
palavanas of the small hut citadel, Ko-Koa. It was a fishing village;
quite a score of canoes floated hard by on the lagoons. The romping
heathen kiddies waved their paddles as he passed by. Their alert eyes
seldom missed the passing of a papalagi. From out the thatched
beehive-shaped homesteads, under the mangoes and mahogany-trees, rushed
several old chiefs and their women-kind, who at once began loudly to
lament the dearth of tobacco and gin and loose cash.
Attractive girls offered him their fabulous wealth of shells and fish in
exchange for a silk handkerchief. "You got nice lady fren,
papalagi?--one who 'av' gotter old pair stocking she no wanter?" said
one coy maid whose soul yearned to attract some dusky Lothario's waning
glances. But it was all innocent enough in a way. "Women are the same
the world over, blest if they aren't!" he murmured, as he gave a bashful
maid a small piece of red ribbon in exchange for her beautifully carved
bone hair-comb, which she handed him with inimitable grace, for brown
maids are very ambitious for the love of a white man. Some of the youths
and maids were half-caste and three-quarter caste, a mixture of
Polynesian and Melanesian. Armlets and leglets fashioned from the pretty
treduca shells jingled as the girls romped round the apprentice.
Those girls of mixed blood were mostly of graceful deportment, many
having fine, intellectual eyes. Neither did they possess the ungainly
head-mop. Indeed, standing there under the distant palms of the lower
shore, their wavy hair tossing to the sea-winds, they made a picturesque
sight. And one might easily have imagined that they were tawny mermaids
who had crept up the sands so as to stand under the green-leafed palms
to comb their tresses and wail luring songs. Hillary stood still for a
moment and gazed on that enchanting scene of primitive life, fascinated.
Out on the edge of the promontory sat yet another covey of semi-Papuan
and Polynesian maids. It was not fancy; they were really singing
mysterious songs as they sought to lure the sun-varnished native
fishermen who paddled or sailed their buoyant catamarans over the
wine-dark waters. Hillary bolted under the palms to escape the
embarrassing attentions of both the cadging chiefs and those Solomon
Island Nausicaas and Circes. It was not long after that he arrived by
the side of the wide lagoon that Gabrielle would cross in her canoe if
she kept the appointment. She would come by water, whereas he had
travelled three miles, the long way round by the coast. As he stood by
the lagoon it seemed to stretch before him like a beautiful mirror that
reflected tall fern and palm trees. Even the bright-winged lories were
distinctly visible as their shadows flitted across the sky. "Will she
come? Is it all a dream?" thought he as his heart thumped heavily.
It seemed incredible to Hillary that he should really be standing there
by that lagoon in the cannibalistic Solomon Isles, waiting to see a
beautiful white girl paddle towards him across the blue waters. He had
not waited long before round the bend of the lagoon, far off, came a
ripple, quite visible on the waters; in another moment the curved,
ornamental prow of a canoe appeared as the moving paddle leapt into full
view. The sun was setting and the blaze shot right across the Pacific
and touched the mountains to the south-east, sending transcendent hues
and shadows down on to the lagoon waters and again into the forests.
Women play all sorts of tricks with credulous men and their instinctive
love of beauty. True enough, Gabrielle was an artist in the delicate
business of self-attire. She knew exactly where to place the blue ribbon
at her throat and the crushed crimson flower in the crown of her hair so
that it might appeal to the senses of a mere man. The blue and white
flowers stuck in her tresses looked unreal, for her hair shone as though
it had been set on fire by the hues of the sunset. Her robe might have
been cut out of some burnished cloud material such as the angels wear.
"Fancy! She's come!" murmured Hillary as the prow of the canoe softly
swerved broadside on to the sandy shore. "Come on, dearest," he said.
Gabrielle looked tired and was breathing fast through her haste in
paddling across the wide lagoon. She looked very pale. "What's the
matter, dear?"
"Father's drunk."
"Is he?" said Hillary, as he metaphorically brought his fist down and
swept such an unromantic nuisance as a father off the face of the earth.
Even Gabrielle looked up quickly as she heard him take a deep breath as
he swept old Everard to dust, pulverised. He hadn't rehearsed through
the feverish night all that he intended to do at that moment, and
written a mighty poem, to be finally thwarted by a drunken father.
Something kin to the fire that shone in the apprentice's eyes shone in
Gabrielle's eyes also. She trembled, and obediently did all that he bade
her do. In a moment they had taken hold of the prow of the canoe and
between them dragged it for thirty yards over the shallows that
separated the deeper lagoon waters from the sea. They were right
opposite to where the Pacific waves gambol into a thousand creeks and
coral caves. Without a moment's hesitation Gabrielle jumped into the
canoe. "Be careful, dear," whispered the apprentice.
They lost no time in embarking. A trader was likely to pass at any
moment, and Everard had threatened to "kick Hillary into the middle of
next week" if he found that villainous apprentice hanging around his
daughter. They could just hear the faint echoes of the tribal drums in
the Buka-Buka mountains as their canoe shot silently out into the bay.
They were off, paddling away together into the unknown seas of romance.
Such was that world of rugged shore and dark blue waters to Hillary as
he gazed up at the darkening sky. God had just lit the first star, and
as he gazed upward it flashed into sight.
Gabrielle really _did_ look like some beautiful visionary creature
sitting there; and she was voiceless, as befits those who travel across
tropic seas of love. The apprentice paddled a long time, then at last he
could hear the faint monotones of the seas that were ceaselessly beating
against the reefs and the big bulk of the wreck.
"Allow me!" he said. His voice trembled as he took hold of her hand
firmly, as though he thought she might escape. The prow bumped gently
against the hulks' side near the gangway. That big, three-masted
derelict looked like some huge phantom ship as it loomed up there in the
silent waters off Bougainville. "Come on, dear." Very carefully he
placed his arms around her and step by step carried her up the ragged
rope gangway.
Their heads were nearly up to the level of the deck, but there were
still two more steps to climb. "Hold tight, dear," he whispered. His
voice seemed to travel like an echo across the silence of the tropic
night. Just for a second he gazed into Gabrielle's eyes, then he gently
dropped her down on to the deck. At that moment reality returned; things
took some definite shape; Hillary recalled time, the world and the
far-off cities.
A drove of frightened rats went shrieking and squeaking down the
alleyway towards the forecastle. The remnants of torn sail and tangled
rigging flapped mournfully to the winds as they both slipped hurriedly
across the warped deck. Hillary felt the ecstasy that is the highest
attainment of mortal happiness. Had she wholly belonged to him, body and
soul, he would not have been half so happy. He stared aloft at the tall
masts and felt a mighty sympathy for that vessel lying there by the
desolate shores of its last anchorage, for the jib-boom at the bow
seemed to point helplessly at the far-away horizon, to which it could
never sail. "This way! Come on!" he whispered, as he gazed around in
some mad thought that the ghosts of the old crew were enviously hanging
round in their great off-watch.
They sat down in silence on the old form that was close against the
poop, just by the entrance to the saloon. Immediately over their heads,
by the deck rails of the now rotting poop, was the spot where the old
captain had stood when he sailed the seas. As the apprentice looked
upwards he suddenly remembered that he was on the very derelict that had
once been the ship of the old skipper who had left the books at
Everard's bungalow, the books from which Gabrielle had gathered her
romance.
In his mind he saw that old derelict when it sailed the seas in its
prime, when the figure-head with outstretched hands at the bows (now
with one arm broken off and its emblematic, once beautiful face fast
rotting) had bounded across the waves like a living thing, long before
Hillary was born. The influence of the surroundings and the girl beside
him stirred his fancy. In imagination he saw the old skipper standing on
the poop watching the blue horizons and the starlight and moonlight that
shone in another age, so far as his own brief run of years were
concerned. In a flash he realised that out of all the cargoes the
captain had jealously guarded in his long voyages it was the old books
that had brought him solace in his cabin that had proved the most
wonderful merchandise after all. Where were the imported pianos that had
been shipped for the Australasian colonies, Fiji, Java, Callao and
Shanghai? What had been their fate? They had been thumped and thumped to
distraction and destruction while men drank their grog. Where were the
cargoes of old grandfather clocks and German-made alarms? But more
wonderful than all was the fact that Gabrielle sat beside him on that
very ship, her heart aglow with the romance that she had gathered out of
the pages of the old captain's books. True enough, that skipper never
wrote the books, but he lived an adventurous life in the big world, and
who will say that he may not have been wiser than the authors?
Hillary looked through the saloon port-hole just behind them and half
fancied he saw a ghostly glimmer of the oil lamps that had shone in that
saloon in the dusk of other days; he even saw the shadows of men moving
about the cuddy table. But it was no ghostly pageant of the post at all,
simply a stream of moonlight on the torn sail that waved to and fro as
it hung from the main-yard and sent its shadow into the dark saloon.
The atmosphere that surrounded the wreck and the music of the wind in
the decaying rigging affected Gabrielle also. Her old tom-boy demeanor,
had completely vanished. Hillary only said, "Well Gabrielle," and she
heard the music in those two words. For a moment they both forgot the
world beyond that hulk. Only the stars existed, and they shone into
Gabrielle's eyes as their lips met. The passionate phrases that he had
so carefully rehearsed, all the poetic vehemence of the night before,
had faded. Not one mad vow escaped his lips. He only held her tenderly,
as though he were afraid that she might crumble in his arms--fall as
dust to his feet. Not an atom of passion come to ruffle the poetry of
his feelings. For the young apprentice was _really_ in love. Her hair
touched his face. It thrilled him as music thrills dreaming men.
"Gabrielle, you are very beautiful How strange that no man has claimed
you before. For that, at least, I thank God."
The girl was silent. "Don't you believe me?" he added. He glanced
swiftly at her face. It was deathly white. Hillary thought it was the
rats scampering across the deck that had brought that startled look.
Then Gabrielle burst into tears.
The apprentice thought little about those tears. He had felt a little
like that too when he was really happy. If there was a wrong
construction to be placed on Gabrielle's actions, Hillary was sure to
hit on it. It was a natural consequence, since he had gathered all his
knowledge of women from his books. To him all women were beautiful and
good. He thought of them as leading sheltered lives. They were perfectly
different from men. It had never occurred to him to try and explain the
differences. His views about women, in fact, were quite conventional,
touched with the theatrical glamour that is common enough in extreme
youth.
And still the tears lingered in Gabrielle's eyes. No one can tell what
the girl really thought and felt, excepting that she heard the simple
note of sincerity in all that the young apprentice said and which cannot
be written down. As for Hillary, the material world had passed from his
sight. Gabrielle wept, but what did it matter? Weeping must be some
natural attribute to real happiness. So he thought.
It may have been the noisy rats or the creak of the blown rigging that
slightly dispelled the romantic atmosphere. "Even the ecstasy of
insanity is denied men," thought Hillary as a haunting thought suddenly
disturbed him. "She is weeping because I've frightened her. That's what
it is. She's only a child after all--does not understand! I'm too
passionate, too headlong in my way of making love. She's frightened of
me and so she weeps." Suddenly his manner altered. He led her to the
bulwark's side. The moon had already risen, and as they both leaned
over, looking down into the dark waters, they could see their shadows in
the silent depths below. Neither spoke; some fascination held them. As
the apprentice looked at the girl's face her shadow-eyes seemed to
glance sideways at him. He fancied that he saw something distorted in
the movement of her shadow. A puff of wind seemed to drift down from the
stars; the hair was outblown, the features unfamiliar. But it was only
for a second; in another moment Gabrielle's full outline developed in
the light of the tropic moon. There they were, Hillary with his arm on
the shoulder of the girl, who was still staring intently into the still
water.
"Why did you sigh like that, Gabrielle?" he said. Then he looked on the
western sky-line. The ghostly flush, the pale aftermath of the departed
day, still lingered. Hillary vaguely recalled how near human happiness
is to sorrow; he felt sure there was some sorrow in the girl's heart.
Rajah Koo Macka had looked into Gabrielle's eyes; but he knew that there
are many different ways in which a woman may look at a man. None knew
better than he.
Gabrielle's eyes to-night held a different expression as she again
scrutinised the young apprentice.
"Do you love me, Gabrielle?"
She responded by clasping his hand tightly and looking at him in some
fright. Her voice was hushed and trembling as she replied: "I've got a
feeling for you that I've never had before for anyone. I think I could
die with someone like you." Saying this, she looked steadily into his
eyes, and then added in a half-sorrowful way: "I wouldn't care if we
jumped into the sea and died together; I'd be much happier if I were
dead."
"Well now," said Hillary as she continued: "I'm a hateful girl; I've
already told you I'm wicked; besides, I'm haunted by a shadow-woman: she
follows me, curses me, but I can't explain it to anyone."
She became excited and raised her voice as he had never heard her raise
it before. The apprentice rubbed his eyes. "Jump into the seas and die!"
he gasped as he realised all that the girl had so passionately poured
forth. "Not if I know it." Then he added: "What do you mean about a
shadow-woman and being haunted by her?"
He looked steadily into the girl's pallid face, then gently pulled her
towards him and folded her to his heart.
"You're only a romantic child. _I've_ made you ill through my
love-making. You don't understand. Some day, when you are a woman,
you'll know how a fellow must feel, how he can really love such a one as
you. Forgive me, Gabrielle, will you?"
The girl gently took hold of his hand and, looking steadily into his
eyes, said: "Perhaps you are only a boy and it's _you_ who do not
understand. You are too good a fellow for me. Don't you believe it;
you've not made me ill. It's something that I don't quite understand."
"But why be ill at all?" was Hillary's brief summing up after she had
rattled this off. But still she ran on: "You'd never believe what
happened the other night. I went mad, I think."
"Good Lord! You must not encourage such ideas. You've been dwelling with
your own thoughts too much."
"I'm not mad, though you may think I am. I could easily prove to you
that I'm haunted; you don't know the horrible things that happen to
people of the Papuan race. I'm afraid that even you would turn against
me if you knew of my terrible heritage."
"Terrible heritage!" gasped the apprentice, as he leaned over the side
and hardly knew what he was saying or doing as he followed Gabrielle's
stare as she too leaned over and looked down into the deep, silent
waters. "Is she mad? Perhaps she is." Then he thrust the thought from
his mind. "Phew! Rubbish! She's beautifully eccentric; if anyone's mad
it's me!"
"Gabrielle, your father's continual bullying has made you ill--and a bit
neurotic. Don't worry, I'll protect you." For a moment he was silent;
the father had given him the pluck and the opportunity to say what he
longed to say. "Gabrielle, why put up with a father's bullying? Let's
both clear out of Bougainville; come with me! We can go away to
Honolulu. I'll swear that I'll look after you well, never say one word
that you may not wish me to say. I can easily make money by my violin
playing."
Having blurted out the foregoing, Hillary almost trembled as he waited
to see the impression his outburst had made on the girl. He watched
Gabrielle's eyes. "I've gone too far again. How rash I am!" was his
miserable reflection as she nearly swooned into his arms.
"I'll go anywhere in the wide world with you, Hillary," she said, to his
unbounded delight and astonishment.
"Will you!" His eyes shone, his voice was almost shrill, like a happy
schoolboy's over the possibilities of some childish scheme.
"How can we manage all these things you've mentioned?" said Gabrielle
softly, as she glanced earnestly at the young apprentice.
It was not Hillary's imagination, it was all true enough; Gabrielle
wanted to go at once--no delay!
Hillary knew nothing, guessed nothing of the cause of the girl's desire
for hasty flight. He only saw that the light in here eyes was as sincere
as death.
"The Solomon Isles! And now an elopement with a haunted, beautiful white
girl," was his mental ejaculation.
If he had had the slightest hint of the real reason of Gabrielle's
hurry, would he have hesitated? No! He would have flown with her that
very night and never let her go back to the homestead behind the beach
at Felisi. Neither the wreck, the stars nor the whisper of the beating
seas hinted the truth to him. He looked shoreward across the straits.
The night was so clear that he fancied he could see the smoke rising
from the crater of Bangana, fifty miles away.
"Gabrielle, will you meet me by the lagoon again to-morrow night? We
will then arrange everything, and you can tell me if you will come."
Then he added: "I can manage everything splendidly." He spoke
enthusiastically and with assurance, as though he had had a large and
successful experience of this kind of thing. Then he continued: "We can
fly away to Honolulu, or anywhere you like from this cursed place--even
to England."
Gabrielle was so affected and dazed by the apprentice's enthusiasm that
she could only stare in the dusk at his flushed face and brightening
eyes as he continued with his emotional tirade: "You don't know what
I'll be to you, how I'll love you, dear. I'll write songs and music and
dedicate all to you! I'll write poems----" Then he paused and exclaimed:
"Gabrielle, I'm a poet--you don't know what I am! You don't know what
I'm capable of achieving in this world if I had someone like you to
encourage me."
Even Gabrielle forgot her vanity and felt some sad sense of shame over
her own unworthiness, as he swore that the veriest vagabonds of the
streets would aspire to fame if they had someone to inspire them beyond
their unambitious selves. Hillary poured forth a flood of impassioned
words; his eyes shone in his earnestness, and his lips trembled. Then he
suddenly realised that his overwhelming flood of words might appear
foolish to the girl. He stopped short. He watched her half in fright,
wondering what impression he had made upon her.
Gabrielle replied by falling into his arms. She could not help feeling
something of his almighty boyish sincerity. There in the friendly
shadows she told Hillary that he had beautiful eyes. She laid her head
on his lap so that he could gaze down into her eyes as their lips met
over and over again. How it thrilled him when she said: "Hillary, my
Hillary!" And while the torn rigging wailed and the deep waters boomed
and resolved into gentle monotones against the derelict's wooden side
she sat by him and sang. A silver sea-bird swooped over the deck and,
sighting them there, gave a startled cry as it sped away.
"Gabrielle," he whispered, as he thought of all that he had rehearsed in
his mind and of how little he had accomplished now that the girl was
quite alone with him on that wreck. Then he softly pulled down the
delicate blue neck-fringe of her blouse and exposed the whiteness of her
warm throat. And Gabrielle, with an artless vanity that inspired his
waning courage, gently let her head fall back so that he might touch,
just once, the soft whiteness of her throat with his lips.
The apprentice reddened to the ears and blessed the darkness as he
thought of his boldness and softly pulled the delicate folds together
again. "I've done it now! She'll think I'm a terrible fellow," was
Hillary's hasty reflection as the girl remained silent. Then he tried to
excuse himself. "I've read of men doing that in novels and poems," he
said in a semi-apologetic tone.
"So have I," replied Gabrielle; then she laughed softly. And Hillary
wondered what wondrous deed of virtue he had done that God should shower
such unbounded happiness on his head.
It was a perfect night in Gabrielle Everard's life. No shadow came to
haunt the silence of those moments as she sat by Hillary's side. Only
the shadows of the torn sails waving to and fro in the warm tropic wind
fell from aloft to touch their happy faces. The soft confusion of
Gabrielle's hair harmonised with the bright thoughts that floated in his
mind. The smell of the rotting tarred ropes and the palmy fragrance of
the south wind over the sea mingled together and formed a part of his
sensations.
It was close on midnight when the apprentice remembered the flight of
time, which passes with greater swiftness over the heads of lovers than
of sad old men and women. Even the rats seemed to scamper and squeak in
regret as they both rose and reluctantly crept across the silent deck. A
slight breeze had sprung up from the south-east
"Make haste!" Hillary whispered as they arrived by the rotting bulwark
near the risky rope gangway. The apprentice looked with apprehension out
to sea when he noticed that the former calm expanse of ocean was
slightly ruffled. "Quick! Quick!" he said, and then Gabrielle went over
the side and trusted her weight to the taut gangway rope. "Thank God!"
murmured Hillary, as she stepped from the swinging gangway into the
canoe. Then to his infinite relief he noticed that the wind had dropped.
Though she had embarked, he had still stood hesitating as to whether it
was safe to venture back to the shore.
"I don't think it will blow, and it's only a mile to the shore," he
thought, as the girl carefully took her place in the prow. The moon was
just setting as the gangway swung back and Hillary stepped into the
fragile craft. Then, like two ghosts, they paddled away, back to the
mainland.