x.x.xVII

"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 ash.o.r.e 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 G.o.d 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 ash.o.r.e. 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.